Home Invaders

We've been sprucing up the house something fierce this year: deck, patio door, new gate, new soffit and fascia....that was where it was supposed to stop.

All of this stuff needed doing. Well, the deck/patio door falls into the category of a "weed"...that odd compulsion between want and need that grows and grows in your head until it displaces everything else. And the gate: strictly speaking, not necessary, but more than welcome. We had a side yard, fenced off in a makeshift manner. Now we've got our backyard back, and the tall gate--rounded off at the top, like a castle door--bestows an incredible sense of privacy, almost of isolation. Thanks to Eva's downsizing--which was a blessing in so very many ways--the money to do this stuff was suddenly available, and given the imminent arrival of the HST, now seemed as good a time as any and better than most.

We didn't count on having to replace the roof.

Oh, we knew it would have to be done sometime, sooner or later, say, the twelfth of next Octemberary...but the soffit and fascia guys brought calendars with them and pointedly pointed out the date. Damn. Octemberary already?

Stuck inside minding the dogs, I called Eva to relay the sudden passage of all this time. "Now, they might be just drilling up business for themselves," I mused halfheartedly, "but they say the roof is pretty bad and should be done soon." When Eva got home, she noted that somebody had blacktopped the driveway in addition to all the other work going on and concluded that no, these guys weren't trying to secure extra business: asphalt from the roof had copiously showered down in a way that suggested--strongly--Octemberary was in fact almost over, and the gales of Novoberil were fast approaching.

Nonplussed, we started calling up roofing companies for quotes. Most of them didn't bother even returning our calls. I get that these people are beyond busy right now, thanks again to Harper's Shit Tax, but that's just poor customer service. If they really can't take on more business, a simple message stating as much and sincerely apologizing would have gone a long way.

Of the five companies that did deign to provide a quote, four of them simply drove by the house, without actually doing anything like, for instance, going up on the roof. I don't know if we were meant to infer from this behaviour that they were all adept far-seers, able to correctly diagnose issues on high from a single ground level glance. But I remain firmly skeptical.

One of these far-seers made the critical mistake of treating Eva like a girl. Yes, Eva is a girl, but her dad is a master carpenter who has built houses, plural, from scratch; he also converted The Church in Stratford from a (you guessed it) church into a renowned restaurant. Eva has picked up some of her dad's skill (and a lot of his knowledge) the way she picks everything else up, by osmosis. You underestimate this woman at your peril.

The guy from Company #5 actually went up on the roof, poking, prodding, and snapping pictures. He also went into the attic, took a whole bunch more pictures in there, and eventually came back with a quote that took into account myriad items the far-seers had somehow missed. You know how some unscrupulous tradespeople will tell you that all hell is about to break loose to justify a sky-high estimate? This one had photographic proof. He met Eva at her work to go over the quote (another thing that impressed us) and, upon his conclusion, Eva said "so what you're saying is that we're shit-lucky nothing's happened to us yet."

"Well," he answered, while vigorously nodding his head yes, "I'm not supposed to tell my clients that..."

The upshot is the roof will get done from stem to stern, including apparently much-needed attic insulation. All for a price that, while high, is actually a little less than one of the faulty psychic quotes. He's trying his damnedest to get to us before July 1, the day the HST kicks in, but could make no guarantees, and we didn't expect him to.

In turn, this means yet more home invaders. I tell you, we have had more people tramp through here in the past three months than in the prior five years put together. We're grateful beyond measure for what they're doing, but boy do we wish they could just do it by remote control, as it were. My wife and I are definitely in the our home is our castle mold...and the castle comes equipped with a mental moat stocked with alligators. Friends are always welcome...strangers, not so much, you know?

Still, better we put up with the momentary inconvenience than sit around and wait for the Clark Gable roof. You know...Gone With The Wind?