Tinkering with the house for nearly two months

After renting direct with the landlord this time, it felt like I was there to help fix the house. The previous tenant probably lived a rougher life and didn’t mind when various places broke down. I can’t stand this kind of living environment, and I have to pay for all kinds of small problems to be fixed in the end. When I rented an agent’s house before, the agent was basically responsible for fixing everything as well as regular cleaning services, and the repair and cleaning fees were included in the agent’s fee. This time around, you’ll basically have to buy your own materials and find a master to repair the house.

The loss of the deposit on the previous house, the cost of labor and materials for the move, the purchase of new furniture (the new house didn’t have any), and the purchase of new appliances (which also didn’t have any) have totaled tens of thousands of dollars, and although the rent offsets a small portion of that in the coming year, the total expenses are still high, so it’s up to you to save as much as you can on all of the upcoming repairs.

Some of the problems were found at the time of signing the contract, so at that time it was the property coordinated to fix them, such as a leaking washbasin downpipe (the previous tenant cobbled together a set of bags and stainless steel pots responsible for catching the leaks), and the property coordinated the acquisition and purchase of a new one. But there are still some problems that were only discovered after signing the contract, such as the second bedroom did not have a heater, and we spent thousands of dollars at our own expense to arrange for the installation of a heater. Out of safety considerations, by the way, purchased two blank panels to find the property electrician door to re-route and block the heating outlet above the plug-in panel, the electrician’s labor costs in the end, the property is also confiscated.

After the actual move-in problems are also considered frequent, just moved in the next day to find a few windows of the invisible screen may be the cause of aging, by the bottom of the position of all the screen window frame with the edge of the state of peeling off. Checked online, basically have to repair or change the screen, the price of a single screen have to be hundreds of dollars, a few windows down no hundreds of dollars can not handle. Then bought their own screen tape, sticky kinda big, to the temporary repair, at least the mosquitoes will not come in, also does not affect the normal opening and closing of the screen.

Each window below the drainage holes, mosquitoes and insects are also easy to come in from here, so also bought some screen material running water hole stickers, not only to ensure that mosquitoes and insects can not come in, but also to ensure that the water discharged smoothly. Washing machine drain and air conditioning holes are also easy for insects to come in, also bought a sealing mud to fill.

Live a few days later, it was found that the kitchen ceiling of the plaster line as a whole off, in the Internet to check out some of the program, to deal with it on their own are quite troublesome. Later find the property, property maintenance master tossed a long time, with glass glue to stick up, by the way, together with the appropriate tools to support, to prevent falling off. Although it is very troublesome, but in the end the property is not charged.

When I moved in I noticed that a thick layer of PTFE raw material tape had been wrapped around the bathroom sink faucet and didn’t realize there was a problem. After a month of use, it started leaking all the time, and once the faucet was turned on it started spraying water out of the joints. In the past two days, I wanted to see what was going on, and when I pinched it with my hand, there was a thump, and the faucet spout snapped right off where it was wrapped around the raw material tape, and I finally realized why the previous tenant had wrapped it around him, and combined it with renewing it’s life.

Can only buy a cheapest hot and cold water from the Jingdong self-supporting faucet to replace it. Jingdong can choose the self-supporting installation service, remove the old installation of new combined labor cost 69, the faucet is only 45 yuan. The next day after the arrival, the customer service of the Jingdong self-supporting customer service said that it is still necessary to alternate one day before it may come to install. I thought I had to use it today, so I called the property first to see. Property customer service said this is paid, cold water 20, hot and cold water 40.I think anyway, cheaper than the Jingdong, let the property to install it. Property customer service said that now the master is busy, may have to wait a few minutes. I think a few minutes will not be a pretext, ready to wait a few hours, the results of hanging up the phone after less than five minutes or so property master on the door. The master tossed a moment to install, when leaving thought for a moment and said, you this is not much trouble, there is no charge. After the master left, I put off the Jingdong installation service, and save 69. but the new replacement faucet spout position is a plastic part, it is not clear whether it will be bad, but it does not matter, anyway, it is quite cheap, can be used on the line.

The floor drain in the shower was also clogged every day, and it was later discovered that the floor drain originally had four layers of filtration, and the previous tenant had removed the second layer of metal filters, resulting in all of the hair clogging up in the bottom layer of filters. Every few days, I had to remove the floor drain and pull out the bottom layer of filters to clean it, otherwise it would cause a serious problem with the water going down, which was very troublesome. Not only did I re-buy the second layer of filters, but I also replaced the top layer. The holes in the original filter piece were so big that hair basically fell in and had to be removed every time. I bought this filter sheet with small holes and just sweep the hair daily, it filters very well and doesn’t accumulate water.

In the past, when I lived in the old raggedy town, I often forgot to bring my keys, and several times I had to find a locksmith company to unlock the door, and I spent hundreds of dollars on locksmithing fees. After moving a few years ago, the agent changed to a combination lock, and there were no more similar problems. But this time and the landlord directly rented the house, with the developer’s own anti-theft locks, the lock cylinder may be aging or clogging and other reasons, especially difficult to open, lock feel is also extremely poor, every time you go out is also very worried about their own will lose the key or forget to bring the key. After being tortured for a month, I finally decided to change a smart lock.

Due to the government subsidies this year, the Jingdong self-supporting 698 yuan smart lock 553 yuan to buy. The first disassembly and installation is free of charge, the installation process is quite smooth, remove the old locks and keys are also packed up separately, if you do not live in the future may also have to be installed back to take my own smart locks. Asked the customer service of the door lock, the official subsequent migration cost is 220 yuan, including the smart lock removed and installed to the new door of the service, but there is no old lock back to the service. Asked the master lock installer, agreed to a private future at a friendly price of 100 yuan to help me install the old lock back. Forget about it, it’s not cheap to go back and forth, so let’s talk about it later, and if it’s not cost-effective in the future, just order a new one.

The design of the washbasin flap plug is also quite anti-human, once there is limescale, it will either not close tightly or poke open. I bought a pop-up core to replace it, and it feels pretty good. It comes with a strainer, which can adjust the pop-up height and drain speed, and the strainer also prevents small objects from falling into the drain. And you only need to pull out the flap plug, you can plug the pop-up core directly into it, you don’t need to change the drain, and it doesn’t leak, it’s quite convenient.

I was very concerned about the sanitary conditions endured by the previous tenants, the toilet lid seams were dirty as if they had never been cleaned. The first thing I did when I moved in was to temporarily clean it and then buy a new one and get the property owner to replace it. The shower was almost clogged, and the matching water pipe looked dirty, so I bought a shower that supports four-speed adjustment (I quite like the mist mode) and replaced the water pipe. This house comes with a better gas water heater, so I finally don’t have to put up with the poorly insulated electric water heater, which also consumes a lot of electricity. In the past, because of the electric water heater insulation problems caused electricity consumption, before the agent to replace a new one, the problem is still the same.

There is no cleaning service when the house is rented directly by the landlord. Although I did contact the cleaning aunt in the past and asked if she would accept private work, and the other party was willing to do it, I had to do the hood cleaning by myself in order to save some money. There is no brand information on the hood, only a brand name on the gas stove. I blindly guessed that the hood and gas cooker should have been matched when the landlord first renovated them, so I bought the oil filtering cotton for the hood cartridge according to the brand name of the gas cooker, and it accidentally fit perfectly.

Most people think weak boxes are ugly and like to hide them during renovation, this landlord hid the weak box directly in the closet. After testing, all the pre-built network cable ports in the other rooms were also not working (and even if they were, I don’t expect them to work well, most of them are using Category 5 cables). I had to stuff all my equipment into the closet, including UPS, optical cats, routers, switches, NAS, and various small mainframes used as servers. But in this case, heat dissipation is a big problem, although many of the devices come with cooling fans and my rear cooling fan, but the overall closet is a closed environment, the temperature inside the cabinet rose several degrees. Finally bought a anti-closing device, to keep the closet has been the state of false cover, leaving a little bit of ventilation inside and outside the cabinet. Other rooms to pull the open wire, the network cable is too thick is unlikely (I use all the day-to-day category 7 and 8 cable, and thick and hard), can only go to fiber optic. But after thinking about it is too much trouble, the signal is not good room can only go wireless Mesh program compromise.

Lately I’ve been mega hating the power hooks and nano adhesive for tiles, a dozen or so hooks left behind by the previous tenant, the hooks long gone, only the yellowed and oxidized bases left. The plastic of the base has been oxidized over the years and has become brittle, making it impossible to take down the whole thing. And the glue is extremely strong, with a variety of de-glueing agents on the market, including WD40 de-glueing agent is very difficult to work, no matter how much spray can only dissolve a little bit, and finally had to use all kinds of de-glueing shovel a little bit of shoveling, a dozen hooks shoveled a couple of days I didn’t shovel the end of the last residue of the glue to give up directly to deal with the base to shovel down on the line.