Back Yard – Doesn't Fit In

March 10, 2011

South Side Gate Replacement

Residential fencing in albuquerque and Rio Rancho used to be made of wood until the last 20 years or so. While they build fences of block now I have a older house and all of the fencing and gates are made of wood. For whatever reason a large amount of it has decomposed and fallen down mostly since I moved in.

The gate on the south side of the house is the worse and it’s also the primary access to the back yard with a vehicle. I decided it was time to get off my butt and replace it with not only a fence that isn’t falling but with one that has more privacy.

I didn’t go into this project with any detailed plans. I knew I wanted to bring the gate to be flush with the front of the house, the old gate sat back about 6 feet. I also wanted a short gate for people and a long gate for vehicles with a 5 foot fence section at the edge of the property.

I started by adding a single post on the first day to get an idea of what I was doing. I dug a hole, leveled a 4×4 redwood post and anchored it with some quick setting cement. That was it for the day. The next day the City of Rio Rancho inspector came by and red tagged the house due to the old falling gate and “debris” they could see in my back yard.

I found the timing strange and I have to wonder if someone called or the inspector just saw the work I was doing and decided to complain.

It took another day to build the corner which consisted of the 5 foot fence section and tying into the old fence. The biggest difficultly was positioning the sections of 2x4s around a rather large yucca. The plant is nice looking but very pointy and I left quite a bit of blood on the plant.

The main part of the fence was completed 2 days after I started. I had to go back at least three times and redo the position slats since I screwed up the level. I know several ways not to level fence slats.

The continuation of this project will be to clean up the river rocks on the side and level the ground. I also need to continue with the 6 foot fence along the south side of the property.

August 25, 2006

Master Bedroom And Bathroom Remodel Progress

I know what I said, that the sprinkler system is going to be my priority. Give me a break thought, the back yard is sitll pretty muddy and now full of weeds. I’m now sure that the sprinkler project will have to wait till next year.

It’s on to indoor projects, the first of which is the master bedroom and bathroom. I had a demolition party scheduled for the end of August, where I invited some of my friends over to demolish the house. Surprisingly, most of them didn’t show up. Enough did to get most of the work done.

For the bedroom the goal was to take the closet from the neighboring bedroom to create a bigger overall closet. This was accomplished.For the bathroom the goal was to remove the framed in shower. Both of these were accomplished. After the demo was completed, with drywall and crap all over the place, is when I questioned what I have done. After two trips to the dump and probably 6 hours of clean up I’m not sure I did make the right decision.

The framed in shower was not usable. It had been leaking pretty badly for quite a while. The lower framing was rotted, the water had leaked into the bedroom and there was even plant roots growing about a foot up the interiors of the wall. One doesn’t expect mold in a dry state such as New Mexico, but there was plenty of mold in the walls.

The next step is to plan for the rebuild. Since it’s a small room, 7 foot by 8 foot, I’d like to put in a corner whirlpool tub with a shower. I think I can get a 54 inch by 54 inch corner tub to fit. I also plan to put in a electric radiant floor heating. The plan here shown is from Warmly Yours.

Can anyone loan me a few thousand dollars?

September 5, 2005

Unexpected Benefits

This house was listed with the clause that the seller would “clean up debris and weeds”. There was quite a bit of weeds and some “debris” but it wasn’t so bad. When I made my offer I said I would would clean up the weeds and crap left behind. They accepted my offer and the rest is history.

On the final contract, they put back in that the Seller would clean up the weeds and debris. WTF? According to the seller’s agent, it was “already scheduled”. OK, whatever. Last week the people they contracted to clean up the place, and oh boy did they do a terrific job. Some of the debris had value to me, but the clean up costs vs the costs of the items more than likely even out. Check out these before and after pics.

Front of the house, not a lot of weeds here, but it was nice to have it cleaned up. Makes a difference in the look of the place from the road.

The partially finished storage shed. I think there was some interesting things in here I would have liked to have had. There was also a big wood pile next to it which was taken.

This is the back yard, showing the back 1/4 acre that hasn’t been devleoped. I didn’t expect them to clean up these weeds.

The vegetable garden. Again, will be a lot easier to get stuff growing here too.

The once grassy area in the back yard (sprinkler system is present). It will be a lot easier to get grass in now.

August 6, 2005

My New House

Wow, things happen quickly. I didn’t write about this last week because I really didn’t expect it to go through. I made an offer on a house, about $10K under listed price. This house was a repo and needs some work (not as bad as the others I’ve seen thought). It was a multiple offer situation and I though for sure I wouldn’t come close since people have been paying list price.

I was surprised when I was informed early this week that I had the high offer, but they wanted to get another $5k out of me. No way was I giving them any more, I though my current offer was generous. To make a long story short, I signed the contracts yesterday. It’s mine!

This house is located in the same neighborhood that the other house I made an offer was on. It’s on a 1/2 acre, a nice rectangular 1/2 acre with easy access to be the back yard on both side. The interior needs carpet, paint and is a little dated (was built in the late 70s as far as I can tell), but other than that it’s not in that bad of shape. It also has city water and sewer. Many of the house in this area of Rio Rancho were built before there were hooks and have septic systems or wells. I lucked out there as well.

Over all I’m happy with this purchase so far, I got a deal and it has the basic configuration I was looking for. I have some big plans to add on and will be writing about them here.

July 28, 2005

House Hunting Week… Whatever

Have I told you how much I hate living in an apartment? What, no? Well I cannot believe that because I really hate it and I usually tell everyone how much I hate it. From the lack of water pressure to the crappy dishwasher and walking up three flights of stairs. I will really be happy to be out of this apartment.

The housing market, she no good for me. She real good for seller. A while back I wrote about a house I wanted to buy only to find out there was a contract signed the day I looked at it. This was the house on a 1/2 acre with a giant antenna in the back yard. It was listed at about $135,000. One might get $130,000 for a house in this neighborhood for that much if it is in absolute pristine condition, this house was/is not.

This house has a flat roof and it had a leak at one point. I would say half the walls and ceilings in the house will need to be replaced. Not to mention pain, carpe, wood root along the outside and kitchen needing remodeled to name a few. Were talking a easy $30 to $40K in work is needed and I think I’m underestimating that number. Yet the house sold for $130,000! Some person, who must be on crack, has more money than sense actually bought that house for near the asking price. I’m guessing that that they would need to sell the house near the $200,000 mark to get their money back.

This hasn’t just happened once, this has happened twice. Another house on the same street in a similar situation. Not nearly as ba, they were asking about $120,00. A little lower but still needed lots of work. I offered $105,000 would go up to $110,00. Someone came in and offered the asking price. It’s insane I tell you. INSANE!

The popular thought is that people from California are selling their homes for a half million dollars. FInding that the Phoenix market is turning into California’s market, they come here where’s it’s cheaper. Thus people have plenty of money to spend more on our cheap houses, even if they need work. What’s $30K when you just made $200,000 on your last house?

As for me, my lease is up 31 October. Seems like a long ways away, but I’m getting worried.

June 5, 2005

House Hunting Week 3

After having two houses last week, this week turned out to have quite a few prospects, a good half dozen I would say. Many I rejected on paper, a few I rejected at the drive by. I almost had a winner, but it only upped my expectations.

Initially I didn’t give this house a second thought, but I looked at the MLS a day later and decided to do a drive by. The remarks said:

Great custom floorplan with a very large lot. Home features backyard access, great garden area, covered patio, storage shed, and a large inground hot tub. In need of some handyman work. Roof replaced in 2004. Some interior work still needed. Great investment opportunity. Look past what it is and dream about what it could be! Being Sold AS IS with no warranties expressed or implied. Hot tub room 187 sq ft. not included in home square footage.

The house was built in the early/mid 1980’s. The bathrooms looked like they were from the 1970’s. None the less it had some great character and layout out. The previous owner had added on a built in hot tub.

Being a flat roof house, it had seen some leaking problems. THe roof was replaced a few years ago but many rooms still showed damage. Drywall would likely need replaced along with new floors. The kitchen and bathrooms would need remodeled as well. The house is part of an estate sale, the owner had never seen it. THere is a room added on at the back porch with shelving and there’s a giant antenna in the back yard. I assume that a old ham radio operator lived here, died, and the daughter got the house.

Did I mention the antenna? Yeah, there is a giant telescoping antenna in the back yard. If anyone should own a house with a giant antenna in it, I should! The back yard is listed at .55 acres, with most of it in the back yard. There was also some huge trees back there.

I spent several hours there finally deciding that It had everything I was looking for. They had is listed for $134,000, but another house in the neighborhood went for $131,000. Considering the work that was need to fix the interior I could probably get it for much less. I had made the proper financial arrangements and was ready to get the inspection report so I could make an offer.

Sigh… The house had been on the marked for 50+ days, the day I find it and want to buy it, someone else signs a contract. Same thing happened on the first house I looked at. It will be difficult to find another house like this.

I actually like this house, the interior layout was pretty nice. It was built in the late 80s, so not quite as “antique” as some of the others.

It is listed as being on .5 acres, and yes it is on a large lot. But the whole area is very hilly, and half the back yard is sloping downwards. Most of the block fence is below grade, I would have to build fencing for most of it. One side of the house has neighbors higher than it and they can easily look right now on it.

The house does have a above ground pool with a deck. Although it would have made me pretty popular with my friends, I’m not very interested in maintaining a pool.

July 23, 2003

A ECM for Barking Dogs

Lucky me. I have two neighbors with dogs. All of those dogs are kept primarly in their back yard with nothing else better to do than to bark at me when I’m in my back yard. Short of reporting them to the city I have tried this device call “Bark Free”.

One one side of out house is two dogs. They are still young and appear to be golden retrivers. Behind us is are 3 dogs. I can only see one of them and it appears to be the leader. In other words when it barks the other follows. It also is the one that can climb up on the fence and stick its head over. I have talked to both of these neighbors both of which took action after the complaint and slowly slacked off. I have investigated making a formal complaint to the city, but it may require going to court. I’m not prepared to do that just yet. So I have been investigating alternatives.

In steps the Bark Free by Lentek. It claims that it “has a specially designed audible sound selector that lets you choose high ultrasonic frequencies, which can only be heard by dogs, or lower sound tones audible to human ears. Both sounds have been proven to assist in controlling dogs from incessant barking.” So the idea is that when ever a dog begins to bark a sensor will recognize it and emit the irritating noise that only dogs can hear. Thus the dogs will stop barking so they wont hear the noise any more.

This is what you get in the package. (sorry for the fuzzy picture)

One thing I always look for in the packaging is if they put enough time an effort into the design of the product so it will work. Or did they just through it together to sell it. In this case they seemed to including everything. A 50 foot extension cord for the power brick and a water resistant cover are two examples.

I installed this thing on the back of my house under a eve of the roof. I first set the sensitivity to max for a while. Just about any noise will set this thing off at max sensitive. And I can tell when it goes on and off because the speakers will make a clicking noise. I did this so that the dogs would be aware that the noise is there. I left it at this level for a week and then set it an normal sensitivity.

Unfortunately this thing only has a 25 foot range in front of it for about 180 degrees. Which means the dogs on the side of our house don’t always get the benefits of it. And it doest quite reach all the way into the neighbors yard behind us. But it does react to the dogs that get near the fence.

Having had it up for about a month now I can say I have noticed reduced barking from the dogs. They still bark at me when I’m out there, but they seem to bark for only a short time then leave. I have also noticed that 2 of the 3 dogs behind us don’t come right up to the fence, they stay some distance when they start barking. The dogs on the side of our house I have not heard barking at me when I’m in the back yard for some time. The bottom line is I think it does modify behavior but depending on the dog it does not eliminate barking all together.