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#homeownership

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Well, I am slowly coming to terms with owning a new house on Wiradjuri land. It’s quite a shock, a pleasant one though. I am looking forward to make this space ‘my own’, but it will take some time.

I have had to leave a circle of friends and family behind in Canberra to do this and time will tell if a two and half hour trip is too long to entertain whenever I feel a need to reconnect in person (doubtless, I will be making many such trips in the future).

Most of all, I am grateful for this opportunity as well as conscious that in owning my own home I am now a privileged member of our society. Hence, I am also conscious that my current dwelling situation is beyond the scope of an increasing number of families.

This is as personal as I’ll get on social media even if this platform is the best of the best, the fediverse.
#HomeOwnership #SocialHousing #SansAbris

Since the move I've been doing a bit of a 'sabbatical' from consulting and development work (altho' I squeezed in a small contract in autumn).

I figured six months might get the main house fix-ups and enhancements done and other things can proceed a little slower afterwards.

Big things were insulation and winterizing deficiencies, electrical repairs and re-configurations, some plumbing, and a bevy of network, #HomeAssistant and alarm system installs.

Work continues!

Adventures in #HomeOwnership in #Spain, episode "crazy neighbor".

Yesterday the crazy neighbor called the #PolicíaLocal on us, because we were installing a bamboo fence. But let's start from the beginning.

So, when we moved in, the crazy neighbor came to welcome us by claiming that our yard is too high, against the municipal code, and overshadows his yard. Ok, but even if it was true, it has existed there for way over six years so it becomes de-facto legalized as per Spanish law. No evidence was ever presented for the alleged code violation either.

He said that they don't actually mind the yard being high, but they don't want any kinds of hedges, fences or trees on our yard because, and I quote, "they bring shadow, moisture and spiders". All three thing are positive aspects in Andalucian nature.

Of course I understand that by "spiders" he means spider mites actually which aren't spiders but present an endemic infestation in practically all cypresses in the area.

Before we bought this house, there had been a huge, deep dark cypress hedge between our house and the neighbor's property on our side. This apparently died and was cut down for the sale because the previous owners didn't maintain anything in the house.

This cypress hedge existed throughout the existence of the house since it was constructed in 2008, and at the very least between August 2012 until March 2022, when it was properly documented by Google StreetView. This is already over 9 years, which is over 6 years, which is important and makes it legal no matter any and all claimed violations, making them moot.

So, I am completely within my rights to restore this hedge. However, since the crazy neighbor made a baseless ultimatum previously and because we don't really like cypress hedges, we decided to install a bamboo fence which doesn't breed "spiders and moisture", and doesn't block light.

After all, the crazy neighbor decided in all his wisdom to grow vine grapes on the wall leaning on our property.

Anyways, this is why he called the police on us. We had a nice chat with the two officers, who were very polite and moderately amused about the whole situation. They just asked me my name and NIE, and asked if I have a municipal permission for the fence. I told them no, that I don't need a permission since it's a restoration of a pre-existing fence.

Here are the photos of the previous cypress hedge, and the new bamboo fence.

"Global warming injects increasing uncertainty into #HomeOwnership as a basis for local government finance.

Property destruction [and] outmigration will undercut property tax revenue. Declining tax revenue also raises the costs of borrowing, so localities will struggle to make major infrastructure investments, including for climate rebuilding, mitigation, and adaptation.

As climate change reduces property values, these pressures can easily become a downward spiral."

brookings.edu/articles/climate

Brookings · Climate change demands a long-overdue reform of the property tax systemReforms for property taxation are desperately needed as communities across America feel the impact of climate change.

Announcing (?) my #blog, which has no clever title yet.

skullvalanche.com/blog

Now with a fancy #RSS feed so you can subscribe to it via whatever feed reader thingie you like.

Expect lots of rambling about #music, #legos, #3dPrinting, #woodworking, #RyeWhiskey, #StoutBeer, #HomeOwnership, #coding, #tech, and basically the same sorts of nonsense I post here, just maybe in longer-ish form?

I'm pretty big on minimalism when it comes to site design, so don't expect anything too fancy over there, but I may add some more functionality as I discover new features I'm willing to implement. 😅

skullvalanche.comSkull's Blog

Hey, about to start gluing up the styrofoam elements of my slowly-progressing insulated attic hatch sled.

I've yammered about this previously, and finally settled on a design based on controlling cost and effort, but still getting a good R-factor above a pull-down attic stair hatch (which is currently uninsulated).

It'll all slide out of the way when I (rarely) need attic access.

The installers showed up with our new dishwasher. I needed to turn off the circuit breaker while they were working. I squinted at all the messily hand-written labels next to the breakers to find the right one. I couldn't find it, so I ended up switching off most of the house before I hit the right one.
Only then did I see that this particular breaker had a sticker next to it, that I hadn't noticed before, with "dishwasher" on it in tiny print.
#lol #doh #oops #homeOwnership