Other Things

 Back in 2014 through 2016 I wrote a series of posts about “Helen’s House” which was built in 1900 by Leonard Volkenand. We turned it into a short term rental and market it through the AirBnB platform. It has been very successful being so close to the University of Dayton and we offer a unique experience because the house is not your typical Ikea furnished, grey wall, minimalistic AirBnB listing. The link is here. https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/13246834?federated_search_id=64134272-c9bd-461a-ab86-a3d0f5843328&source_impression_id=p3_1615434075_9wO3hKBYfMQIfkQ3

So if you need a place to stay while visiting Dayton, Ohio or live here, have family visiting and don’t want to tidy your place. This may be a good choice.

Back in December 2005  we bought an old farm bell. It had been sitting in my basement for 15 years. I finally put it to use last spring. I built this in the back yard.

When I rebuilt the bulk head I was smart enough to equip it for a future electric socket and line out to the yard. So there is an outdoor socket box attached to one of the legs. When we ring the bell, our friends can hear it 4 blocks (1/2 mile) away.

One of the joys of this place has been anticipating future needs years in advance. 

Other than this I got another room in the basement re plastered over winter and spent most of last year renovating my old residence that got trashed several years ago so that I can sell it this year. I will post pictures later this year of that renovation.

And .... I’m running for mayor again. 

 

The Roof (continued)

One day I will have the most famous roof in Dayton. Back in 2010 I had to write this post to counter an attack on me by the local newspaper while I was mayor of Dayton. Their article no longer exists. The journalist who wrote it took a tour around my property two weeks after it was published and called me at home to apologize for the article because he had no idea how much was involved in the project. Of course that apology was never published. Well, here it is eight years later and we now have waterfalls in my daughter's bedroom at the front of the house because the gutters are finally failing there. I have put off the roofing because our summers have been too hot or too wet the past few years but this year we have had record rainfall in March and April so I had to devise  a solution. So here is the story. The mansard style roof and box gutters were installed around 1887-1890 along with the slate shingles. I suspect that sometime in the 1930s the metal lined box gutters began to fail so the solution was to add tar paper and pitch to the rusting out box gutters. Every few years another layer of tar paper and pitch was added and at sometime plastic and tar was added. Between 1955 and 1975 the gutters were rubberized and the slate was painted silver to reflect the heat. Eventually the rubber cracked and water seeped through the tar paper, would run down the metal eaves and decorative corbels, get sucked up by the soft brick exterior until saturated and when that happened would drip through the window casings in the front rooms on the second floor. So, on what was likely the windiest day of this year I did this!

Water would no longer enter the gutter at the front of the house and pour into my daughter's bedroom which encompasses those three windows on the second floor! It has rained for several days after installing the tarp and the wind has caused holes to appear and grommets to fail but it is working.
I was able to work under the tarp and remove all of the slate on this side of the house. I was also able to reinforce any wood struts that were rotting out under the gutters, replace the entire wooden gutter floor and one strut with original 2 X 8 wood that I have AND get the new copper box gutters in place. I was also able to get the old dormer deconstructed, the roof sheathing to patch the hole in place and  two rows of tar paper on the roof without removing the tarp. Here are some  pictures of the gutters as I worked on them. Each two feet of old gutter filled a 5 gallon bucket of black debris. I also had to cut out two thirds of the original metal gutters leaving the front part intact because it connected to the ornate molding at the front of the house.

I then constructed copper gutter corners and installed 10 foot sections in place. I have to bond them together first with self tapping screws, then copper pop rivets and then solder which is difficult to apply on vertical surfaces.

Here I replace self tapping screws with copper rivets.

Here is a length of copper box gutter leading to a corner section. My old campaign sign was used to catch water dripping through a hole in the tarp and channel it into the gutter to drain during a storm.
 

This is my soldering iron. I hate to think what next months electric bill will be like!

Finally, this is what the dormer opening looked like from inside before I deconstructed it.

Tomorrow the tarp comes off and the real work begins! To be continued .......

The Debacle of the Mud Room

There is what really appears to be an enclosed porch at the back of the house. Helen used to have a clothes dryer back there and a large cupboard on castors. There is also a built in set of cabinets. I have these "before" photos.

I don't think anything major has been done with this room since the 1930s. What's more, the room has no insulation other than some blown in rock wool in the flat part of the ceiling.
Last year I got the wood walls painted flat white but the wife wanted the walls insulated. That meant removing most of the drywall that was installed in a piecemeal manner back in the day. When the drywall was removed it revealed a roof leak that was going to have to be dealt with. Now I don't know which I hate more, roofing or plumbing but I had to deal with the issue.
This roof still has the original cedar shakes under ..... wait for it ..... four layers of shingles! I don't want to have to haul sheets of 8' X 4' plywood up a ladder so I have decided to strip the roof down to the original shakes and put a metal roof over those.
For anyone who cares, on election day I won in a local contested primary to run for county commission. The next day, to celebrate, I started to tear off the roof at the back of the house!

It took two days to get the shingle off and another day to get this far. Then it rained for several days.

Those bags left over from filling the wood pellet stoves sure came in useful this year. On the rainy days I went inside and installed insulation and drywall. Then smoothed out the joints.
As of today the roof now looks like this.

Only now I have to do the next section above the attic room where we have an existing roof leak. So I just need three consecutive days without rain to remove shingles on one half of the roof and install tar paper. These are the special attachments for my boots that I had to buy just so I could stand on the metal roof.

And here is the mudroom before painting the remaining walls and door white.

I think Helen would like the improvements to her house.

Almost There!

If you recall, back in January I was stripping wallpaper from the bedroom walls and ceilings leaving the rooms looking like this.

Well, now they look like this!

We need a few more pictures hung on the walls but I am getting there. All the windows in these rooms were replaced with vinyl windows. Besides the energy savings the real reason I needed to replace them was to cut down on the noise since the house sits on a main thoroughfare and the traffic is constant. I even put an old time light in the one closet that needed it.

And to make life easier on the guests, I found these practical pulls for the ceiling fans.

I preserved the writing on the walls from 1939. The one is covered by the diagonal framed picture above the sconce light. The other will be covered by the dresser mirror after I restore the dresser top which was water damaged. The original top was faux grained plywood. I can replace with a piece of Luan board and try my hand at the faux graining or I may just paint it with a fancy pattern. So now I am in clean up mode around the entire house. Most of the things left to do are minor. Such as replace the smoke and CO2 detectors, get the doorbell to work, buy linens for the beds and get a TV for downstairs.Hopefully within two months we can promote "Helen's House" as a unique Air BnB experience. A step back to a simpler time.

Bad City Services Rant 2

Here is my second rant about the City of Dayton's Building Services Division and their total lack of professionalism and their inability to communicate effectively with their customers. On June 10th I received the following document from the city with the attached photographs. This is for a rental property that I own that is occupied by a widow and her three children. She was widowed a little over a year ago.

 The picture shows the front of the house and the area between the house and the adjacent vacant house. Within two days I was over there ripping the ivy off the walls and pulling up weeds. I took the brush to the City landfill site and went home. Then a month later I get the following bill from the City. Ignore the wife's handwriting and see if you can determine what it is for ...

It clearly states the due date for me to pay the City $75 for an unknown previous balance is August 15th but then around the 1st of August I get the following.

A court order. The reverse states that I can pay a fine and avoid the court. You can see that they sent 12 pictures to the judge but I only get to view one of them and it is from the back alley. I can't read the handwriting very well but nothing about the back of the property was indicated in the June notice. I went over to the house and cleaned up the mess. My tenant had not cut the grass since her husband died. For one month this winter the City trash collection did not empty her trash which may have been retaliation against me for this post. 
So she had placed her garbage along the garden path and animals got to it. Anyway, I cleaned it up and placed a pile of brush on what used to be raised beds in the back yard. I stacked some cut wood at the back of the property and attempted to exercise my abatement option. I called to find the status of that option on the morning of August 5th and again on August 10th. They left a message for me to call them back at 4:50 PM on August 11th. The court case being the next day. When I called in the AM nobody answered the phone. Here is what you will find at the Clerk of Courts site. I was being charged with a criminal misdemeanor and you can see the fine amount posted so before the arraignment I am presumed guilty. I haven't seen evidence of what I am accused of either.

So I go to court and there are many people there accused of similar things. Eventually I get called to go to a back room with a City employee from the housing inspection department. He presents me with four pictures. None of these are the original 12 taken in July that they sent to the judge. The evidence has changed and the crime that I am accused of has changed and they want me to go in front of a judge! Let me please ....

The above picture shows the same area of the back alley as the one in the court order after the grass was cut.

So I made it very clear that I was willing to go to trial since it was now part of the public record that I have been charged with a criminal misdemeanor and that public record will NEVER go away. The crime that I was charged with is not what these photos present and there was never any mention of any issue with the back yard with the original warning in June. Had there been any indication of such then it would have been taken care of. I presented all the above papers and stated that the communication was lousy and the whole process very unprofessional. I also presented a lease and all of a sudden the demeanor changed. The case was withdrawn, I was free to go.

So it appears that Dayton Housing Inspectors have the power to accuse you of a crime and change the evidence for their case to either force you to compliance or get you fined as circumstances change to meet their objectives. The way I see it, if the inspector didn't like my clean up job she should have sent me another warning with photos instead of wasting my time to appear at an arraignment. I planned to meet with the new city manager about this process and had a few ideas on how to improve communication by creating a checklist type of form (that the city already uses with it's "Dayton is Yours" citizen inspection program) so the inspector can check boxes like Front, Side, Back. Weeds, paint, gutters and I don't have to second guess where the problems are. However he left this week after just 9 months on the job without a new position to go to and the commission approved a severance package so his resignation is a little suspect. I know the interim city manager won't bother with improving customer service because she was disrespectful to me a few times when I was mayor and now I am simply Joe Citizen she could care even less. However, Joe Citizen has a voice and I choose to tell the story here so everyone can see it who searches.

Bad City Services Rant 1

I'm not one to complain. I am pretty tolerant of most things but the time has come to expose the City of Dayton's Building Inspection Department for their total lack of professionalism and their disrespect for the citizens of this city that contribute to their salaries. I have two stories to tell. This one happened today and is absolutely pathetic.

Helen's House had no water pressure. The problem was the service line BEFORE the water meter in the house. After all it was installed around 100 years go. In the old days this was the City's responsibility to fix but they changed codes years ago making the line under your property YOUR responsibility. I bring this up because it is what most people would complain about. My story has nothing to do with this issue. I accept responsibility for what is mine. So, we hired a local plumber. John's Plumbing Service a minority owned small business here in Dayton to replace the line. He has done an excellent job by the way. Here is what the yard looked like yesterday.

Now this is not an inexpensive job. The total bill is over $2500 and included in that are permit fees to the City for an inspection of the service line and the placement of the external water meter.
Today the inspector showed up. Now he could of pulled up on the adjacent vacant lot off of the main road like the contractor and the gentleman from the water department did who had to sever an old lead pipe off of the shut off valve. He could have pulled up next to the garage at the alley in this open space and walked to the front of the house.

What did he actually do? A picture paints a thousand words and mine were not so pretty. I just bit my tongue, waved at the inspector and started taking photographs of all the damage.
He drove across my garden! Just follow the tire tracks .....

First hitting the raspberry bushes I planted this year.

Then across my fall crop of arugula.

Next he crushed a row of carrots.

Then hit the Brussel sprouts and red cabbage.

And finally a row of onions.

Obviously doing his job as lazily as possible is more important than the work I put in to maintaining my properties and trying my hand at the urban agricultural thing that the mayor thinks is the best thing since sliced bread. This is not acceptable in so many ways. First it is unprofessional. It is also disrespectful of my property. If I did this to someones yard I would be charged with vandalism. I paid for this service with my permit fees. The city leaders boast about how they are working to improve customer service. Well I will tell you where it starts. By treating people and their property with respect. If this guy worked for me I would fire him on the spot. He disrespected a customer while performing his job. If this guy was one of the contractors employees I would expect him to be sent home or have his pay docked to compensate the customer. In Dayton though, since he works for the City, he will probably get promoted.