Zero Knievel

Yikes. Double yikes. Triple yikes. Quadruple yikes. Phil, I see a common potential issue…damaged wiring. I know working on my mom’s Highlander, the knuckle dropped off the jack supporting it and damaged the sensor wire. Looked okay, but I got a light. Replace the sensor (thankfully not hard wired to the harness) and all was well. Maybe the same happened to you when working in your wheels or suspension. You’d have to research how your TPMS system works, but some work by sensing the wheel rotation and calculate if there’s low PSI. Others use a sensor in the wheel itself…with a battery that eventually fails. With the latter, you either need replacement TPMS sensors or change the batteries (if they are designed with replaceable batteries). Your check engine light is your own doing. Replace the cat with an aftermarket one but NOT do the “fix” so it doesn’t flag an error in the system?

The introvert in me approves.

Well, I’d expect an RV rental place to be stocked with the standard models…not ones kitted for special needs which likely cost more to obtain.

Don’t go giving me any ideas. 😂

Yeah, but that means a 40+ minute drive to the nearest one available. Doable, but less desirable.

LOL 🤣 Out of curiosity, looked to see what Vrbo happens to have. There are two houses NOT EVEN 1/2 MILE DOWN THE ROAD from my house available for rent at quite reasonable rates.

Sorry for the long read…this is mostly for my own sanity. Mom’s got this idea in her head. For background, my sister decided to sell her home and move to Savanah. It’s moving forward. The issue is that if family comes to our house on holidays and need overnight accommodation, we can manage an extra man and woman in the two bedrooms we have. Anyone else has to sleep on the couch or futon mattress I brought back from Las Vegas. This has worked when my sister, niece and nephew (and their dogs) have visited for the holidays. Nephew is now engaged to a woman who already has a teenage son. Mom sees no way to accommodate them all under our roof with what we have. She’s wanting to finish what my dad conceived when building the house. The sewage plumbing for a third full bathroom was put in on the basement side when pouring the basement floor. We just never got around to finishing the basement with a guest bedroom/bath. We can’t add a room to the house for two main reasons…(1) Virginia assesses property tax chiefly by the square footage of the roof…we can add stuff under a roof without it necessarily raising taxes, and (2) it’s a brick outside wall with no place to add a room that wouldn’t intrude on an existing room or require relocation of power, phone and gas lines (never mind AC and backup generator)…we never planned on expanding the house above ground. To make a guest bedroom and bath in the basement (using about 1/3 of the existing square footage), we need to do the following: Have the cinder block walls treated and sealed so moisture/mold can never pose an issue trapped behind regular walls and drywall (at least on the basement side). Have new circuits laid out for a bedroom and bath. Dad put everything downstairs on one 15A circuit…which has worked so far, but the garage and basement should have been on separate circuits from day one…we also need extra power outlets. We do have 3 blank spots on our breaker box to add circuits. Have plumbing reworked. Dad used cutoff valves that are crap (early gen PVC needle valves that don’t really work when closed). I would want ALL cutoff valves (I think there are 6 total) replaced with new, better ones and all located in the same spot so if we close in the ceiling, they are all accessible at one point. Have the perimeter of at least the basement side insulated from floor joist to ground level and closed in to improve heating cooling…worth doing if we just install a drop ceiling. Have HVAC extend/rework the ONE AC/heat line on the basement side to provide vents to what would be the bedroom, bath, and remaining basement area. Then, we could have a contractor build a finished bedroom and bath. In a way, it would be easier to buy a prefab cottage and install it elsewhere on the property, it would possibly be cheaper…but we’d have to run power, water and septic to it. I debate renting an RV for the few times we’d need it, but…to be blunt…my niece, nephew, his fiancée and her son are all morbidly obese, and RVs don’t seem designed with the morbidly obese in mind. I’d certainly not expect it from a rental. And yes, it would probably be both cheaper and easier to fork out to rent a room in town…even on our dime…even at holiday rates…than to do all of this. For me, this is the most attractive option. I don’t think we will use a guest bedroom enough to ever justify the cost and work involved. Although I’m not opposed to finishing the basement as it should have been done 20-30 years ago, it’s not something that will happen overnight, and it will likely be best to do this in stages as we need proper professionals for each step. Simply put, if I’m not going to use it regularly, it seems a lot to do for the 2-3 times a year it might pose an issue. This brings up money. Mom is retired and too old to go back to work. Interest rates may not be favorable on a home improvement loan right now. Mom’s half of the cost will have to come from her retirement savings. I’m too young to take out my savings, so any cost has to be budgeted on my paycheck. Yeah, I might be able to borrow against my retirement savings, but at best I’d get a lower interest rate…I still have to budget repaying what’s borrowed. If anyone has had to juggle these options, what did you choose to do?

Didn't fit in your sex dungeon?

That should not be necessary as it's been replaced already. Just do a thorough inspection.

Full strength or dilution ratio?

I have spots of moss growing on black asphalt on the driveway. They are not accessible by a garden hose, so nothing that requires a spray application via garden hose will work. I don't mind multiple applications over time. Last time I dealt with a mold patch issue, I just sprinkled some chemical on it and let it do the job, but that was years ago. It needs to be pet safe because I'm not looking to poison local wildlife if it licks the spot after the product dries. This is the only product I've seen that meets these requirements. I'm open to home remedies as well. https://www.amazon.com/Safer-Brand-5325-6-SafeSafer-32Ounces/dp/B001ACTG48?keywords=Safer+Brand+5325-6&qid=1636919709&qsid=143-2228195-2271255&sr=8-1&sres=B001ACTG48%2CB007CRG4CW%2CB00HXQT2E4%2CB000BQL8UY%2CB01D60GAW2%2CB000OV8OTY%2CB00314DYNW%2CB07ZJRMTLX%2CB07M7DYYC7%2CB002ITKYRK%2CB000HJ7AIY%2CB084ZMMVQS%2CB07QTDCNNR%2CB01LYXXTZF%2CB07NLJNSPG%2CB001JP7G3Y%2CB07MJC6QQY%2CB0758PQX5K%2CB079MV11S3%2CB07XLL463B&linkCode=ll1&tag=besthomefixer-20&linkId=9fec6034ab1517f780c3aa6ac7c86100&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl

Winter maintenance 2016…approximately 95,300 miles.

Thanks to my scanning receipts for future reference (suck it SwampNut), I located a parts list for when I replaced the thermostat and went to the waterless coolant. I don’t think any of these are hoses, and if in doubt, I would have replaced them at that time. I don’t see any reference to replacing the hoses ever, and the bike was always garage kept. You might want to Google the part numbers to be sure, though.

They introduced the feature so air bags wouldn’t deploy unless someone was in the seat due to the expense in repairing them. My ‘98 Mazda has an on/off switch for the passenger airbag. I suppose they went to a pressure switch so the driver didn’t have to remember to turn it back on.

Sorry. Should have included the so you’d know I was being sarcastic.

No problem. I doubt what’s in the Big Mac qualifies as “meat.”

The seat belt does over 90% of the work. Don’t sweat it.

Any reason you don’t use blue thread locker? Did the manual give a value for it?

Sounds like they failed because they were junk and the manufacturer couldn’t fix the issue, so they wouldn’t sell.

Almost got it all done. My bifocal tinted came back. It's dark enough to do the job. Brought in my motorcycle glasses and computer glasses to have the lenses replaced with the new Rx. They were ready today. They have to redo one of the lenses on the motorcycle glasses because it's slightly blurry. It turns out one of the lenses is 3/100 off alignment. Most people don't notice anything less than 5/100. I'll have to remember to bring my clear bifocals when they come back because it was only when comparing them in the office that I noticed the motorcycle lenses were off. At the store, I didn't notice the issue.

And yet, rather than give me your experience, you just dogpiled like everyone else.

1. I'd not try to start a business via a THIRD mortgage when I have one house I'm trying to sell (under a mortgage) and a current house also under a mortgage. 2. I'd not start a business based on 30-year-old market data and ignore current data that says it won't work. 3. I'd not give a total stranger an open power of attorney to "fix" my economic mess then be surprised when the guy takes several loans in my name and skips town. 4. I'd not buy property in a flood zone. I'd not take the property with a derelict mobile home still on the property because I think I can "salvage" parts from it. 5. I'd take care of my vehicles so I'm not having to replace my car every few years because I don't keep up the maintenance. I could list others, but most of us would learn to stop fucking up by this point. I love her, but she doesn't own her mistakes...so she keeps repeating them.

Never mind. My niece talked sense into her, and now she'll just sell the house and property.

You guys don’t have to be assholes about it. My sister lost her “dream home,” her savings, and her husband because she consistently makes bad decisions without doing her due diligence. She’s not living in a “house.” She and her late husband had to buy a flood salvaged double wide installed on a piece of land on a flood plain (hey, the last owner had something there so it must be a good spot). I can only wonder how much $$$ she and her husband would have had if they simply saved their money and focused on paying off their “dream home” instead of running after pipe dream ambitions without regard to the risks. IF it works as advertised (my issue)…yeah, she could make a decent income stream and not have the headache of being a landlord. I want to know what she’s getting into because I can’t trust her to tell me the objective truth. She frequently researches until she gets the answer she wants and stops. I know the management company is going to have the contract written to their benefit, not hers. I know the management company is going to want to be paid every month…regardless of actual income from the property. My nephew wants the land so someday he can move back to Sevierville. Well, I say “fuck that.” It’s not his land until his mom passes, and he would be smart to pick a better piece of land that at least isn’t in a flood plain. It would be less of a headache to sell the property and invest the money. Whenever something sounds too good to be true, it normally is…and my sister is looking for a quick and easy fix rather than the best solution to the problem.

My sister, in my honest opinion, is about to fuck up big time. She wants to move to Charlotte and rent out her Sevierville home. Frankly, she’d be better off selling it, but her son wants it someday because he likes living in the mountains. Thing is, as I understand it, for a rental property to be profitable, you need to do much of the work yourself or at least have a list of people who can do good work on the cheap. Yeah, a rental management company can handle this for you, but I’m certain the contract is written so they always get paid, and any repairs come out of your share of the profits, not theirs. For a single property, my gut tells me this will go badly. If the management company isn’t getting paid, they’ll likely put a lien on the property. I will tell her to have an actual lawyer who deals with this stuff read the contract before she signs anything, but I won’t be surprised if she doesn’t and trusts oral representations of what’s in the document…then whines a year or so later when she’s not making a dime and the house is a wreck. Never mind that everything in the house will have to be packed up and put in storage…including the stuff in the yard.