The whole saga started when we were having a new mini-split air conditioning unit installed at our house. At the same time my daughter told me she was hearing scratching noises in the ceiling above her bedroom at night. I knew there were rats outside the house because I had two bird feeders and I had watched them visit the feeders, eat, and run around for months. It didn’t bother me that there were rats in the yard because I had nesting owls last year and I figured that they would clean them out. Boy was I wrong.
Chris, my a/c contractor, warned me about them getting into the house. When I told him what my daughter had reported to me, he pulled open and re-sealed around the main a/c unit to be sure that they weren’t getting in around that machine. However, a chain of events had begun. More noises were heard, and not just above my daughter’s room. My husband began to look for holes around the house.
That simple act (“I’m going to look for holes where a rat could be getting in…”) revealed years of missed upkeep, secret wood rot and small areas of neglect on our home. In an all-out search effort to cut off any access to the inside, we found areas of dry rot, trim boards that needed to be replaced, plants growing where they shouldn’t and a roof that had gotten old without us paying attention. Rats had figured out a way into our attic, likely through the roof vent which had loosened and pulled up, just a little, after going through several hurricanes and a couple tropical storms.
The noises led to an exterminator being hired. He did his own search for access points, blocked some potential holes, and began the trapping. ($) Meanwhile, my husband had begun to pull off rotten trim, patch that up and paint everything. ($$) Worse, our deck, which we had avoided replacing for years, also had to be demolished since there was a distinct possibility that the little bastards were getting in at some point under the deck where it met the house. More money. The siding-and-trim project turned into a deck demo-and-replace project. Also, the sliding door leading out to the deck was as old as dirt, so of course it had to be replaced too. ($$$)
But the real trouble came that day I caught my husband staring at our roof. Pondering. Brooding. “We need a new roof” he flatly declared. “It’s time.” My mind, busily calculating in the wake of everything else that was still, STILL, in progress, went into overdrive. Cha-ching! Cha-ching! Cha-ching!! Next thing you know, we were collecting bids for a new metal roof. ($$$$)
Two months later, we still have three out of four open projects. My husband jokingly called it the $29,000 rat. I think that price tag is light by several thousand dollars. The deck can’t be finished until the roof is done. Ditto the trim (facia boards). At least Project 1, the rat issue, has been taken care of.
That $29,000 rat taught me an important lesson as a homeowner. Ignore your home, your primary investment, at your peril. Now, I’ll admit there is no saving an old roof. However, there are steps you can take as a homeowner that will minimize or prevent major repairs, merely by being vigilant. Keep eyes on your house. Walk around it. Look at it, while sipping your morning coffee. Is the trim rotting? Are you in an area of South Florida that gets really wet during the summer? If so, you need to be hyper-vigilant about wood rot. Do things like keeping bushes trimmed off the side of the house. If you have wood trim, especially if there is wood siding, you have to keep that wood painted and sealed.
If you live near the ocean or one of our rivers or canals where the climate is more dry but there is salt in the air (lovely salty air) you have a whole different set of issues to deal with. Here, it doesn’t matter if you are in a condo, a townhouse or a home. Salt air will eat up building components. Most HVAC units have a life of 15 years in South Florida. Living on or near the ocean, river or Intracoastal Waterway where the air is salty will shave years of life off your a/c unit, simply due to rust and corrosion.
You can easily keep tabs on your property without needing to be an “expert”. Walk around…Look! Just by saying ‘hey, this fence is getting rotten, this a/c unit is dirty or rusty, the insulation is falling off these pipes, my gutter has plants growing out of it, I’m missing shingles off the edge of my roof, this window has weather stripping that is cracked and decaying,’ etc., you can act to repair and maintain ahead of a really big repair project. It’s what keeps the little snowball from turning into a big, huge, multi-project, mountainous snowball. I’m not saying that you can avoid replacing a roof. Every building component has a life. However, proper maintenance and attention will ensure that you get the whole length of useful life from your home’s components. Roofs can be washed. Siding can be painted. CBS homes can be pressure-washed. HVAC units can, and should, be cleaned and maintained. Bushes should be trimmed off the house or townhouse. Gutters can be regularly cleaned.
I could go on, but I won’t. Take care of your investment. Avoid that $29,000 rat!