One fine summer day, I saw bees. That’s good, right? I planted flowers that were supposed to be bee-friendly. We need bees! Yay!
Except the bees were … climbing in and out of a hole in the side of my house.
We had a bee hive in our roof.
This story is so long and dumb, so I’m just going to give you the highlights:
- I call a bee guy. Surprise! He shows up unexpectedly at 6:45 the next morning. I greet him in my pajamas with a particularly hot mess case of bedhead. Score one for ladylike poise.
- Bee guy uses infrared heat gun thing to determine the size of the bee hive. He’s going to have to cut a hole in the roof. He hooks us up with a roofing company.
- Considering the age of our roof, we determine that we’re better off replacing it than spending an arm and a leg to fix a small corner of the wood shake. Attempts to get insurance to pay for any roof repairs are unsuccessful. I realize that having insurance buy you a new roof is the new American dream.
- Price of roof increases twice due to unforeseen issues with our city and HOA. They demand only the best roofing materials!
- Bee guy takes house apart. Yep, that’s a legit hive. Yep, I got your artisanal, locally sourced honey right here.
- I learn that the woman who cleans for us took two years of beekeeping in high school. She says you can pick out the queen bee because she is always shaped like Jennifer Lopez. Finally, biology I can understand.
- Roof guys delay. Roof guys finally show up and rip off our roof right before a truly torrential downpour. Attempts to tarp the roof are not entirely successful. We have water damage inside the house.
- Roof guys replace roof. It’s fine in a “Yep, that’s a roof” sort of way.
- Because new shingles aren’t enough, I develop shingles on my person.
Side note: Heed my warning: if you think you have shingles, get the antiviral immediately. This is the second time I’ve had shingles and it was a walk in the park compared to last time.
- This sign was right inside my grocery store, mocking me.
- Guy who is supposed to fix drywall and plaster inside our house shows up two hours late. Shingles-addled me gets up early to let him in, only for him to show TWO HOURS LATE. The only reason I avoid destroying him is that his adorable 3-year-old accompanies him on the job.
- Drywall and plaster patches look fine.
- Drywall and plaster patches bubble and turn brown. We are too exhausted to deal.
- Check for new roof gets lost in the mail. I issue a stop payment order with the bank, which costs $30. BECAUSE OF COURSE IT DOES.
Who else is excited about fall?
3 Comments
Oy.
This makes me really grateful that replacing the back porch that was falling off has gone smoother than that. I mean, we found wasps nests that had everyone questioning if it was wasps or just small birds living in that ceiling, there are mentions of nests and droppings from critters I do NOT want to know about because I will burn it all down, but what we thought was asbestos shingles were in fact, not, which we happily discovered when we had to rip them off to replace what we thought was just bad plywood but included a bad corner column.
You definitely win.
Holy crap does this suck! Love the bee keeper cleaning woman. That picture- what!!! This sounds like our kitchen nightmare. 2 years and still not complete. Meeting third contractor in a few weeks. I guess. If he shows. I was not kind enough to limit our story to one post. Blog is riddled with the countless stories. Sadly. Good luck!
Holy nuts! That’s a terrible way to host your pollinators–and I’m sorry about the shingles on top of the new roof. (sorry, I could not resist)