Who wired my fucking house. Give me a fucking name. I just wanna talk
Ya know those articles that went around a while back about how Millenials know less about repairs/home repairs than boomers, and its framed as a “haha these idiots can diy a bathroom rug but HIRE a roofer, how incompetent!”
Because everyone I know who has a house has at some point sat on the floor in tears because nothing is up to code and they’re a heartbeat away from losing everything in a fire and I’m like. Maybe we don’t know less, maybe we just know more and have less hubris
You are exactly right. I have some old DIY books that are REALLY casual about things like “here’s a one-page tutorial on how to knock out part of your foundation to add a cellar door!” “Here’s how to run a 100 amp subpanel yourself!” And i’m like cool! How did anyone survive the seventies!
Look, contractors are expensive for a REASON. Doing a job correctly takes skill, knowledge, and experience. Doing the job wrong can literally be deadly. It can be fun and handy to learn DIY home repair, but like … There’s definitely a limit!
…we are the children of the DIYers who didn’t burn
oh god. I hear so many stories from customers in retail, and am so glad my parents have always believed in hiring people who knew what they were doing because it would be faster and probably cost less.
As a homeowner you gotta know when a job is beyond your skills. You also need to factor in the consequences of fucking it up.
Part of it is boomers grew up with parents who were part of this giant new suburban generation and their parents had this ‘we can do anything, we won WWII!’ attitude - and new markets like Popular Mechanics drove all the DIY stuff before safety and regulations caught up. I am quite capable of doing some serious work but it does come down to - can I do it right? Can I do it better than a pro? Will it be safe/up to code? Things like the shed I built, it ain’t going anywhere but then again - no power wired to it and it is a small outbuilding. Not like tearing out a structural wall in my house. Also hitting my 50s my body disagrees on what I can accomplish too, time does equal money and skill too, so sometimes (most times) it’s better to pony up for a contractor.
My first house, when we renovated the kitchen we found out that the ENTIRE KITCHEN had been wired with ungrounded two-prong household 6′ extension cords connected together, plugged into each other and secured with electrical tape on one end, with the other end spliced into the main house wiring. The fact that the house hadn’t burned down was a goddamn miracle.
My kitchen floor is cracking because someone before me DIY installed it and they didn’t put the proper base in under the tile so they continually come loose and knock into each other/break the grout. Had a professional attempt to re-tile one section where it had gotten really bad and within a month they were loose again.
There’s a Reason “Do Your Own Electrical Work” is listed in this cheery little song:
Warning: Cartoon Gore and Death. But also. Do NONE of these things, and God Bless Australia and their idea of a Saftey PSA.
my (boomer) father built houses for a living for half his adult life, and he and my mother built every building on their property themselves (house, barn, assorted outbuildings) and the two things he always insists on hiring a contractor for are plumbing and electrical. The consequences of fucking up either of those are never worth the cost savings of attempting DIY.
daniel radcliffe calling out j.k. rowling on her bullshit is big dick energy
One thing I have not seen mentioned in light of this statement, perhaps because it’s just well known or perhaps because it’s been forgotten, is that Radcliffe has dealt with this before. About 10 years ago his friendship with a trans musician named Our Lady J became known to the tabloids. They immediately published sensational articles calling her a transvestite and a drag queen (she was not), and speculating about the nature of their relationship. He responded to insinuating questions by simply being aggressively positive about what a great musician and good friend she was. They did at least one interview together for a queer magazine. This at a time when trans people were even more marginalized than now, and when he as an actor was finishing Harry Potter and under a lot of pressure to ~manage his image~ as he transitioned to an adult career.
TL;DR - Radcliffe has a record of not just saying nice things, but supporting trans people in his life.
I lived and worked in a lighthouse at a previous job. There was a thick line painted in a circle around the shack where the fog signal was kept. The line represented how close you could get to the fog signal without experiencing physical harm in the form of eardrums shattering or worse.
Even in the house it was LOUD. Probably the loudest thing I have ever experienced but at a normal, predictable interval. You would begin to time your sentences with little pauses with the rest of the lighthouse crew so you would talk like this while making your………..HORN…………. tea and then carry on talking because you knew when it would go off. It rattled the walls and the dishes in our cabinet.
At least one girl had died there. They kept photos of her everywhere “in honor of her sacrifice” because she had decided to take the winter watch alone and died in a storm where bounders the size of mini vans had been lifted out of the ocean and left scattered across the island, to say nothing of the ice chunks. People weren’t allowed to be alone on the watch after that.
One day a dead moose washed up on shore and it took my entire crew all day but we managed to rig up a line to hang it up to dry because we thought having a moose skeleton in the house would really spice the living room up a bit. It did. Weird shit happens when six of you are left alone, like ALONE ALONE, no cell reception, no wifi, just a radio to contact the real world and not a lot of reason to do that. People don’t go on lighthouse jobs if they want to stay connected, I’ve found.
That said Id do it all again, I really do treasure those days
you know you could’ve just said “no they don’t have wifi” and that would’ve answered the question
issue: the kittens are still trying to learn words. gus knows his name and daisy knows hers, but they don’t seem to quite grasp that when I say “babies!” im referring to both of them.
hypothesis: “babies” is too similar to “daisy” and they’re getting confused
test: start saying “gamers” instead
Outcome: they’re understanding it and it’s hysterically funny
me, calling down the hall from stirring a can of cat food: LET’S GO, GAMERS
Hi, I'm Amanda. I'm in grad school for Museum Studies. Iowa born, currently living wherever I can get paid.
