Confession: My House Scares the Crap Out of Me

These are things people say to you when you rent your home:

• You're throwing money away.
• Your home never really feels like it's yours.
• There's no security in renting.
• Your rent costs more than my mortgage!!!!

Yeah, I know. I heard it all. I rented for 11 years. Because renting enabled me to set a fixed budget and live somewhat high on the hog while I socked money away. Instead of buying a modest starter home, I moved into a big, fancy apartment. Unburdened by a leaking roof or failing gutters, I always had money for vacations and happy hour.

My rent did cost more than some people's mortgage. But I didn't pay for gas, water, sewage, taxes, home insurance, loan interest, garbage, appliances, maintenance, repairs, or things like a lawnmower/shovel/rake, windows, furnaces, air conditioners, emergency plumber visits, and lots of other seriously expensive stuff.

And, I never once shoveled a snowy sidewalk, raked a pile of leaves, or unclogged a drain. I worried not about hot water heaters or burst pipes. Who cared if there was only one dirty dish in the dishwasher? I ran the whole cycle! That's the wonderful freedom I paid for.

But eventually, it was time to move. I married a wonderful man. He came with lots of stuff. We adopted a very noisy Beagle. We hated Mozart Management, our landlords. So after a long search, we found the perfect house. Since we'd always lived on a budget, we had a nice down payment. We bought that house, and we love it.



So ... where's this sense of security everyone kept talking about?

Home ownership is the scariest thing I've ever done.

Here are the things I worry about every single day:

• Did I lock the doors before I left home today?
• What about the garage door? Oh my god. I might have left it open.
• Did I turn everything off? I bet I didn't. Something's going to start a fire. The house has probably already burned down.
• Speaking of ... how old is our wiring? How much does wiring cost?  
• Houses get older every day. It is DETERIORATING AS I TYPE THIS. I need to do ... things ... to it!
• The upstairs is hot but the downstairs is freezing and the gas bill is going to be huge.  
• Probably because we need new windows. And a new furnace. Oh, god.
• And I DEFINITELY shouldn't take such long, luxurious showers.
• NEW THIS WINTER! Did snow fall on our sidewalk? If someone slips and falls on it, can they really sue us? Did we buy enough salt?
• ALSO NEW: So what does this mean, "burst pipe?" 
• And so on.  

 ........

Anxiety aside, I do love our house. It is so pretty. It is just right for us.

And I do like the feeling that if we want to stay there forever, we can.

My husband can play guitar as loud as he wants. And our dog can bark as ferociously (and incessantly) as she wants.

I don't have to hide my cat  from the landlord anymore (eff you, Mozart!). In fact, we can consider more cats or more Beagles if we want!

This will never happen to me again:

Housekeeping Inspection from Mozart Management. This is no joke.

-- and -- this is big -- I love my laundry chute! (I don't know why we, as a people, decided to start carrying our laundry down stairs in modern times. This was a terrible mistake.)

We really bought a house.

So tomorrow, when I get home, it will happen again. I will stand in front of my house, the biggest thing we ever bought, the biggest responsibility we ever took on, and I will fill with sheer panic.

But also pride. And love. Because fears aside, it is our best adventure yet.

Or at least, that is what I will say if you ask me. Because I do love our house.

Curry, Boiling the Bathwater, and Roasted Mice: Ode to My Shitty Apartment

It was kind of charming, even though it smelled like curry.

My first apartment was smaller than many dorm rooms, but somehow, I loved it. I rented the attic of a three-story house in Squirrel Hill. 

It didn’t bother me that the ceilings sloped with the shape of the roof, meaning that you couldn’t stand up unless you were in the middle of the apartment. If you ventured too far left or right, you had to stoop or take a seat. It also meant I couldn’t have any tall furniture—like a refrigerator. I kept a mini fridge under the kitchen counter.

But the ceilings reminded me of a dollhouse, which seemed fun, so I hunkered down and enjoyed it.

I was also charmed by the antique details, like the big claw-foot bathtub. There was no shower, which worked out, since there was never any hot water. Every night, I would place my four biggest pots on the stove and boil water. If I hurried, potholders in hand, I could dump enough boiling water into my tub to take the chill off my lukewarm bath. I got used to this, even though the process took half my night.

I was, however, bothered by the heat in the summer. If you’ve ever stepped into an attic in August, you've felt how the oppressive, sauna-like heat rises. Great, nauseating waves of heat would wake me up in the middle of the night.

I worried about my cat, left to roast in her fur while I was at work, so I ran an AC unit in one of the two small windows during the day. The unit worked so hard all day that by the time I got home, it could barely cough out a stale breath. I’d turn it off so it would be ready to cool again by the time I left for work the next day. 

So it was hot. It was cramped. And then, along came a colicky baby. 

The family on the second floor had a baby that wailed every night from about 1am till dawn. This would have been bad enough in an apartment building, but we lived in a house together. This angry baby was basically my roommate.

You might have sympathy for this baby and his parents. Here is why I did not.

Any time — every time! — I tried to vacuum, those same neighbors would bang on my door and angrily inform me that I had to stop, because their baby was napping. The only time they permitted me to run the vacuum was the rare occasions when they were not home. 

They would also throw their things into the washing machine while I was doing my laundry. The shock of finding their hallway rug in with my delicates left me too speechless to ever confront them about it.

I decided that this baby, and his parents, were jerks. 

But the last straw came when I heard a strange scurry in the middle of the night. The next day, I found a mouse, brazenly out in the open and watching me from my curtain rod.

I shrieked. Then I called my mom. She came over, cornered him, caught him in a boot, and took him outside. 

But, it turned out, he’d left his entire family behind.

I found this out when I baked cookies in my oven and smelled something strange. Something very dry was burning.

I had cooked a mouse nest.

And finally, finally, but just like that -- I didn’t love my apartment anymore.

Mercifully, another apartment had just opened up a few blocks away. It was close enough for me to carry my meager belongings and tiny furniture down the street. My cat and I broke the lease and left the attic, mouse nest and all, behind. 

Today my co-worker described her first apartment, which was in a complex with cafes, a pool, and a gym. I opened my mouth to describe my first home away from home and realized I didn't even know where to start. 

Instead, I told her that it sounded really, 

really 

nice.