It was supposed to be very cold in Palatine the week I was away (and it was!) So, I left all faucets dripping to prevent the pipes from freezing. Two weeks before that, I examined all the sinks in the house, and I thought that I fixed everything leaking.

That is, until Wednesday morning when my cleaning lady came and texted me: Hettie, you have water on the floor! Both upstairs sins are leaking. It was not the end of the world but still, very unpleasant news.

When I returned, I realized that not two, but all three of the sinks, had water under them. I shrugged and decided that I am not trying to fix things by myself anymore :).

It was Friday, and I didn’t start searching for plumbers till Monday morning. When I went to the NextDoor, I found that the plumbers I used a long time ago are still in business and have good reviews. Very soon, however, I remembered why I stopped using them. Even though they did good work, they often didn’t respond to the calls and didn’t call back. After they didn’t show up at the scheduled time, didn’t call, and didn’t respond to calls and voicemails for three hours, I decided to go with another contractor I found on the NextDoor, who responded right away.

They suggested replacing pretty much everything, and I didn’t argue because I didn’t replace pipes and faucets since I moved in (except for a couple of small repairs). It was a pricy job, but everything is finally in place now. Since there are high chances I will be moving later this year, I asked them to pick the simplest faucets, just to have them there. And I decided not to fix the cabinets.

Because I wasted time waiting for the first contractors, the new one didn’t come till late on Wednesday, and then, I had to postpone everything till the girls leave. That was the right decision because they had to turn the water off for 1.5 hours, and the total time the contractor spent in my house was about six hours. When he was finished, I asked him which was the most difficult, and he said – the one on the first floor, because everything is too close to the wall, and the place is small. Now I feel much better because if a professional had trouble with this one, no wonder it was difficult for me as well!

After almost two months of unsuccessful attempts to repair my under the sink cabinet, I finally found a person who fixed it and asked for only $20 for this job (I paid $30). The only other person who responded and came to take a look priced it for $75 at a minimum (“if there will be less than one hour work,” otherwise – twice as much). That was a happy moment amidst an otherwise miserable couple of weeks – all my attempts to secure this falling down board looked horrible. Even when nobody except for me could see it – I saw!

There was one more thing I needed to repair – the leaking sink in the first-floor half-bathroom. I didn’t notice for a while that it was leaking. When I realized the problem, there was already a lot of damage. However, the moment I realized it was mid-December when I could not take in anything extra. So I put several layers of the blue shop towels under the leaking pipe and left it until “after the holidays.” 

After the holidays, we had our virus disaster, and we were also finishing the book. It might sound unimaginable that I didn’t have time to repair the leaking pipe or to call somebody to come and fix it, but I was in a situation when I could not get any extra thought into my brain. Those who have been in a crisis situation will hopefully understand. 

When I finally put “fix this leaking pipe” into my weekend schedule, it was already mid -January. First, I tried to tighten the upper ring, but then I realized that the washers were worn out, and it was impossible to tighten it. Then I thought that if I put additional leak-protective tape over it, it will work, but it didn’t. I had to replace the drain and the tailpiece. 

I went to the ACE hardware, and first, pick the wrong part :). I went back, and this time, I picked the right one. Now, if you think about why I spent hours trying to do it myself when I had no time for anything, I can’t give a logical explanation. It’s just something about plumbing that since the kids were kids and lived at home, I believe that I should be able to resolve most of the plumbing issues myself. And through all these years, I was able to do many repairs, replacing many parts of that system. 

After spending hours, I finally connected everything, except for the lift-up rod, which kept sliding down. For some reason, I could not tighten the screw, which would keep it secured to one extra part connecting it to the pivot rode (I have no idea why this extra part was necessary). However, that was not the only problem. When I turned the water on, I realized that it still leaks a little bit.

That became really embarrassing: I spent hours trying to do it myself, and now I would have to call a plumber anyway!

When this handyman whom I asked to fix my under the sink cabinet showed up, I asked him if he was indeed not-do-any-plumbing, as he said when advertising his services. He said that he does not do “new stuff,” but “show me what the problem is.” I said that I am really embarrassed to have this problem, but.. He looked and asked whether I put any plumbing putty before installing the drain and started to explain what the plumbing putty is. I knew that I forgot to put the putty first, but I hoped I could get away without it. I had some plumbing putty, a little bit dried out but still usable. He said that I need to unscrew the ring, lift the drain, and insert a small putty ring. It didn’t work the first time, but then I managed to lift it up and afterward, tightened the ring really-really tight. After all, I was able to do it myself. Almost :))

Remember my tree story? The actual story had begun three or four years ago when I realized that this tree effectively blocks all the light for my lawn.  

Back then, our condominium association was only able to negotiate the removal of one brunch. It helped, and this summer, I didn’t have the grass crisis. And then, this story happened.   

I didn’t have to wait longer for further development: the removal started on Saturday morning. I looked out of my window and could not believe my eyes!

They worked for several hours, but now – voila!

Last Saturday, our condominium board member greeted me at the parking lot with the words: Hettie, I didn’t forget about your tree! I was puzzled. There was a story with that tree; as you can see in the picture, it hangs over my backyard from the different condominium! It took several months of negotiations to agree to cut just one big branch. The tree was not a hazard, and “too much shade” on my loan was not good enough.

Indeed, the grass started to grow much better after that big brunch was removed. But there was still too much shade.

Now, the board member happily announced that she saw that the tree’s trunk is coming lower, and now it’s finally a hazard for my roof, and it has to go down.
And now that somebody needs to pay for this tree to go down, it turned out that other condominiums might not even own the tree.

Since our fire lane is a part of the former local railroad (and I knew that!), there are high chances that the village owns it and will have to pay for its removal. I hope that they will be able to sort it out before the tree would come down by the forces of nature!