A year ago Pam ran a story asking readers to share your tales of the costly and unexpected expenses from owning your home. Your comments — there were 155 in all — painted a vivid and grab-onto-your-wallets picture of dozens of things that could — and did — go wrong in-, around- and under- your houses. Oh my. I went back through all your real-life stories and picked some of the most shocking to revisit today: A sort of “reality check” reminder that — while owning a home can be a wonderful and fulfilling adventure — it can also be fraught with peril, expense and anxiety. And, gulp, a reminder to keep the insurance policies up-to-date and the emergency fund stocked. Thanks to Anne Taintor for the humor.
The following is a sampling of some of the surprise! problems that readers reported the first time we ran this story:
Water worries
Tess shared:
OK, here’s my saga: Bought a 1955 ranch with a slab foundation. (In the process of repainting and thinking about it, found your cool website). This spring, the water heater failed, and dumped gallons of gallons of water onto the floor, which ran under walls, and ran into the infloor heating ducts. Insurance came in, ripped out the carpet, put everything I own into the garage so they could tear out the asbestos tile which covered the slab and which was popping and cracking. When they found out the only way to repair the heating ducts was to jackhammer up the floor, they simply stopped calling me back. Just stopped returning calls. It took 5 months and an attorney to get them to resolve the case. In the meantime, I’ve been living in a shell of a house, with most everything in boxes in the garage.
The good news is that they finally got started on resolving it, and repairs are proceeding. I’m putting in radiant floor heating (to the tune of $15K) and floors. All of this, of course, raises other questions, like what about the kitchen? The bathroom? While the house is gutted it seems like a good time to do other things, but the budget is limited.
I had to chip up the bathroom floor, but I’m keeping the yellow tub. Actually, I have some questions: the tub has not been treated well — it looks like someone washed out paint brushes and left lots of drips and washes–and it could use attention beyond the usual cleaning products. I’ve noticed recent posts about finding yellow sinks, so I’m thinking about that.
Thanks for this website, Pam. I’m enjoying it.
Yikes! At least Tess is enjoying RetroRenovation.com! Hopefully things are looking up at her house this year. It seems so many people have problems that involve water, like this longtime reader:
JKaye:
Water factors in many of these stories, in the form of leaking pipes, leaking roofs, overflowing toilets, busted water heaters, etc. We’ve experienced all of these things in the five different homes we’ve owned, ranging from a 1910 cottage to a 1995 mobile home, and including our current ’59 ranch. The worst thing to happen was when the crawlspace got flooded at the ’72 ranch during a giant storm, and the sump pump didn’t kick on, resulting in a ruined furnace. The funniest water experience was at the mobile home, which sat on a hillside — water ran right under it during a storm, so no flooding there!
Sewer pipe predicaments
Uncle Atom:
Oh Pam, a painful topic. We settled on a 1950s rancher in 2000, and three weeks later the sewer backed up in the basement. Plumber’s verdict – tree roots grown into the clay pipe. Not only did it set us back about $10k, but we lost a whole row of beautiful 40 year old azaleas in the process. Someone had planted a cedar tree about 8 feet from the front of the house and its roots thrived on sewage for years before we got there. We sold that place six years later and made money on it, but that experience really hurt at the time.
Nocoretro says:
Exactly what we are going through now. Minus taking down the trees. We have to replace the pipes all through our backyard and through the neighbors yard and driveway.Mary says:
We are on borrowed time with our pipes as well. Also old clay pipes. Every time I see a crew digging up the street somewhere in the neighborhood, I wonder if we should just act pre-emptively and get it done.pam kueber says:
This was the very first thing that went wrong in my very first house! Don’t we LOVE to pay for TV colonoscopies for our sewer pipes!Tami says:
We moved into our present home and FIVE DAYS LATER the septic system spectacularly backed up on us (I will never get that sight out of my head). Long story short, the inlet to the septic tank was 3? HIGHER than the outlets (yes, there are four) from our home. In other words, it had never worked and the inspector did a crappy job of testing it. $10,000 to fix it.Kat the Gypsy:
Water has been our biggest unforeseen expense in both our houses. 2 years ago we bought a 1985 concrete block house. Drains were always slow, but we didn’t know what the problem was. So last year, on Christmas vacation we got a call from our tenant that sewage was backing up. The main sewage line had to be replaced due to tree roots damage, which meant digging up the concrete and my newly laid porcelain tiles in a foot-wide line from the guest bath through the guest room, all the way to the street, to the tune of $8K.In our current home, built in 1955, we could never run the washing machine more than once or the wash water would back into the master bath (both were added to the original and shared a sewage line.) After cleaning up floods one too many times, we had the camera put down the line and discovered something shocking. When they installed a natural gas line some 12 years prior, they simply drilled through the ground – and diagonally through said sewage line. Luckily the gas company came, dug, and replaced the gas line, and with the digging out of the way it was a simple fix to cut out and replace the damage to the sewer pipe. Now we know why the house inspector noticed the washing machine wasn’t connected and therefore couldn’t be tested.
Old houses are great, but renovations are a pain. You NEVER KNOW what’s inside/behind/beneath all that charm until you open it up!
Roof problems
Gwen:
My family and I just bought a little brick colonial house (1940) in a historic neighborhood almost a year ago. The home inspector told us that the cracked and worn slates on our original roof had to be replaced. He told us we were looking at $2K in repair and then to maintain, about $500-$1000/year. About 3 months after our move in, we decided to have the roof fixed, as we were having our attic finished. Long story short, roofer came in and said the entire roof had to be replaced. Irritated by that answer, I had two other companies come in who told me exactly the same thing. A $2K problem quickly turned into one that cost us $45K! Because we are in a historic district, we had to replace the roof with the original material – no synthetic slate. Ouch! Moral to this story – make sure your home inspector knows what to look for when inspecting a slate roof. Glad we replaced the whole thing (even though I can never retire), because with all the rain in Baltimore this year, my neighbors have dealt with leaking roofs and massive flooding! Cheers!
Bad Flipper — not the friendly dolphin
Angela:
This is my 2nd year in a 1971 Split Level home in Georgia. The house, now I will call it a “flipped” home, had been updated and repaired in a few areas but us a sturdy house with good bones. But, I think it is too much for me. While my mortgage is cheaper than rent, I am scared that I won’t be able to keep up with the repairs and upkeep. I hate to admit, but I believe I just bought the wrong house. First thing, after 6 months of living in the house, the ceiling fell in my downstairs bathroom, result of a faulty install of the toilet the seller installed upstairs. Got that bathroom redone, after repairing and correcting faulty plumbing in that bathroom. A few months later, sewage started backing up in that tub. Had it snaked twice in six months. The people who snaked it muddied up and nastied up my newly updated bathroom it just made me sick! On top of a heating and air system that is old, and has not worked most of the summer months. It has gone out two summers, warranty patches it up but nothing that is long term. New deck built, not so new. Deck needs securing and sealing, kitchen countertops are bubbling up, need replacing, could use new windows, whole house fan went out after moving in, garage light doesn’t work, electrician said it’s a wiring problem, had to replace circuit box after breaker kept breaking, believe tree roots are in sewer pipes in yard, plumber coming to put camera down line, needs this, need that. A tree fell down in the back yard, and I was told I need to worry about one in my yard and another one in the neighbor’s yard. found out a whole bunch of construction crap is buried in the back yard, and I keep hearing a whistling noise when I flush the toilet.yea, I got the homebuyer tax credit but to be honest, I don’t even see where it went. As soon as I moved in, $200 here, $2300, here, $500 here, $1000 here, yadda, yadda,yadda and my income just doesn’t support these type of repairs.
My mistake. I wanted to take advantage of these affordable prices, especially in the urban area I live in … but I feel I have allowed real estate to take advantage of me.
The home is a beautiful home with a beautiful spirit and warmth to it … but it needs a family with a handyman husband and a better credit score who could just borrow $25K to $30k and just get it in shape and up to date. It was nicely updated when I bought it, but when I moved MY stuff in and started using the home, it soon revealed all its needs to me ….. and I feel overwhelmed by it all.
Woodland creatures getting comfy in the ceiling
Elaine:
I have a the same tale from a 1964 colonial, new roof that had to be redone due to bad work, tree damage thankfully mostly covered by insurance, new furnace, new water heater, new main sewer pipe, new siding, new windows. But this is different.One evening there was suddenly a huge ruckus in the ceiling. What the heck—-? It sounded like bears fighting. In the ceiling! It turned out to be raccoons. When they got done with whatever, they left via the downspout on the side of the house. Cute little things, we could see them leaning on the side of the hole they made, looking around like proud homeowners. Then down they went and away. We went out and looked at the hole they made. Six foot long and maybe two feet high, a full siding panel ripped off and a huge hole clawed or chewed into the boards right through to the attic. Wow! DH got the ladder and an old campaign sign and went up and nailed it over the hole. That kept them out, at least., but it looked like h-e-double matchsticks. Vote for XXXX for City Council.
Called the insurance company in the morning. The adjuster acted like she never heard of such a thing. She wanted to know what we did to attract them? What precautions had we taken to prevent them from doing that? Answers were Nothing and What were we supposed to do besides having a wall? She sent an inspector over who laughed and said it looked pretty typical. We got a good amount to cover the repair, I think it was around $3500.
The asphalt driveway needs resurfacing every other year, that’s another cost.
pam kueber says:
Good one. My husband had a deal with the bats in our last house: You stay up in the attic, we will stay down here. Detente was breached only twice, when bats got into the living room somehow. A tennis racket comes in handy in instances such as these…. Oh, and yes: Animal control to catch and relocate huge groundhogs that were burrowing I forget where into the foundation of the house; we had that expense, too, your Comment reminds me.
Pam’s favorite (her Kentucky shows) — Sink holes open up:
Anne-Marie Cottone relates:
A friend of mine went away for the holidays, and returned to learn that a large sinkhole had collapsed part of her backyard! Apparently it was due to an old septic tank that had been removed when the area was sewered, and the fill had decided to settle many years later.
Anything and everything goes wrong
Jill shares:
I’m still sitting with 45-year-old red carpet, a bathroom with floor tiles coming up, another one with wall tiles coming up, and a 1970’s harvest gold kitchen, because of all the surprises: new electrical panel when we moved in. Insulation. Replacing clogged galvanized pipe. 2 new water heaters. New oil burner. New gutters 3 times before they got it right. Sump pump. Generator with manual transfer switch. Chimney repairs. Driveway repairs. Now the 3 steps from my garage to the backyard sprung a HOLE and have to be replaced. My downstairs bath has 2 holes in the plaster walls from a plumbing repair. And that’s before we even get to the new siding, windows, and roof that we did.
The squirrel that fell down the chimney and died and it was 3 weeks before my cat found the corpse underneath the bar in the basement. The mouse infestation in the cupboards that had me cleaning them out with ammonia. The window caps that went and in a heavy rain water kept pouring into the house. Getting the front steps repaired because my DH decided it would be a good idea to break up some ice with a metal shovel…
Despite all the cautionary tales, there is one that puts it all into perspective, summing up the biggest payoff to this life investment:
sTiLL LoVE iT hErE:
After living in our home for years we have had a full gambit of repairs – some have been completed and some remain, well, incomplete. As an example – our bathrooms have both been “in progress” for about six or seven years. No, I am not exaggerating. Repairs have been both expected and unexpected. The normal things have seemingly all gone wrong, i.e. air conditioning, siding, roof, toilets, and the list goes on for miles – no real surprises.For the most part the house is a dependable one…with lots of memories both good and sad. It’s your basic 3 bedroom ranch style home with a fireplace – nothing fancy or elaborate. Just a little house with a fenced back yard that separates us from our neighbors’ illegal free roaming city chickens, a couple of barking dogs (including mine) and a little garden in front. We’ve raised our family in this house, nursed my mom after cancer surgery, welcomed new grandchildren and cried over the passing of dear friends and family. We’ve experienced a mixture of happiness and sadness as my son prepared for his wedding here; watched our daughter’s prom come and go and her relationship begin and end in this house. My husband and I have had garage sales, delicious meals, disagreements, made up (yay!) and talked about our future together. We’ve also tried to plan our funeral around our dining room table…without too much success. I know, we will have to complete that task one day. However, the home repairs must be addressed and are almost too many to count using my fingers AND toes. We just don’t have the money… who ever does… there is no convenient time for pay for everything… but that’s okay. It’s our house, and we know that we’ll get it all done… some how. It may not be right away, but we’ll get through. So, it isn’t just a house, it’s a home. It’s a memory spot. A place to hang our hats…a soft place to land. Just a few thoughts about our little house.
Me? I’m on my second house. I bought my first house when I was single — in an up-and-coming neighborhood in Milwaukee, which basically meant very old houses that needed work… but were affordable… in an area with a mid-level crime rate. I fell in love with a tiny (800 sq ft) cape cod style house built in 1890 with a tiny yard and a detached garage. I immediately knew that I would need to put lots of money into the house and that I would be doing a lot of the work myself. Fortunately, I come from a long line of handy folk. Even so, I had to hire out some of the larger jobs in my new old house — such as replumbing the entire house before I could even move in (there was no water pressure and the drain pipes were all hopelessly clogged). This huge job also necessitated the gut remodeling of the only bathroom — which had been poorly remodeled over the years. Next came slowly replacing all 11 windows in the house because not a single one could be opened due to shifting and settling over time. Other work I completed over the next few years:
- new A/C unit
- new furnace
- new water heater
- new fuse box and service riser (apparently there had been a fire in the old fuse box).
- gut-job kitchen remodel (it is great to make toast with the lights on!), including new appliance appliances
- removed 2 layers of press and stick vinyl floor tiles from all the original hardwood floors in the entire house and then refinishing the hardwood floors
- having the main drain line from the house cleaned out (the previous owner decided to dump cooking grease down the drain for 25 years)
- new garage door
- new garage roof
- new garage side entry door
- replace the front porch (the old one was mostly rotten and was held to the house with 2 nails)
- painting the entire house inside and out, and countless other small projects here and there.
I stopped just short of finishing the upstairs (to gain another 500 square feet of living space) and replacing the roof and gutters — I’ll let the new owners take care of those changes. When all was said and done, I was able to sell my house in one week (in a bum housing market) so that Jim and I could buy our new mid century ranch house where we currently live. Did I make any money on my first house? Heck no. Luckily, I didn’t lose much, though — and I learned a whole lot about being a homeowner, as well as what kinds of repairs I feel comfortable doing myself versus the ones I need to hire out.
Thus far, most of the repairs that I’ve had to make here at our new (1962) ranch house have been things I’d known would need attention from the day I signed on the dotted line. So far, so good. But I’ve read all the comments — and am aiming to keep the emergency fund stocked.
Yes, the headline promised 140+ stories — see them all in comments here.
And, want another downer Reality Check? Read Pam’s post, Remodel and watch your *investment* plunge in value.
Eartha Kitsch says
It makes my blood pressure rise too much to even talk about it.
I told the Mister that we’re one repair job away from sticking our cats in a Winnebago and living in a campground for the rest of our days.
Diane in CO says
Elaine, I’m still wiping the tears from my eyes after reading your entry aloud to my husband. LOL! We deal with raccoons here at our summer place and I’m now wondering if the ghastly odor seeping from the ceiling along the fireplace in June was something bigger than a dead mouse. (Sealed that up by stuffing paper towels into the crack with a screwdriver, which worked, until it was gone.)
Everyone else, not funny. Not funny at all and I whole-heartedly commiserate. We all have horror stories but these are especially gut wrenching.
Suzanne says
Egads! After condo living for the past 22 years, I am now having to do outdoor maintenance. My DH and I knew we were walking into a challenged home. So for the past 3 weeks it’s been working 8 hours then coming home and working till 10 or 11 at night on the inside of the house, just to be able to move our stuff from the garage.
Our dogs decided it’s time to fix the cedar plank fence so they wouldn’t be tempted to visit the dog next door anymore. Thank god, we have block walls everywhere else. Thank god, I live in So Cal and I don’t have to worry about snow and floods (just earthquakes).
My friend bought a 1920s craftsman style home and all her communications were about fixing the house. What a bore, I thought! Now I’m boring. 🙂
nickarmadillo says
… and I agree that unqualified home inspectors are a major problem. Not only do they fail to perform their job, they also refuse to be held liable when there are major problems that they missed, even when they should have been obvious. The whole home inspection thing is a racket.
nickarmadillo says
Don’t even get me started on home repairs! We moved in to a home last year that was supposed to have been “totally rehabbed”. Unfortunately, the rehabbers only patched over and hid existing problems. In 12 months we had to do the following:
*a full roof tear-off and installation
*replace furnace
*replace air conditioner
*fix TWO (!) sewer backups in the basement
*fix all the interior damage from four roof leaks
*patch cracking plaster walls
After those repairs (totaling about $20k) we may now have to pier and patch the foundation! For someone who just graduated and started work, its been a disaster. But hey, at least I’m moved out on my own. I’d much rather be out on my own and paying for these repairs than living in mom and dad’s basement like so many of my graduating class. I count myself as lucky.
Kate says
nickarmadillo– I’ve been following your house troubles on your blog for quite a while now. I’m sorry you’ve had such bad luck, but I’m hoping that soon things will level out and you will be able to do renovations that you WANT to do instead of what you NEED to do.
I totally understand how you feel, I bought my first house (aka the money pit) pretty much right out of school and wouldn’t trade the knowledge and experience I’ve gained from working on that house for anything. 🙂 Kudos to you for keeping it positive!
Pamela says
One of the stories addressed a topic not often mentioned – unqualified home inspectors. We paid big bucks for a home inspection last year. When we finally started renovation, many problems surfaced not even slightly mentioned in the inspection report. This topic (might be slightly off retro-renovation) cannot be discussed enough!
TerriHD says
Termites and dry rot. An undetected roof leak — probably when my in-laws still lived in this house — turned into rotted joists and flooring. Add to that an insidious termite problem on one wall and you have $15K worth of repair. Plus ongoing termite monitoring/remediation. We’ve got to call them out again. All in one little bedroom.
Dulcie says
Last month, my husband was going to replace the window in the enclosed entryway of our house. Before he could take out the window, the surrounding siding needed to be removed. Oh look, rotten boards under the siding, those need to be replaced. The support beams under the entryway and porch are also rotten? Better change those out as well. Who didn’t mortar the cement blocks on the porch foundation before building the porch? Guess we’ll just dismantle the entire porch, mortar the blocks after leveling them out, replace the foundation beams, build new walls and insulate, because there was no insulation on that side of the house. What were we doing again? Oh yeah, replacing the window.
We also lived in a house once where we were going to replace the old wallboard with insulation and drywall. Turns out, about 50 years earlier, there had been a fire in the house on Christmas Eve. Rather than replace the charred beams, they just nailed new ones onto the old and threw up the wallboard. When we took out the wallboard, we were hit with a whoosh of soot which continued to sift through the house, I was still cleaning up soot when we moved out 5 years later.
Nita says
I bought my 1952 home almost two years ago now. I walked through it during the fall. I feel in love with the original oak floors, the mint green bathtub, the yellow sink/cabinet in the kitchen, the beautiful brick fireplace, and the amazing plaster walls. It was like a little dream com true. And then I bought it….
It had been a foreclosure and when the bank repo’d it they installed a new electrical service. Except they forgot to caulk around the flashing. So when it rained hard (as it’s prone to do during the fall), it leaked into my kitchen and ruined the ceiling. Little by little I noticed more problems… The last owners had ripped out the furnace and forced air heating system, which was fine since the replaced it with a nice boiler, but they didn’t install enough baseboard to keep the house warm so I was dropping about $5K per winter on heating fuel. Not to mention the astronomical electric bills brought up by all of the portable heaters I had to plug in when it got -50 outside. Oh and this cute little house? It’s concrete block construction, and that’s basically it. Concrete blocks firred out on the inside, covered with metal lathe and 1 1/2″ of plaster. Where’s the insulation, you might be wondering? Oh, it’s at Home Depot waiting for me to purchase it…. Oh and the windows I thought I loved? Yeah… Those single pane windows stared freezing over and cracking during the winter and the dry-rotted wood frames let out so much air you’d think that I was trying to heat the whole neighborhood. My beautiful brick fireplace was useless as it was apparently missing a flue and doors and did nothing but smoke up my entire living room. To top it off, I had this awful roof problem that left me wanting to curl up in a little ball and just cry. (more about that here: http://mominthelastfrontier.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-great-roof-debacle-or-how-i-barely.html)
Regardless, I love my house because it’s mine and I’ve worked hard to keep it. I can say with pride that in the past two years I’ve completely renovated the heating system, replaced with a staple-up style underfloor radiant heating system fed from the boiler. I have brand spanking new windows. My pellet stove insert (which will look beautiful in my fireplace) will not only supplement my heating efficiently, it’ll also compliment the brick construction. I’ve also completely renovated a basement that once looked like something out of a serial killer movie. It has been stupidly expensive and as a single parent on a limited income I’ve struggled to make any and all improvements. But it’s home and my son has a house that feels safe and warm (warm being a new feature). Best of all, whenever I get really frustrated I can sink into a hot bath in my cast iron tub and get reminded of how awesome it is to have radiant floors that can warm up the bottom of it before I even get in.
pam kueber says
Yikes! You deserve Mom of the Year!
Tim says
I love the line, “warm being a new feature.” Great story.
Jamie D says
We bought our house almost a year ago. There’s a very small creek at the end of the property but our realtor obtained all the documents certifying that we were NOT in a flood plain before the sale. We even had some severe flooding in the area a couple months before we finally bid on the house and I stalked the neighborhood religiously at the time to see if the creek flooded – it got high, but came nowhere near the houses. Inspection was fine, no evidence of flooding in the basement ever, and we have 2 sump pumps that look like they’ve never been used. The neighbors, who have all been here 40+ years, all say they’ve had the sump pumps kick in maybe twice in all the time they’ve lived here.
Yesterday we got a letter in the mail from our mortgage company that says FEMA has remapped the flood plains and SURPRISE! We’re now considered high risk zone AE. We have 30 days to obtain flood insurance or else they’ll just tack on their pricey policy onto our mortgage payment. We’ve gotten no notice of the rezoning from FEMA or our county or township. Just the mortgage company. Nice.
pam kueber says
Oh my. Despite all your diligent research — smacked nonetheless. This one really hurts!
Jamie D says
What really worries me is that the rezoning might make it impossible for us make any changes to the exterior. We were hoping to put in a fence for our doggie in the spring. Now I’m not sure we’ll be permitted. 🙁
We already have a gazebo in the yard that’s in decent shape but it won’t last forever. I’d love to have the option to build something else over the patio when the time comes, but that might be out of the question too.
Just another Pam says
Though I know it’s faint comfort they pulled a version of that where I live in Canada and now everyone is limited to how much they can add to their homes. Rather a huge disappointment to some who’ve bought tiny cottages from when this area was first built up between 1880 and 1950.
It’s a case of lawyers not doing due diligence over the past 2 years but one would think there would be grandfather clause exceptions for the people who were already in place.