Warm, moist, maybe wet. Yesterday started dreary but ended with some sun. It was moist all day though. Today might be a bit less dreary if the national forecast is correct, but it’ll probably still be moist. 85F in the afternoon? Yeah, probably again.

Did finally get to my rent house yesterday to assess the situation. The garage door wasn’t opening because the torsion bar springs had broken. Both of them. That’s a pro level repair. So I have that to find a guy and get fixed. Two trees need to come down, but they are small and I can do it with a pole saw. The porch has some rotting boards that I’ll cut out and replace. I might blow out the gutters, or not. Depends on how I feel.

And the garbage disposal will be top of the list for replacement. I bought a 1/2 hp model to replace the 5/8 hp dead one. There was $150 upcharge for the extra 1/8 hp. Not in a rent house. The previous insinkerator lasted 12-17 years so I went with the same model. I’m sure it won’t last as long. Enshittification.

The LED flood light for the driveway probably won’t last the 20+ years the existing incandescent one lasted either. I’m replacing it because it’s 300w, and the clear part is yellow and almost opaque, where it’s still there. It still lights up when something moves in front of it, just not well, and it looks pretty bad. Might as well fix it on this round of repairs.

Rental property only makes money if you can collect the rent, and control the costs. Fixing stuff helps with the ‘collect the rent’ part. Doing most of the work myself helps with the ‘control the costs’.

So I’ll be working on that today, as well as my normal list. And getting a new battery for the Ranger. Costco didn’t have any at my local store, so I’ll start my day driving to another store for the pickup. 1 1/2 years for this battery. I asked the guy behind the counter if it was my imagination that the ‘new’ interstate batteries weren’t as good as they old ones. He said “nothing’s as good as it used to be.” That’s the death knell for Western technologically based society.

Stack. Skill up. Tribe up.

nick