Electric

Well, the place is marginally more livable now. The cleaning crew was able to come in yesterday and get the kitchen and bedroom cleaned before the breaker blew. Mark is going to have to add rewiring to his budget. This old knob and tube is a fire hazard. I probably shouldn't even be living in the house until it all gets rewired, but I already have my bed set up and the wooden frame of the futon weighs a ton. I flipped the breaker back on, but I doubt the cleaners are going to be able to do the heavy cleaning all the other rooms are going to need until the electrical system is up to code. I can almost feel the throb of electricity through the walls whenever I go to flip a switch.
I tried running the microwave this morning but the lights in the kitchen kept flickering. My sausage muffin was still nearly frozen even after two minutes so I gave it up and threw it in the trash. The muffins at the gas station were bigger and probably better than the microwave crap anyway.
We're going to have to take the cleaning one room at a time. There’s no way the cleaners are going to be able to come in on a large scale and scrub with the electricity acting all wonky. I'm just going to have to go get a ton of air fresheners and drop them in every room until we can find the source of the smell. I waited until today to really go through the house and see what I was up against. I couldn't even explore the basement fully. My flashlight died halfway through the inspection and the basement is just too dark. Just about every light bulb in the house is blown out. I think the only ones that work are in the kitchen and bathroom. I had to grope my way to the bathroom by the light of my cell phone in the middle of the night and even then I was halfway through doing my business when the battery died and I had to stumble my way back to the broom. My toe still throbs from where I stubbed it on the door jam.
I need to hit the supermarket today. Mark gave me some cash so I could get supplies for the house, but with all the cleaning I'm going to blow through it pretty fast. If I have to get lightbulb so for every room I'm going to need to hit the dollar store. Maybe they'll have those little night lights with the smell good stuff, too.
I swear the electricity in this house doesn't stay in the wires. When I walk into some rooms I can feel the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stand on end. I need to check the HVAC system too. There are some real cold spots in the house. I swear walking across the landing on the stairs is like walking through a block of ice. The bathroom can't decide if it's hot or cold. Every time I go in there it's a different temperature.
There's so much work to do in the basement I think I'm just going to lock the door at the landing and wait until Mark decides how he wants to handle it. Theres nothing down there but storage and a barely functional toilet anyway. Literally, there's a toilet sitting in the middle of the basement, no walls or doors, just a toilet against the far wall next to the washer and dryer. I'm not going to do laundry down there anyway. Mom wants me to come mow the lawn at her place every week. I'll just bring my laundry over there. I don't need the circuit cutting out mid-spin cycle. Pulling soaking clothes out of a clunker of a washer is never fun.
Top of the list: get and electrician in to change out the knob and tube wiring. Mark’s guy could probably get it done in about three days. Four bedroom two and a half bath. They might push it out for five days, but I'll just drop in a generator for the time being. End of February doesn't get too cold. I think I'll be able to live with space heaters. I think I'll give up on the cleaning for now. It’ll just get messy again when they tear into the walls.
I wish I could find a flashlight that works. I thought I had put fresh batteries in both of mine, but I guess they had been left on when I dumped them in my tool box. The one I found in the kitchen is useless. The bulb is shattered and the batteries have leaked into the base. Too bad, it looked like a pretty good light.
I don't even dare plug in my TV. 62 inches of useless. I can't get the surge protector to work. It keeps cutting out and I'm not going to risk frying my electronics in this place. My laptop has a good charge on it and I'll just plug it and my phone in at the library while I work. Maybe I'll get a generator in here anyway. I need to keep my phone charged so I can call Mark and I really miss having free access to my laptop.  Not that it'll do much good. I can't get internet until I get electricity. I'm not going to burn fuel just so I can surf the web. The library’s good enough for me.
Time to hit the store. Maybe Wally’s World will have some cheap light bulbs and flashlights. I'm going to need something with a longer life than whatever I can find at the dollar store. I need to find a new lock for the back door too. It keeps popping open in the middle of the night. Where’s my phone charger? The store and then the library. I'm going to put a chair under the knob of the back door. The neighborhood kids don't spend too much time trying to break in but I think I saw a cat skulking about the back yard. Some battery operated motion sensors might help keep them away. This list is getting too long. I'm only going to be here another 29 days.