Would our renovations be done in time for Pesach?
My husband and I have a lot in common — neither of us are given to quick and impulsive choices. By this I mean… we never make decisions. So, here we are, 12 months from our post-Tishah B’Av indoor mabul, and our basement still looks like an inadequate bomb shelter. The restoration company swooped in after the unfortunate flood 11 months ago, ripped out our pristine carpets, and cut away the bottom foot of our Early American Disaster Era wall paneling. The new look reveals scores of dead cave crickets (half frog, half spider, total nightmare material) as well as the skeleton of a small dinosaur. Or possibly a mouse.
I reach out to contractors. I call. I text. I call again. A few call back, explaining that they only accept jobs expensive enough to impoverish the homeowner. Silly me thinks, Well, that disqualifies us. Our job is a simple, cheap one. A few contractors come view the desolation and promise to call back with a quote, never to be heard from again. I file missing persons reports and promise money to Rabi Meir Baal Haneis. They still don’t turn up. We’re kind of getting used to the look: I call it Post-Modern Zecher L’Churban.
We have mold in our family room. It’s in the ceiling and also on the paneling. Seems that if you have a leak in your house, even if it drips only once a year and only during a big storm, it’s advisable to get it fixed. Hindsight is 20/20. Now we have a giant hole in our ceiling, a stretch of bare, unpaneled wall, and a hollowed-out beam across our kitchen supporting our upstairs bathroom. I step lightly when taking a shower upstairs. For obvious reasons.
I should start sorting through the junk in the basement; I just don’t feel like it. Once we find a contractor, I’ll start working on it. I know it’ll take months for the renovations to actually begin, so I figure that once we sign with someone there will be plenty of time to start the painful process of throwing out gameboards bereft of their matching pieces, cartons of staples that fit a stapler I no longer own, and calendars from the years between Noach and Avraham Avinu. I can make a bag of giveaways and try to find them a new home. (Free! Rabbit jacket! Lovely! Smells strongly of carrots!) Whatever I decide to keep can be cleaned for Pesach and packed away in the garage. That way, when the renovations are done, we’ll have a pristine, spanking new, chometz-free basement!!
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