But owning a mobile home on rented property ain't much of a solution. In fact, it comes with its own unique headaches, namely, the fact that responsibility for anything regarding maintenance issues is totally on me.
I sing the blues today because of a few issues that have been plaguing me of late. First as you see in the picture above, my plastic flamingos, when this pic was snapped were free and clear, now though, they're overrun by weeds. Jovani, the big black dude I hired to do my lawn, has ghosted not only me but (assumedly) my neighbors as well which he was contracted to do. Maybe he's in jail? I'm sure I'm not alone in texting him trying to find out what's going on. Meanwhile, the front lawn, unlike the brown mess that you saw in the pictures of my house from a couple months ago, has done its usual spring thing and sprouted up a ton of weeds. I spent $90 on Amazon for one of those push reel hand mowers (yes they still make them, I was surprised too) tried it out, and it's pretty fucking worthless. Just like the electric weed whacker I bought a couple years ago. My hand shears are still the most effective gardening tool I have. Well, I used the mower and the hand shears to get the lawn a little more amenable, although this new management doesn't seem to give a shit because, with the old management, I surely would have gotten a notice that I needed to clean up my act by now. The shrubs are still a bit wild looking but with their gorgeous flowering effect I give them a lot of leeway.
But the newest thing today is my fridge is out again. This happened a couple years ago and I thought, oh shit I'm going to have to replace my fridge. But I plugged it into another socket using an extension cord and it worked fine. Then I paid this kid to come out and test my outlets and I guess because we shut the breakers off and turn them on again now the outlet for the fridge was working again? I don't know. I know nothing about home maintenance. This was my biggest liability in getting my own place.
Wonky electrical system, probably outdated, the issue today could very well be that it's been very unusually warm for June this year, like already up in the upper 90s, so maybe the AC caused some kind of surge? Of course it could very well be the fridge itself too. As far as I can tell it's an early 2000s model. When they were still producing beige colored fridges with wire racks. As we know I have no stove top or oven. I mean they may well work but they require propane and I'm not about to add another bill to my monthly retinue. So I use Electric frying pan, Crock-Pot slow cooker, and Instapot along with occasionally using a butane cooktop. Central AC works fine but ever since that motor was replaced last year it's less energy efficient so now around this time of year I'm looking at $140 to $160 a month. If there is a cool night do I get to use it effectively to ventilate the house? Nope. Except for the tiny kitchen and bathroom windows none of the others open. My kitchen cabinets need painting, my bathroom is a mess including a raging mold issue that I'm constantly fighting back, and the shed roof is rusting away looking very ghetto.
So hang in there my little flamingos. I'm doing what I can but I get winded very easily and even today mowing the lawn with a hand mower and clipping away at the tall weeds with my hedge shears got me winded and sweaty for an hour each interval. What will this fridge outage cost?
EDIT: I finished this post, went to retrieve three more beers from the assumed-dead freezer trying to keep my my brews cold for as long as I could, and, behold, the fridge is working. It's just the light bulb that's out. Whew. I'm sure a replacement bulb won't be that bad. Thank you flamingos, you must have been praying for me!
EDIT 2: The LED bulbs I bought for the stove hood fit perfectly. Good, 'cause I bought a pack of four and thought they'd never get used. This all makes me think that the fridge outage of a few years ago may well have just been a loose bulb since when I unscrewed it, it was surely loose. It lit up for a split second as I touched it then popped as it blew, finally, the filament. Well, good riddance one of the last incandescent bulbs in my house.