An Insane 24 Hours...

At the beginning of this week, I had such high hopes for getting a LOT of audio edits done. But then there were a couple of personal dramas that had me already asking on Monday if this week that felt like a month could please be done with. And then Tuesday came waltzing in.

Stove No Worky Worky

Ding! My phone sounds with a message from one of Cottage East's guests asking if they could use the stove. Alex is at work, so I'm handling messaging. Oh yes, that's perfectly fine, I tell them. Seconds later, "The stove isn't working."

Now if you follow me on my personal Facebook you would already know that my dumb butt broke the first $100 stove we bought on Facebook Marketplace by leaning on the top while installing wall tile. So we went to Facebook Marketplace and got a SECOND one. We plugged it in and it worked perfectly... for three weeks.

We checked the wiring, everything we knew to do, and it just kept popping the breaker. This morning, the electrician who was coming in for a couple of bits and bobs looked at it and said, "Your house wiring is fine, this stove has a short in it."

So I found another on Facebook Marketplace and picked it up this morning. Because I was fixing this issue pronto! It sat waiting for my son and husband to bring it inside and install it until mid-afternoon.

Boy Child Sick

My four-year-old hasn't been feeling himself for a couple of days and last night it was clear he wasn't well. So we kept him home from daycare and scheduled an Urgent Care visit when he told me his ears hurt. Sure enough, he had one ear very infected and the other well on its way.

My son actually had to take him in because we were in crisis mode due to other craziness.

Electrician to the Rescue

An electrician I had already scheduled to come in and install an outlet in the upstairs hallway so I could easily plug a vacuum in, even if all bedrooms and the hall bathroom were occupied. I also wanted him to install a light in my dark cave of a supply closet. He had those done easily and quickly. It was, by far, the easiest part of our insane day!

Inspection Stopped in its Tracks

My son (the 19-year-old not the 4-year-old) had scheduled an inspection for Cottage East with the city. Alex is renting the house from us and running it as an Airbnb while living in one of the rooms. Which I thought was a brilliant idea when he suggested it to me and something I was very interested in having him do. But when the inspector got here we learned we had done a BIG NO-NO. After Alex submitted his paperwork, and getting his listing number, he filled out and activated the listings on Airbnb and began accepting guests. He did this, instead of waiting for the inspection, because I told him it was okay to do so! Only to find out I was so very wrong! I was horrified and worried I had ruined his chance at running his first short-term rental. The inspector made it sound like it was a big deal and refused to do the inspection while there were guests in the building. And because I explained that I was an experienced STR host, he wanted to know where that STR was and announced he was going to conduct a surprise inspection.

Then a Surprise Inspection

"The city has the right to conduct a surprise inspection at any time." Well, yeah, I knew that.

"There are guests there right now."

"Well, first off we need to make sure you have the proper permit displayed inside."

I agreed to knock on the door and see if they would let us in so I could show it to him. As I did, I checked the Ring cameras, saw they had gotten in at 2 a.m. in the morning and told him it would likely be 11 a.m. before they were ready to leave.

"But I can show you we do have a permit since it is there on Compass KC."

"That will be a good start."

I invited him to step inside our house and as I did he said, "I think you have a gas leak."

Gas Leak ... A Significant One

As I pulled up the info on my permit on my computer, the guy kept sniffing. "Yeah, that's a gas leak. You need to get it looked at."

My husband called Evergy who came out right away and verified MULTIPLE gas leaks throughout the basement!!!! I've been waking up with headaches for months. My son Alex has had a couple of migraines and even my husband has had them! It turned out that damn near every pipe had some issue, but the worst were the connection point in the basement ceiling underneath our gas stove and a shutoff valve next to our 1983 water heater. Yes, you read that right, we have a gas heater from 1983 and still going strong.

Wait... had to find wood and knock on it... especially after a day like today!

In any case, the gas company tells we have a 4%-10% gas/air mix depending on where they measured, so the shut off our gas until we could get it fixed. My husband now has the plumbing company on speed dial. Within an hour they were at our house, tightening connections, capping off dead end pipes, and more while I had the inspector over to Cottage West for a surprise inspection once the guest left!

Meanwhile, we tapped Alex to run our little one to the urgent care.

That's Not a Proper Egress

The inspector had told me to call him as soon as my guests left, so I did. He looked everything over from top to bottom and even the attic, which was convenient since we had just finished the renovations and it was ready to be inspected.

"These little windows are not a proper egress." He tells me, staring at the two attic windows in the front part of the attic.

"What about the back window? It's bigger, and I remember we had to measure it to see if it could be used as an egress window."

He didn't have a tape measure, so I pulled one out of our Fix-It basket and he measured and took a photo to ask his supervisor.

The plumbers were still swarming over our property, pressure testing, finding more leaks and asking us if the guy we had hired had actually wanted to kill us because he damn near did. $1100+ lighter, we are still waiting for the gas to be turned on, but everything is finally fixed. And I have to wonder...

• Will our gas bill be any lower now?

• Will my headaches go away?

Let Bygones be Bygones

The plumbers weren't gone when the inspector called back. "My supervisor says we can chalk it up to a simple misunderstanding and schedule another inspection for your son's short-term rental."

The two guests that are there will be gone by 11 in the morning, so I scheduled the inspection for mid-afternoon.

Clear the Decks (and Clean Them!)

• New stove has been installed.

• Our house is now safe to live in.

• Cottage West's attic has passed inspection. Per the inspector's supervisor it is large enough to be an egress window. Which means we are ready for World Cup!!!!!

• Cottage East will be sparkling clean tomorrow when the inspector arrives to inspect it. Well, maybe not Alex's room, but the rest of the place should look great!

And ask Alex astutely pointed out, "Mom if it haven't been for the screwup of having guests already there before the permit/approval had been issued, we might never have learned about the gas leak!"

It's been one hell of a day. More like one long week in just 24 hours. But things turned out all right in the end and I'm confident Alex will pass inspection tomorrow.