The Family Portrait

Seen through the eyes of a six year old!



That thing above Deborah's head is the ceiling fan in case you wondered.
I noticed that my lips are so much fuller than ever before and I have my old waistline back!

The Price of Gas!

We just got our gas bill from Vectren yesterday. We used to pay just $3.50 several years ago as a service charge each month but that was increased to $7.34 about two years ago. Now, realize that we use NO gas at the "Old Crack House" or so little that we got billed for one ccf last year and that was for cumulative use of the tankless water heater. Now the fee has increased to $13.47 a month with an added volume charge based on usage. Next year it will go up to $18.37 with no volumetric charge. That means we are paying 83% more for a product that we aren't using. I don't understand it. The world markets are plummeting, we have another 100 plus years supply of natural gas and the cost of that has decreased about 30% since last summer. So, how can it cost 83% more to get it to my house when it has been coming in since the 1890s and I have gas lines in my floor to prove it!

Overdue Update

Here is an overdue update of what has been happening here.

1) House update; very little to report. I have done little to nothing for the last two months due to item 3) below. I am trying to get the place cleaned up and all the clutter put away because we plan to move in very soon!

2) Kid update; Elizabeth turned six last week and is more excited at the fact that she has a loose tooth than the fact that she has almost completed her kindergarten course for the year. Of course the completion of school work only guarantees that she will proceed to first grade material before entering first grade. The losing of baby teeth means she has to be more vigilant with her brushing!
She didn't want to go ice skating this winter either ......

3) The Dayton Mayor update; If you don't live in Dayton or check my link periodically at the right side of the page that says "DaytonMayor" then you have no idea what has happened in the last few weeks. Five people submitted petitions to run for mayor. Only two qualified. The incumbent and myself. Since then two of the people that did not acquire enough valid signatures from registered voters residing in the city have filed protests with the board of elections. The board of elections has rejected their protests since they have little legal claim but if their claims were valid I would have been running unopposed! I am running as an independent candidate but have managed to attract the favor of the Republican Party which is going to help me out tremendously in the days ahead. Fortunately there will be no primary election since we only have two candidates. This means that I didn't get swept up into a whirlwind of chaos preparing to be on a May ballot. Hopefully this also means that I can get some work done on the house!
This will be an interesting year. I hope I can keep up!

Today I ....

did something I haven't been able to do in a while. I worked on the house! I have to get the place cleaned up for several reasons. I will elaborate more in the very near future! In the meantime I am starting to get the third floor cleaned up a bit. We have lots of walnut shells littered all over the floor up there. Me thinks we have a squatter .....

The Cost to Build in 1965

I went to visit my father in Cleveland a few weeks ago and he wanted me to go through a stack of old papers. Most of the papers got shredded but I saved an old folder pertaining to a house that my parents built in 1965. I remember the house vaguely. I remember visiting the site once while it was under construction and I remember a little bit of the time we lived there even though it was for about two years. My grandfather gave my parents the lot since it was next door to them. My brother and I used to run over to their house on Saturday mornings so that we could watch the cartoons on TV in color since they had a color TV while we still had black and white. Everything my parents paid is documented in this folder. It is quite interesting to someone like myself. The house was a brick veneer modern ranch style 40' X 24' single story house with a basement and integral garage. The model was called "The Christopher".

My parents took out a mortgage for $12,500 AT 5 1/2% interest. Their mortgage payment was $80.00 a month. My father made $613.00 a month as an industrial engineer. The basic shell cost $7618.00 and labor cost to build was $775.00.

The entire cost to plumb and sewer was $335.00. Wiring was $140.00. Heating was $108.00. Plastering cost $520.00. The garage door cost $90.00.

The total cost on the construction loan sheet was $13,258.75. I believe the place was completed within 6 months.

I think we have spent way more than this. My labor cost is nothing and we still aren't done yet! My dad told me he once ran for the school board so it would seem we have more in common than one would have thought!

Dayton Home and Garden Show

The Dayton Home and Garden Show is next weekend, February 27 - March 1 at the Dayton Convention Center. So all you folks from the Dayton Region need to go out to this and get lots of ideas for your own renovations. All I can ask is that when you use a contractor to do the work, make sure it is a local one. We need to protect jobs in our region.

Check out this site while you are at it Improve Your Home and Garden they are part of the promotion team and have some interesting articles on their site.

Our 4th Break In.

We have experienced yet another break in. I don't understand why some people risk their lives to acquire nothing. This makes number four since we bought the place. The only time anything was actually stolen was when some idiot took my chainsaw and hid it by my old van so they could come and collect it later when mommy and daddy weren't going to be home to smell the gasoline fumes it emits because it leaks! I recovered the chainsaw so they achieved nothing and left me with two broken window panes.
This break in is totally weird. Someone made the effort to climb our fire escape at the back of the house. The first flight of steps has been removed to discourage such activity. Once at the top they busted out two pieces of plexi-glass that I use to stop raccoons from accessing the box gutter and getting on my roof so that they can climb down my chimney. Then they climbed out onto the box gutter and hopped up on the top of the fire escape and then on top of the roof where they managed to heave the cover of the access hole off. This would require some force. Once opened they would have found a ladder leading some 13 feet down to the floor. There is no evidence that they entered the building. All I can think is that someone who used to live here when the place was apartments my have been under the illusion that they would drop 6 feet into an attic and another 7 feet onto the third floor where they could rob the apartment. Well, if they come back they are in for a shock. The door hatch is secured better and the ladder has been removed.
I think they did this to celebrate Charles Darwin's 200th birthday since it happened last Thursday. It is a pity they didn't fall off my roof so that they could qualify for a Darwin award.

You Know What Today Is?

Cat Love Ground Hog GIFfrom Cat Love GIFs

If you want to know my Groundhog Day joke you will have to read this old post!

Dayton Housing

Property values in Dayton are our best kept secret. I posted about this before a couple of years ago. The real estate bubble bursting did not affect our values tremendously but has caused a surplus in vacant housing. We have another wave of foreclosures coming. Adjustable rate mortgages that are going to reset at a higher interest rate in the next two years. Then there are all those "interest only" loans that are going to affect the owners of the mcmansions in the suburbs. I would urge anyone to refinance if possible and lock in at a fixed rate and would always recommend 15 years over 30 years. If you have at least 20% equity in your house then a home equity loan used to pay off the first lien holder could save you thousands $$$ in refinancing fees and reduce the term left on a 30 year loan to 20 years.

I'm telling this to the world now and I will continue to over the next few years because we are poised to recover faster than many other parts of the country if people know about our low property values. You can buy decent houses here for less than $40,000. Old houses, big houses, fine houses. Why so cheap? Besides the fact that there are so many empty houses in the area, they are stripped of copper and heating systems in many cases. To fix them up yourself may cost as little as a few thousand $$$. To pay someone may cost $20,000. Not bad for a fixer upper. Most are in solid shape. Here is the real news though. In two years when the banks start loaning mortgage money they are going to go back to the old rules. That means 10% to 20% down on a house. It is going to be easier to save 20% for a house valued at $80,000 or less than for one that is $200,000. What about jobs? We need more well paying jobs here because we have lost many manufacturing positions (just like every where else) but if you ever had the inclination to start your own business, this is certainly the place to be. We have affordable housing and a cost of living that is below the national average. We are located almost equidistant between Indianapolis, Columbus and Cincinnati. If you own a home in New York City then you could sell it and retire here in a much bigger house!

Follow up to "The Crap In My Back Yard"

Last April I posted about the "Crap in Our Back Yard." In this post I complained about how our county sells tax liens on piece of sh*t properties that the lien holders don't have a hope in hell of collecting on. Well, in the last 9 months since writing the post the city and county were supposedly working together to identify properties like these so that they could prevent liens from being sold so that people could acquire the property through another program offered by our city. In the same 9 months one of the houses has had SUR 13 sprayed on it (which I'm guessing isn't good) and both properties have had significant reductions in property value while ours went up 43%. In the same 9 months two adjoining properties to ours have become vacated bringing the total number of vacant structures in the immediate vicinity to ours to 7 out of 18. In the same 9 months I mentioned these properties to city directors, a commissioner and if you recall from my April post, the mayor, who acknowledged my concern about such properties several times during the same nine months. I was told at least twice from different sources, that these properties were on the nuisance list and scheduled to be demolished. I reviewed that list on line last week and these properties were not listed at all. In fact, one is listed as having 3 code violations while the other has 6 code violations. I checked the online tax records this evening and noticed that the 2007 liens were sold. This means that these will sit ANOTHER 2 YEARS before I can attempt to acquire them in any way that is affordable because the total owed in liens for both properties is about $15,000 now. I have no way of knowing because the taxes are no longer delinquent. Way to go!

One other thing, 9 Months ago in my post I threatened to run for mayor and now I'm going through the process of making that a reality. So at least one person is willing to do something to improve the situation. Just like the old saying, "If you want a job done properly, do it yourself." I wish I could just go down to the courts and file a civil suit against the property owner for contributing to the demise in property values but the county auditor isn't co-operating with us!