My in-laws live a couple of miles away. They periodically travel and ask us to look after their house. Fine so far, they do the same for us while we are away. What makes her crazy is what she wants done:
While they are out of town, she fills 2 five gallon buckets with water, turns off the water to the house, and drains all of the water lines because she is afraid a pipe will break while she is away. I told her that this isn't a problem in Florida because we don't have to worry about pipes freezing.
Then every couple of weeks, she asks us to go over and pour the water from the buckets down the drain, because she believes if the drain pipes dry out, they will "go bad."
Her house had natural gas. She had it removed and converted her house to all electric. Why? Because she sees on the news that houses with gas blow up a lot. I pointed out that houses with electric catch fire. She doesn't care and claims gas is dangerous.
She puts mothballs next to every door and window because she doesn't want snakes entering her house when she is gone.
Nuts. Just nuts. It's easier to just do it than it is to keep arguing with her.
Don't forget you are married to half her DNA
ReplyDeleteWell, in her defense in regards to:
ReplyDeletePipes freezing in Florida. Up here in North Central Florida that is actually a thing, especially if you have a water purifier mounted on the exterior of the house. Not hard to fix, just cover it all up in old carpet and then a tarp and tie it all down. But it does happen.
'Dry' pipes - Actually, also a thing. Not uncommon for a not-used bathroom to get smelly due to the water in the traps drying out, thus allowing sewer gas to come floating up (along with... bugs, Mr. Rico, zillions of them...) Way to solve it is, yes, run water or pour water (if the water is shut off) into the drains to fill the traps. It actually is a real issue in old houses up north in Yankee-land, but is a problem down he-ah in the South, too. First rule of opening up a shut house is open doors and windows, then run the faucets in all wet rooms both to clear the water lines and to fill the traps and wash nasties down the drains.
There was a spate of bad gas connections in old homes in Florida, partially due to non-rust proof pipes being used and to just corrupt jerks. But that's been solved a long time ago. So when she leaves, does she flip the main breaker or remove the main fuse? Because that will stop electricity causing fires.
Heck, gotcha one better. My MIL used to get rid of any canned food that sat around longer than 2 months, even if the expiration date was years ahead. But she'd willingly eat home canned foods that she had no idea how long they'd been around, and ignore the fuzz on top.