Holy Buckets

Learning to be not proactive

I’ve never lived in a house where I had buckets on the floor collecting rainwater from a leaky roof. I’ve never had a tarp on a roof for more than a couple days. I know that sounds highly privileged and fancy.

It’s not.

I just come from a hyper vigilant family of Midwesterners born in the 1920s who milked cows as children and fixed their own dinner because their parents both worked. They grew up in the Depression and as my grandmother used to say, “We didn’t know we were poor, we were the same as most everyone else. We painted our own house, shoveled snow on our own drive, planted trees, flowers, cleaned windows, washed our own clothes, watched our own children and yes, fixed our own roofs.”

(Or as my Minnesota folks said, “ruffs”)

I was a late in life baby to them and I grew up in Florida in the late 1960s. Dad’s job transfer traded snow drifts for hurricanes and swamp heat, but the same rules applied. Homes need maintenance and being proactive was better than trying to repair a leaky roof in a thunderstorm.

My dad spent most of his time, after work, on the roof removing leaves (long before the leaf blower was invented, he used a broom) collecting sticks and branches from our giant Live Oak tree which provided much needed shade but a shit ton of mushy acorns, acres of leaves and branches that damaged roof tiles, back when you could afford roof tiles in Florida. He looked for holes and potential leaks and got after it with a caulking gun.

I’m renting for the first time in 20+ years and to add to the novelty I’m in a poor pueblo in Northern Mexico where there are no Home Depots or supply stores. Much of Mexico has these things, I’m not trying to paint a picture of backwards donkey riders. I just happen to be in a town that is 3 hours in any direction on poorly repaired/unpaved 2 lane roads to a town with all the stores. Most of the time, the commute is not worth it. My car was totaled in a wreck. My one option is to take the one bus at 5am and return at 11pm if I want to go to town. In 2 years, I’ve decided not to go to town.

Because of that decision I am retail challenged and shop at a handful of stores where people with pretty lousy taste and sweet tooths buy things and resell them here at a premium. Last week I stumbled on some Costco cheesecake and it was a big deal. After all, it is the holiday season.

The roof though? It’s not my house, someone else will fix the roof. Maybe, eventually.

I’m in the Sonoran Desert and I can count on one hand the number of times it has rained here. I have moved 3 times (lowering my rent each time, you have to be in a Mexican barrio for a while until you find the local pricing and even at $295/mo the neighbors say I’m getting screwed) My flat roof casita is mostly okay but the roof leaks. Mostly okay means there are no cabinets, no closets, no appliances (there was an old fridge) and no counters. No laundry.

There is a fenced patio and walled backyard with a couple trees, they let me have my rescued dogs, the neighbors are mostly fine, there are doors and windows at front and back and so I can get cross ventilation and someone left a sofa here with ripped cushions that I cover with a bedspread for the dogs. It’s an adventure in learning to roll with it.

If you’ve looked at renting in the US lately or shared walls anywhere (especially if you’re older than 30) you’ll know that this is a big bargain find. Of course there are no restaurants, coffee shops, retail, parks, or anything else, but there is a tienda, a fruit store with occasional fresh things, a couple random taco stands and the ice cream shop that has lame ice cream but brings in the Costco cheesecake. You cannot get Amazon or any other delivery.

I still have a hard time with that. Not Prime, not same day, not next week. Never. I ordered a bathroom shelf in November and after a series of 5 weeks, many couriers, emails and questions it was refunded. Last week it showed up from some guy in a Toyota Tercel. A box of rattling parts and missing pieces in a smashed box.

I wring out the towel that’s soaking up the roof leak that runs down the wall. The other leak is in the center of the bedroom and I can catch that in a water pitcher.

Plop.

Plop.

Andie, one of the feral dogs that I let in to sleep and eat when she wants to keeps sticking her head in the pitcher and getting stuck. There are 2 other water bowls in the kitchen. My guess is the water from the sink is as gross as I think it is and she’d rather rain water.

I told the landlord last month about the leak in the kitchen and reminded him yesterday, again. I don’t check weather anymore because it’s always the same, I’m always shocked if I hear a thunder roll.

The town is on the Sea of Cortez so thankfully we don’t get big cyclones, we’re just hot or temperate and zero clouds. When it’s hot it’s really hot. And that’s half the year. But no one water proofs anything. Things are graded incorrectly if they’re paved at all. No one knows if there’s a leak unless it rains and then they just hope it doesn’t rain again instead of fixing something. If I had access to a ladder I would have fixed it already. I have a tarp in a plastic tote box that made it out of the van crash for just such needs! Labor and supplies of course, not readily available.

So I’ll just move the bucket and wring out the towels and wait. The tarp likely would be better for those puppies in the abandoned lot across the road anyway.