My wife Lisa had a dream. For the 1st 15 years I knew her, she watched just about every home improvement and house flipping show there was. But now that she’s coming up on about 10 years of doing it, she’s the first to tell you, “It’s not like you see on TV”.
I’ve only been in this endeavor for 5 years, but I can echo her sentiment, “No, it is definitely not like you see on TV.”
I started slowly, I’d be the guy running supplies from site to site and doing some creative spying for her about who was doing what, or more importantly, who wasn’t doing what.
After running supplies for a while, and helping the crews on easy tasks that even I could handle, I got my first real assignment. Demo’ing a 2 story house in Milford. We had to take it down to the studs , ceilings, walls and everything. That was a job I could handle, I assembled a few people that wanted to bust some shit up and with sledge hammers, crow bars and prybars, we got to it. It’s fun swinging the sledge hammer and hitting through walls. Or rather, it’s fun for the 1st 10-15 minutes. See, after 10-15 minutes, you’re standing in a pile or rubble and dust, and you now have to transport the debris out to the dumpster. That’s when it’s no longer “fun”.
As the years have gone by, I’ve gotten more and more skilled. Have you seen my deck? I can now tell the difference between a hammer and a screwdriver. I’ve gained pretty good carpentry skills. I’m pretty good at flooring, I’ve patched and repaired drywall. I’ve set kitchen cabinets. I’ve (helped) hung drywall, and I’ve (helped) put up vinyl siding. I’ve done minor electrical work. There are still things I’m not comfortable with. But I can build things.
I wanted to title this post as “Adventures in House Flipping”, but that would have been too obvious. I’ve fallen through a few floors and I’ve cut things (parts of myself, not just wood). I’ve had to remove various dead animals from sites and I’ve had many houses completely overrun with insects and bugs.
As the title of this post suggests, “Jim Stafford Had it Right”.
You might be asking yourself, “Who is Jim Stafford?”. Well, he wrote the mega hit from the 1970s, “Spiders and Snakes”. See, I definitely do not like spiders and snakes. Well, I’m okay with spiders, but snakes? Nope. I want to tell you two stories about my house flipping adventures.
_________________________________________
Adventure #1.
You’ve heard of or perhaps seen the movie, “Snakes on a Plane”. But how about Snakes on a Roof?
No?
Well…… It was an early fall day in 2021 and I had a task. I had to remove roofing from a house. It was only a 1-story house, not too slanted, so I was good getting on the roof with my shingle removal tools and getting it done. I got done the one side but in order to do the other side, I needed to cut some branches from a tree. There was a tree pretty close to the house and it had a few branches that had grown out and were laying on the roof. Along with the tree branch, there was a huge pike of pine shats that had accumulated and built up. I couldn’t get close enough to the branch to cut it until I got rid of this pile of old pine shats and tree leaves. I had my pitchfork that I used to loosen and pry up the roofing shingles so I put it under the pile and scooped it over the side. I started at the outer edge of the pile and worked my way into the middle. I pried it under a pile in the center and as I lifted it up – SO OF A !!!!!! A pretty big snake decided he wasn’t too thrilled about me disturbing his resting place. Now, I have no idea how big it was. But it was pretty thick and pretty long. I’ve had my share of run ins with kind of small snakes, but this was no small snake. Luckily, I think we was just as scared of me as I was of him, and after getting his bearings, he took off the other direction towards to tree.
What was I doing? I’d love to tell of my heroic tale of bravery and bravado. But nope. I was alone on the job site, but I can tell you I shrieked like a little girl and brandished my pitch fork out in front of me hoping, NO – PRAYING – that the snake would go the other way and not towards me. It did. Pretty shaken, I got off that roof and went home for the day. I did go back to the house and up on the roof the next day and finished the task.
I’ve had a few run ins with snakes at various sites, but that one freaked me out the most.
_____________________________________
Adventure #2
It was a pretty hot day in the late summer of 2021. I had three houses of grass to cut. I started at a small patch of grass at house 1, then maybe a 40 minute drive to a pretty big yard at house 2 and then another 20 minute drive to the 3rd house of the day, the last yard I had to cut. I got to the house in Milford, DE and unloaded my push mower and trimmer and got to work.
It was hot, it was over 90 and the heat index was over 100. I started early, but it was now early afternoon and the heat was getting to me. This third house was in Milford DE and we had been working on it for about a year.
*sidenote 1 – again, it’s not as on TV, sometimes houses get done fast, sometimes not so much.
There was a porta potty in the yard for the various crews we had working on it. But guys (yes, ladies too), you understand, when it’s a heat index of 100, the last thing you want to do is use a porta potty. I trimmed around it and the rest of the things I needed to trim then I got the mower and did the rest of the yard. It didn’t take long and when I got done, I decided I couldn’t wait until I got home. I put the mower in the back of the truck with the trimmer and as I recall, finished the last bottle of water I had with me and went into the porta potty to relieve myself
*sidenote 2 – I was going to do #1, as I simply can’t do #2 in a porta potty (have your read my post about buying a boat?)
When it’s just you, in a yard, in a porta potty, you don’t necessarily lock the door when you enter. You want to spend as little time as possible inside that hotbox of stench. So I stepped inside, pulled the door shut and started the process. I hadn’t started long when a wasp landed on the inside of my glasses. OH MY GOD!!! I think I screamed like a little girl, a little girl that was scared out of her mind and started screaming at the top of her lungs. I let go of what I should have been holding while in the porta potty, grabbed my glasses and started swiping at my face. I don’t know if there were now 3 wasps or 15 wasps descending on me, but it may as well have been 100. It seemed they were everywhere. And there I was bouncing around this porta potty, and yes, still in the process of peeing, slapping all parts of my body and swatting in the air trying to not get stung. And it seems the wasps were getting pissed.
*sidenote 3 – ladies might not understand the difficulty of stopping peeing once you start.
So there I am, slapping at these little flying stinging demons sent straight from Hell, STILL peeing and I go to lean into the door trying to get away from the wasp nest I saw, that I didn’t notice when I stepped inside.
Ok – remember how I said I didn’t lock it, I just pulled it too? That was a big mistake. No, change that. That was a HUGE mistake. I leaned into the door to my left, because in the midst of my flapping and screaming like a little girl, to my right I observed the wasp nest that they had built inside the porta potty, so I figured the left was the best option. It was not.
I fell out of the porta potty, landing on my left side, but kind of right on my face. I roll around to try and get up as quickly as I can, still slapping at the flying bastards and trying to not get stung anymore.
*sidenote 4 – I did get stung, on my left upper arm, just below the shoulder. Hurt for a day or 2
The good news, is somewhere in the process of falling out of the porta potty and getting up AFTER falling out of the porta potty, I did stop peeing. The bad news is that even though I had stopped the process, I was still swatting away at things in the air and hadn’t noticed that certain parts of me were still flapping around instead of being safely tucked inside the confines of my shorts. I have no idea who might have witnessed this debacle. I have no idea if any cars were driving down the road as I stood outside the porta potty jumping around and acting like a complete lunatic, all with my Howard Johnson proudly on display. It’s not like I could stop in this moment of crises and call a “Time Out” and the wasps upon hearing me proclaim “Time Out” would have just flied idly by while I put things away. And then commence terrorizing me after. No, I’m pretty sure they would have taken complete advantage of my defenselessness and increased their attack.
Crises over, I think, and I realize I had not put things away, so I do that. I then realize just how badly my upper left arms stings. I slowly creep over to the porta potty to close the door and I get a good look at the nest on the upper wall and I see 2 wasps going about their business on their nest. I have to think, were these two of the possible 100s of the vile things that attacked me and are now back to work, or did they say to themselves, “Oh, they got this” and they just went about their business of wasp nest maintenance and/or construction and let their wasp buddies attack me.
I think by now, Lisa gets tired of the adventures I find myself in and relate to her when I get home. Who knows.
I will say, Jim Stafford had it right when he penned the words, “I don’t like spiders and snakes”.
Me neither. Me neither.
My Take on Life and Events 