What's that noise?

What's that noise?

found in the archives and never published
Written Feb 2012

Hello Friends.  Those of you who follow this blog, and who are not incarcerated, need to find something better to do.  But, if you are a reader, you may know that when I am not gallivanting around the globe, I invest in income producing real estate back near where I live.  I buy foreclosed homes as a way to diversify my money away from the stock market.  I don’t like having all my investments under the control of some fat cat banker or greedy stock broker.  I would rather be the fat and greedy one and control my investments personally.

At the time of the incident to be discussed here, I had purchased four single family homes that had been foreclosures.  I fixed them up, and leased them out.  I have not had any major problems yet and I have been doing it for three years now. 

A new foreclosure came on to the market that I was interested in.  It was a very nice little home in a typical middle income neighborhood.  It was all brick, three bedrooms, two baths and had a nice back yard and was on a quiet street.   It had been recently painted on the outside and the inside looked good.  I planned to re-paint the inside and put in new carpet.  It should have been a painless, low cost rehab.  Since I am a guy, I think about the mechanical components of a house more than the floor plan or paint colors.  This means I focus on the HVAC system (This house had a new one) and  plumbing:  This house had copper water pipes which indicated to me that the original builder put in more quality in to this home than a home that just used galvanized steel water pipe.

The day I was supposed to finalize the purchase of this house I decided to swing by the property to check it out one more time.  I discovered that the outside air conditioner compressor was missing. Thieves had stolen it.  All that was left was the small concrete pad that it sat on.  Crap!  That was a problem.   I made a few frantic phone calls to see what it would cost me to replace the outside unit.  The prices ranged from $500 for a used unit, to $2,900 if the inside unit had to be replaced to match the new outside unit.  Crap again!  

I had my Real Estate agent tell the seller, a big fat cat banker, that if they did not lower the price by $3,500, the purchase was off.  They came back with their counter-offer, which was a $500 reduction.  I came back with a $2,000 lower price.  The seller acquiesced to my stern demands and reduced the price by $2,000.  HA!  Now I could buy a $500 used A/C unit for the house and have an extra $1500 to use for putting more tile flooring in the house.  What a wheeler-dealer I was!  So, I signed all the paperwork, and now owned this cute little house.

It was a few days later before I had a chance to go inside the property.  I was showing the house to my wife when, as luck would have it, the city water dept. worker stopped by and turned on the water for us.  We suddenly heard a loud gushing sound.  My wife and I look at each other.  “What’s that noise?”  It sounded like a water hose blasting the wall in the garage.

I ran outside.  The City worker said he turned the water back off since there was water pouring out of the attic and running down the outside brick.  NOT GOOD.  I was astonished.  I went in to the garage and saw that the water heater had been pulled away from the wall and all the copper pipes and connections to it were cut and mangled.  The power cable to it was also severed.  What on earth could have caused that?  How weird!  But that did not explain why water would be coming out of the attic.

I pulled down the retractable stairway and scrambled up in to the dark attic.  My flashlight zeroed in on the area where the water would have been pouring out.  Everything was soaked.  The insulation looked like a giant serving of over cooked linguini.  The sheet rock had a half inch of water puddled up on it.  And I suddenly realized that the source of the water leak was a ragged stub of copper pipe sticking out of the ceiling rafters.   I looked around and realized that all the copper pipe in the attic was gone.  Every bit of it.  And most of the copper electrical wires that crisscrossed the attic were gone too.  I was dumbstruck.

I slowly crawled back down the stairs.  My wife was standing in the garage, anxiously waiting for an explanation.  I could hardly spit out the results of my examination.  I told her what I found and she was dumbstruck too.  That often happens to her when I open my mouth, but that is something she has learned to handle, with the help of her psychologist.  

So, fast forward a few days later.  I found a plumber who could quickly replace the piping system.  Then I found an electrician to replace and repair the damaged electrical wiring.  Then I had to replace the water heater and rewire it.  The last item was to replace the outside A/C unit and repair the damaged inside unit.  All total, the cost for all these repairs were around $5,000.  Ouch.  That $2,000 I got deducted from the house price looks very inadequate right now.  The pathetic thing is that the thieves probably got less than $50 bucks for the scrap copper.

One of the contractors told me that the police were taking this sort of crime seriously, so I called the sheriff's office. A sheriff came out and took some basic information from me.  He asked why I didn’t report the crime as soon as it happened.  I told him I thought it was a waste of time.  I asked him what they would be doing to investigate.  He said they were too short handed to investigate, and it would be a waste of time. Arrrrgh.

But this tale did have a happy ending.  My wife and I installed a lovely tile floor in the kitchen and entry.  The painter did a great job patching the holes that the plumber had to cut in the walls to connect new pipe to the un-stolen pipe.  And, best of all, I found a nice family to move in and make a home out of the house.  They hope to buy it one day.   I just hope we don’t have to call the plumber, electrician, or the police again.  But I make no prediction about whether my wife should call her psychologist. 

Pulitzer Pride goeth before the fall.

South China Sea (the little floatie things are ships)

Pulitzer Pride goeth before the fall.

My goal today is to expand my readership and finally be nominated for that elusive Pulitzer Prize. (hint, hint). I have found a little known category so maybe I have a better chance if I get nominated for: Travel Writing - Sub-category: Hot, Sweaty Countries. Therefore I have decided to write about a past trip to the country of Singapore and surrounding lands.

In the late 1700’s Great Britain sailed all over the globe looking for stuff to bring home. They were the world’s first hoarders. In the process of visiting various geographic locations the Brits would “claim” those locations. Once I tried to “claim” a vehicle when I went into a Ford truck dealership. The results were less than satisfying when they chased me out with a tire tool. I guess I should have said it with a British accent. Anyway, Singapore was one of the nations that the British claimed. Singapore eventually declared its independence from Great Britain in 1963. In fact, nearly all of the countries under the control of Great Britain have since withdrawn from the British Commonwealth. This must have been a big blow to British pride.

The Independence movement was fueled by resentment to the Brits for starting the practice of driving on the wrong side of the road. What is it with the British and wrong way driving, anyway? It seems like most the countries in the world still go the wrong way. Not like here in the U.S. Can you imagine if we had to start driving on the left side of the road? Every fast food place in America would have to rebuild their drive thru area or figure out how to throw food across the passenger’s seat to the driver. This could have serious financial and culinary repercussions. Not to mention the mess.

Singapore is located on the very tip of the Malaysian peninsula. It is separated from the mainland by a channel of water. So Singapore shares her northern border with Malaysia and her southern one with the South China Sea. I don’t know if the sea actually “shares” anything with Singapore. It probably just tolerates the nation, knowing that it could easily flood the country, on a whim, with a minor Tsunami. But is there such a thing as a minor Tsunami? And who the hell thought it was a good idea to put a silent “T” in front of sunami? Probably the Brits.

Singapore has a worldwide reputation for having a government that keeps rigid control over the population. For example: littering is forbidden and if you get caught, you have to eat whatever you threw out. This explains why you never see anyone illegally dumping scrap tires.

Singapore may be the tiniest country in SE Asia, but I can’t be sure. I did not bring a tape measure. It is so small that Singapore does not allow Sumo Wrestling. There is not enough room for two wrestlers to be in the country at the same time. Interesting fact: Singapore invented the flat screen TV because of space limitations with bulky traditional tube TV sets. OK, I made that up. But the Sumo thing might be true.

Singapore’s economy is based on international commerce. They have a population of about 500,000 and they get 12 million visitors a year. This country is non-Christian, yet at Christmas time the whole place gets decorated with Xmas lights. I have never seen such elaborate decorations. A cab driver explained to me that Singapore decorates in order to in attract visitors and make them feel like spending money. Note to self: Do not allow the fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler to visit Singapore.

The first time I visited Singapore, in 2006, I also visited Indonesia. I was traveling with our South East Asia Manager of Sales, who was a Frenchman. At the end of the first day, we took customers to a local bar. I don’t want to say we got drunk, but we were well lubricated. It was Karaoke night, and since we were feeling no pain, there were no inhibitions when the microphone was passed around to sing. You have not lived a full life until you have listened to an intoxicated Frenchman, singing “The green, green grass of home”, with a French accent, in an Indonesian bar.

The next day I paid dearly for being over-served alcohol. To say I was hung over was like saying the Titanic was a minor boating mishap. I was not in good shape. And as luck would have it, my French colleague had set up an appointment for us to go see someone that had an interest in my product line. Damn.

We went to the customer’s office, which was just a metal shack in an industrial area. He was on the phone when we walked in. He motioned us to sit. He was puffing away on a cigarette and there was an ashtray full of butts right in front of me. The smoke and odor from the ashtray was not helping my recovery. My stomach was queasy and my head was throbbing. There was a small window AC unit vibrating on the wall but the noise was the only indicator that it was on.

As we sat there, waiting for him to finish his interminable phone call, I could feel my skin start to prickle. I was imaging a nasty looking bug or something worse crawling up my shin. It felt very real but I tried to ignore it. Damn, I am never drinking again. Is this what Alcoholics experience? The creeping sensation became more noticeable. I could stand it no longer. I abruptly pulled my pant leg up and there was a large, nasty looking bug making its way up my leg. I quickly knocked it off, and felt a huge relief that I was not going thru some kind of hideous alcohol withdrawal.

After the bug incident, I don’t recall anything else memorable from the trip. I apparently made it home safely since I lived to write about it. Aren’t you lucky. And until I told the world of my bug incident, I still had some pride and dignity left in me. I know now what it feels like to be British.