#Home Maintenance

[incognitopolls]

Assume that before you learned this, you were interested in visiting their house.

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[trexalicious]

Casa de UnSussexful is desperately in need of basic maintenance and repairs. Dead vines, missing chunks of plaster, rotting wood and improperly weatherproofed wood don't bode well for their resale fantasies...

[sparklefartstheunicorn]

Have you met Mercury Stardust, the trans handy ma'am?

Her tiktok account is full of home maintenance tutorials, and positive messages. And she just wrote a book, which made the New York Times bestseller list.

It's getting rave reviews and I just ordered one for myself and another for a Christmas gift for my niece. It's designed for beginners and seems chock full of good stuff. It's even got tips on renter friendly home repairs. At $25, it could make a great gift.

Buy here or here or give Jeff bezos some more money here 😂

[the-re-farmer]

Yeah. More plumbing problems

Well, this day’s plans got thrown out the window. I did get one thing planned accomplished. While doing my morning rounds, I used the foil insulation in strategic points on the outflow pipe for our emergency septic diverter. The pump has still not been triggered to empty the grey water, so this will ensure any contact point with cold supports will not freeze. Hopefully. At least, if it does…

[schoolofpracticalskills]

[endeavorance]

Replaced my kitchen faucet because it somehow sprung a leak through the metal

Not in a crease, not from a gasket—the metal siding of the fauced itself somehow sprung a pinhole leak

New fear of faucets randomly exploding unlocked

[adventures-in-a-world-of-fiction]

I am an intelligent, moderately capable, adult! Changing a toilet seat should not be so difficult!

So, my toilet seat cracked. I bought myself a new one and figured it would be a five minute job to swap them over. The new one even came with instructions for how to fit it. Easy!

Except, I could not remove the old one.

I found a couple of tiny hex screws that I was able to unscrew - but unscrewing them seemed to do absolutely nothing. I looked for other screws, for hidden buttons, for parts that might pull away to reveal secret screws. Nothing.

I searched the internet and found lots of helpful instructions for removing other makes of toilet seat. "Press this button in the middle" - mine doesn't have that button. "Press these two buttons on the inside" - nope, don't have those either. "Lever off these plastic covers to get to..." - gonna stop you there. "Hold it at a 45 degree angle and just pull" - I did a lot of pulling and nothing happened.

Now that it's over, I think the problem was rust. I was supposed to be able to unscrew the screws I found and then just lift the whole thing off easily - but the insides of the hinges had fused to the screws holding it on and so it just didn't budge. With enough yanking, I was able to pull one side free, and then the seat just sort of fell off the other hinge, leaving me with a hinge still held in place. With an adjustable spanner on the screw and a lot of yanking on the hinge, I was finally able to pull that off and then I could unscrew the screws.

After all that, putting the new one on was fairly easy, but there was a worrying period when I thought I was going to be stuck with no seat because I still had a hinge attached preventing me from installing the new one.

I feel like I ought to feel proud of myself for accomplishing the task but mostly I still just feel frustrated because that shouldn't have been so difficult.

[ashtreehollow]

PSA to my folks who have dryers and have to do their own maintenance: Check. Your. Dryer. Vent.

Everyone talks about the lint trap inside the machine, but no one ever warned me about the dryer duct and vent itself. If it's taking a long time for your clothes to dry and there's hardly any lint in the trap, check your duct and external vent! Because more likely than not, it's clogged to hell and back!

Our washer and dryer are in the basement and the duct leads directly outside, so it was relatively easy enough for me to disconnect both ends. Have a bucket ready though! If your vent is clogged, then a bunch of moisture may have accumulated and now you've got nasty water surprising you as it leaks all over your floor! After that though, clear out your vent and wipe out as much lint in the duct as you can. I guess you can use a vacuum for this? But I didn't have time for that!

Seriously, lint build-up is a serious fire hazard, and I'm lucky my brother suggested checking the vent when I told him our dryer was on the fritz. If you don't have as easy access to your duct and vent, or if you're not able-bodied, try reaching out to a friend or family member who's handier than you, or hire a handyman (if you can afford it) to do it for you.

(Below is the lint I extracted from the vent, and the water I had to drain from the duct) [that's not a full gallon bucket, it's more like the size of a standard sand castle bucket, for reference]

[moonplantz]

🔨 mercury stardust (aka the trans handy ma'am) door hinge repair video on tiktok 🔨

she has a lot of other useful videos about diy home maintenance and explains various tips and tricks in an easy to follow and inclusive way!

[tomthefanboy]

Happy Father's Day!

Make your dad proud by cleaning the lint from your outdoor dryer vent!

[alphacentaurinebula]

I have a mouse. I hate this mouse. I have tried humane traps. Poison. An exterminator came and filled all the holes that could be filled in my old London flat. We keep no food out. Everything is in airtight containers. Even my fruit bowl has a colander cover to keep the mouse out.

Nothing works. The mouse escaped the humane trap. He won’t eat the poison. He comes to poo on my counters even tho there is nothing to eat.

I am at my wits end. Please someone tell me how to get rid of this mouse. I don’t wish him ill. If I could do it humanely I would. But it is so unsanitary and it is keeping me up at night and he HAS TO GO.

Help.

[house-of-whimsy]

🌼SPRING CLEANING🌼

.

Looking at my house, it's slightly overwhelming. There's just SO MUCH stuff. Normally cleaning isn't an issue for me, but I want to do more than just cleaning . Until now, I've always rented & always wound up moving around April. So"spring cleaning" was just moving out cleaning. Now that I own my house, I really want to start deep cleaning it a few times a year.

Unfortunately I have no idea where to start or what's special about spring cleaning vs normal deep cleaning. I only know that I'm supposed to be cleaning, maintenancing, and checking things both inside & out. I've done the basics, but I don't feel like it looks any cleaner... Maybe just more organized.

So what do YOU do differently for Spring Cleaning vs Deep Cleaning? Any tips or advice on things to be checking up on as a new homeowner?

[ellaeved]

Something that helps to frame “chores” in a different mindset is to imagine your home as a living thing. (Bear with me here). You don’t get mad at your cat every day and go “You’re such a chore to take care of!” with the same distain you have for the dishes. (If you do, that’s mean and your cat should bite you)

The areas that require the most attention are the same as most pets too: bathroom and kitchen (food)! I grew up being told that a home is as clean as its bathroom and kitchen; Because they are the most used, most germy and most crucial to existing/ staying alive. “Chores” are usually just bullied into kids or used as a punishment, which leads resentful adults with no clue how to take care of their own space. And it isn’t your fault! You were influenced to resent chores and view them as torture from the time you were small but you don’t have to continue treating chores like that.

Chores aren’t a “necessary evil”. They are self care for your environment. Don’t even call them chores, call it maintenance or house management, or whatever you have to to yeet the shitty feelings away. Just throw the “chore” mindset out the fucking window! There are no rules to how you have to take care of your home, it’s individual just like pets. Do what works for YOU, not what the internet says or influencers. Your home isn’t there’s, your lives are different. The minds running your home are not the same as anyone else, you have to make it easier on yourself. Home maintenance also shouldn’t fall on just one person, everyone who is capable of helping, should but NEVER use it as a punishment. It should be like a family pet! You wouldn’t make a small child clean a litterbox all the time as punishment, that just makes the kid hate the cat. Everyone should help when/ how they can in order to keep the home alive (livable).

Let me continue to frame this like having a cat. Cleaning windows is like cleaning eye boogers. Mopping floors is just a bath. Bathroom is litterbox. Kitchen is food, you gotta have clean bowls to use to feed things and you can’t use moldy food. Dust is…well idk about y’all’s cats but mine need dusted off because they just be accumulating something on their fur during their adventures. So dust is brushing! Show yourself some kindness and throw away the idea that chores are..well a chore. They’re difficult sometimes, sure. But so is having a pet and those furry bastards are worth it. You having a comfortable and clean space is worth it too.

TLDR; You’re house is a cat, be nice to it and keep it clean.

[orchid-merryweather]

I have a home maintenance class in my school, and as review for the final the teacher is just going through all the old slides, so I got to see this gem again and share it with all four people here