There are some classic movies about how owning a house is rather like having a money pit, notably including the wry and oh-so-dated Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. There are big and obvious costs, like a replacement water heater or new roofing, but there are also lots of hidden costs. And some are literally hidden and don’t show up until unveiled.
Like the stains I found in my carpet while prepping the room for a carpet cleaning service to show up. I know about a couple of the stains, but the stain that no-one acknowledged or tried to clean up? That’s a humdinger of a problem, possibly a time-to-replace-your-carpet level of problem. Let’s start with the bird’s eye view, though:
I’ve known about the stains at 3 o’clock, 6 o’clock and even the darker stain at 10 o’clock, but the big doozy of a stain at the top of the photo? That was one that lined up exactly with the seam in our sectional sofa, so my guess is that it’s a drink (a cup of coffee?) that someone spilled while sitting on the couch then, never realizing it had soaked through, ignoring the problem.
You get a better, though perhaps slightly more depressing, vantage point with a closeup:
As I said, there’s a carpet cleaning company on the way and I have fingers crossed that they’ll have some miracle solution that’ll at least significantly improve the carpet. But a sneaking suspicion is that it’s time to replace it, and as with so many homes of the last 25 years, it’s just part of a much larger carpeted area, carpet that runs up stairs, along hallways and into other rooms. Replacing the carpet with wood floors, which would be very nice, is therefore a big, complex and time-consuming job. And I don’t have the $$ for a job that big either.
Meanwhile, all the furniture is piled up in the kitchen, a rather interesting display:
What I haven’t checked is whether there are beverage spill stains on the sides of the sectional couch. Not sure I want to.
For now, though, it’s just the fun of home ownership as I wait for the cleaner to pull up and – hopefully! – do some magic on the carpet…