The Vent and Rant Thread

[issybird]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

We should make a Rave and.... uhh, something Thread. (Probably not drool though...)

There's this thread.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by issybird

There's this thread.

Yes, but somehow it doesn't seem to get the same level of (dare I say it) love as this one.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

This gave me a good laugh.

Ever since my father told her he was selling she has been going on about "the ancestral home". As if my family build it with their bare hands in the 1200s instead of buying it at auction in 1917.

Also, when my uncle tried to sell it and she was thinking she would get a third of it she never moaned on about "the ancestral home".

Now you know why I enjoy cross stitching so much: I can stab something hundreds or thousands of time without getting arrested.

OMG, this thread has now officially become hilarious. "Hundreds or thousands of times without getting arrested." That makes sense, Rimple!

We did, until about..25 years or so ago, actually have one of those "ancestral homes," a place that was built in the 1600's. Trust me, nobody wants to have to repair plumbing in a house that age! LOLOL. Or anything else. When my parents decided that they'd had enough with maintaining something nearly older than G-d, they asked all of us, if any of us wanted the place. I lived 2500 miles away, so that was a no (at that time I needed to be in a specific place) and neither of my sibs could manage it, so...now some other family owns it. It's a bit of a shocker, when it happens, but...not so much that you can't get used to it.

Don't get me wrong--I loved that house, I really did and the property, the apple orchard, yadda but...sometimes, you gotta figure that you need to let go. I still, this many years later, sometimes forget that one of us isn't living there, but...when you gotta go, you gotta go.

Hitch

[DNSB]

I've seen the "ancestral" home in England and the "ancestral" home in Falmouth, Massachusett. I wouldn't want to live in either. The current owners of the English home were trying to get permission to demolish and rebuild in the mid-1970's while the one in Falmouth is a ship's bottom house built in the mid-1600's according to family legend and was updated in the 1920's and 1950's.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I've seen the "ancestral" home in England and the "ancestral" home in Falmouth, Massachusett. I wouldn't want to live in either. The current owners of the English home were trying to get permission to demolish and rebuild in the mid-1970's while the one in Falmouth is a ship's bottom house built in the mid-1600's according to family legend and was updated in the 1920's and 1950's.

Right. AT some point, you either realize that property maintenance is going to become your entire life (and ridiculously, some idiots banned serfdom and all that, so...you're stuck doing it yourself or paying for it!), or you decide that your fam can find their roots, etc. in other ways. That's my $.02, for WIW.

Hitch

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Right. AT some point, you either realize that property maintenance is going to become your entire life (and ridiculously, some idiots banned serfdom and all that, so...you're stuck doing it yourself or paying for it!), or you decide that your fam can find their roots, etc. in other ways. That's my $.02, for WIW.

Hitch

My wife's most recent YouTube fixation is watching people rehab old chateaus that they bought cheap. What they spend on the rehab has me convinced that they* are insane. Those places went to ruin for a reason.


ApK


*I also thought my wife was insane for watching them, but compared to her other YouTube fixations--watching people mow grass, and watching people care for sheep's hooves--this one is fine.

[Rumpelteazer]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Don't get me wrong--I loved that house, I really did and the property, the apple orchard, yadda but...sometimes, you gotta figure that you need to let go. I still, this many years later, sometimes forget that one of us isn't living there, but...when you gotta go, you gotta go.

Hitch

The oldest part of our house was build in the second half of the 1200s. That's where my bedroom is. Then there are two more sections build over time. The front facade was replaced in the late 1500s/early 1600s by a famous architect, that's the newest part of our house.

The owners before my family messed up the house (removing stairs, placing new stairs in other places by just sawing through the ceiling/floor beams, etc) and my family hasn't been kind to the building either (cheapest repairs possible). I'm glad the building is getting some necessary TLC and is brought up to the latest standards. The new owner has promised to give us a tour once it's finished.

On the one hand I will miss it. I've lived here for over 43 years. But a house with no leaks, central heating, insulation and good plumbing and electrics sound like a dream to me. Also getting out of the city center is nice. Sure, it's easy when I need something and can run a quick errand. But it doesn't make to all the nuisance from the cafés and restaurant and partying neighbours.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

The oldest part of our house was build in the second half of the 1200s. That's where my bedroom is. Then there are two more sections build over time. The front facade was replaced in the late 1500s/early 1600s by a famous architect, that's the newest part of our house.

The owners before my family messed up the house (removing stairs, placing new stairs in other places by just sawing through the ceiling/floor beams, etc) and my family hasn't been kind to the building either (cheapest repairs possible). I'm glad the building is getting some necessary TLC and is brought up to the latest standards. The new owner has promised to give us a tour once it's finished.

On the one hand I will miss it. I've lived here for over 43 years. But a house with no leaks, central heating, insulation and good plumbing and electrics sound like a dream to me. Also getting out of the city center is nice. Sure, it's easy when I need something and can run a quick errand. But it doesn't make to all the nuisance from the cafés and restaurant and partying neighbours.

Yeah, those older homes and by "older" I mean...250 years plus--can really suck the life out of you. We (Dad, family when I was a teen) once meant to make a teeny-weeny repair in the plaster, which had a divot in it from someone's soemthing. Ring or heavy man's watch, something that dinged the plaster. And yes, it was real plaster, not that faux stuff.

ANYWAY, we ended up having to remove all the plaster in the main entryway, 3.5 walls of it, rip all that out and lo, there were even older brick walls behind it, remove all the brick and the old crumbly mortar, clean and power-wash all the bricks, then re-lay all the mortar and yes, all the bricks, ..and then, yup, we debated on putting the wall and plaster back up, or leaving the exposed brick. I don't remember how long we'd been at it by then but guess which won? If you guessed, leave the exposed brick, you win. LOL

So a job that should have taken 3 days with drying...took nearly 3 months. There's always a surprise with houses that age. ALWAYS. My parents were renovation hobbyists and antiquers so this was a daily/weekly thing for us, but oyyyyyyy.

Hitch

[ownedbycats]

Hot weather means my cats shed more. Flying fur everywhere.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Hot weather means my cats shed more. Flying fur everywhere.

OH yes.Maine Coons, Phoenix in summer, granted it's 110+F outside not in but even 78F is really hot for my guy. I brush him at least once daily, nose to tail and we trim his belly so he can lie on our Travertine tile and stay cool(er)but yea, he sheds a kitten's worth daily.

Hitch

[ownedbycats]

I suspect I've brushed enough out of my cats to make a few sweaters from cat hair wool.

[BetterRed]

What would have been my 'ancestral' home was destroyed by a doodlebug in August 1944. My parents were at work, and I was with my maternal grandparents. If Mum had been on night shift she (and me) hopefully would have been in the Anderson shelter. Unlike the V2 you could hear the V1.

BR

[ownedbycats]

I kept being awoken by three things last night:

- Thunder and lightning.
- My cat digging her claws into my leg in response to the thunder and lightning.
- Multiple (duplicated) emergency alerts (with the Alert Ready nuclear-bomb-incoming siren) that could be summed up as "stay off flooding roads you dumbasses."

[badgoodDeb]

Well, even the great bard knew that:

Thunder and lightning. Very very frightening!


(Sorry about the multiple alarms, though.)

[ownedbycats]

The duplicate alerts have happened before. Not sure why -- my best guess is something to do with cell tower localization.

If that's the case, at least they are localizing. One of the more baffling alerts I got was that somebody had barricaded himself inside an apartment at least 50 km away.