Crawlspace = Spookytown USA

We were finally able to get into the house and poke around yesterday afternoon. We spent some time with my parents measuring the doorways, etc to make sure the fridge can get in (it can…with about a half-inch to spare). I meant to run through and get some “before” pictures and video, but we got caught up in other things. I should be able to do that tonight.

My good friend John came over and had a look around. He’s been doing contracting work off and on for a few years now, so he has some good experience in home maintenance. We got a better look at the mudroom floor…there’s four layers of linoleum, one layer of newspaper from 1991 and then moldy floorboards. We were able to get a view underneath the sloped and bumpy floorboards from a hole in the foundation outside. The wood around the perimeter of the mud room floor is pretty termite-eaten. So much so that a room-spanning metal support had just plain fallen out and now sits on the ground underneath the floor, split and rusting. John theorizes that this is why the back end of the room slopes so much. There’s not really much there to support it. That’s got me slightly concerned about bringing a washer into the mud room tonight, but it’s held together so far, I guess. Eventually, the whole floor will need to be ripped out, discarded and rebuilt. This time, we’ll make sure the floorboards are level and treated so that they don’t rot away and get eaten by termites like the current floor. We’ll add a radiator so that it’s no longer the only unheated room in the house. Then we’ll put down some nice tiles and pretty it up.

Another looming problem is the crawlspace under the kitchen. Our inspector had talked about there being “some wood” under there that would need to come out. That wood is pretty much termite bait and is basically inviting an invasion. Maybe I heard him wrong, but it seemed he was talking about it in a nonchalant way, like there were a few boards under there. No big deal.

Upon closer inspection last night, we saw that there’s an enormous pile of wood. It looks like someone ripped apart an entire room or two…wall studs, etc…and just dumped it all in that crawlspace. Ugh. Also, the pipes under the kitchen sink are pretty bad, including the pair of old pipes that were replaced but not removed. We were also thinking that the only place where we can install a dishwasher is where the other cabinets are…on the other side of the kitchen from the sink. All of this pretty much spells out one thing:

Someone’s going to have to go down there.

Someone’s going to have to physically squeeze through that small opening in the mud room and get under the kitchen. Now, the hole isn’t too bad, but the last time I checked I’m not the trim teenager I used to be. If it was high school me, it wouldn’t be much of a problem. The crawlspace is pretty deep. You can probably almost stand up under there. If you can get in, that is. And it seems like getting out might be even more…challenging (panic-inducing). John will probably have no problem; he’s kind of a lanky guy and keeps himself in pretty decent shape. But, as he says, it’s my house and I should probably have firsthand knowledge of how it works. And he’s absolutely right. I’m almost offended that there’s a part of my house that I don’t have access to. I’ll be sitting in the kitchen like some Edgar Allen Poe character being driven mad by the secret under the floorboards. What if there’s a minor plumbing problem under there? I shouldn’t have to call “Skinny Plumber” and have them charge an arm and a leg for something John and I could do on our own.

So, it looks like I’ve finally found something to motivate me into getting off my butt and exercise. I figure that wood has been down there since at least 1991, probably a lot longer, so it can wait a few more months while I drop some unwanted flub. In the meantime, we’ll either have to get a more expensive portable dishwasher or we’ll just have to eat off of paper plates for a few months. …or wash dishes in the sink, I guess. Who wants to do that, though?

Maybe when we finally rip up the mud room floor (probably at least a year or two from now) we can somehow widen the crawlspace opening. Maybe put in a little Being John Malkovich door and really clean it out and make it more storage space or something. At least make it more accessible…especially with all the plumbing, gas & electric that runs under there.

I just came back from picking up a few things that my Aunt Betsy and Uncle John gave us…a bed, a side table, a washer, etc., but I’ll try and add some pictures to this post as soon as I can.