So sorry you're having such a hard time trying to do the right thing, Susan. Over the last few years, since my husband's death and my quandary, our local attitude has changed considerably and we're now able to take unused meds to all of our local pharmacies plus the police stations. Perhaps all your calls will get the powers that be in your area to modernize their attitudes, as well. I'm sure that my dilemma contributed to our local action. I wasn't alone in my quest...and many a widow pleaded with our local system to relieve them of their burden. It became quite an issue. Although I'm sure the Clorox destroyed any harmful effects those meds may have had...I was still uncomfortable about disposing of the package so I understand exactly how you feel. Personally...I'm appalled that your hospital pharmacist gave you such dangerous advice. It would make me think twice about ever using their facility if he's indicative of their "talent". Anne

I've lived in old houses all my life and have been in the carpentry/remodeling business working under a 50 year carpenter for about six years now. Probably though, most of the advice I will summarize here has to do with what I've learned on my own. I've lived in the unliveable and lived in the luxuriously restored. First off, like others have said here, take a breath. Seems to me you have a good idea of your financial health and have a realistic view of what you need to do to survive -- most importantly, not getting sucked into the disease of needless consumerism. In summary here's how you should look at the issues in your house: 1. Basic functionality: a) will you stay warm enough in the winter to survive? b) will you have working plumbing to enable basic sanitary functions? c) will your structure be able to keep the elements out? That is, wind, water and cold. Why do you need your roof stripped now? If it isn't leaking, you can hold off probably until spring for that, you may, depending on the number of layers and the allowance of code, be able to get by with another layer for now if you have to. You mention that the bathrooms need gutting. That's a large and expensive project to undertake, do you need to do that now? What does the upstairs bath need to be operable? At least so that you can use the lav and the toilet? Are there major plumbing issues or are these more cosmetic issues? I'd say that your major issues are: Fix the plumbing issues if that is what is occuring in the baths. Improper or poorly functioning plumbing can lead to sanitary issues as well as further damage to the interior walls and floor of the rest of the house, much less more plumbing damage. Get some quotes and plan on doing that, do some research and see what you can attempt yourself. Make some friends who know plumbing. If the bathroom is gross and the flooring and walls are gross, rip out and replace on your own, recover the flooring with luan and sheet vinyl, paint the walls, fix the plumbing. Now you've got a usable bathroom with a little elbow grease and maybe a couple paychecks. You can go back later and do the real fix-up that you want. Is the wiring dangerous or just outdated? An electrician once told me when doing some wiring at one old house I lived in long before I got into the trades, "I always tell people to leave well enough alone, never touch old wires and don't rewire when you don't have a problem." Old wiring has old insulation that will flake and fall off if touched. Better to leave well enough alone. If it looks intact, works well then you are fine. Yes, we'd all love a re-wired house, but the cost is prohibitive and the payback isn't always so great. Removing plaster and scraping paint, removing old flooring and the rest will stir up a lot of lead and possibly asbestos, if you plan on having children, delay that until most of the rough work is complete. If you have children now, cordone off the areas you are working in with plastic taped securely around. Use a "zip-door" to enter and re-enter the work area. Since you are starting from scratch in a sense, I'd suggest also that you consider integrating more energy efficient design techniques with your design ideas. You could consider installing a solar hot water heater, or possibly a combination wood/gas fired furnace. You don't mention what kind heating system you have. Focus on: 1. Sanitation 2. Structural 3. Comfort 4. Aesthetics In that order. Of course oftentimes these four will converge, but when looking at a project from a budget point of view, you often have to ask yourself, "what can I live with, how can I live with it and for how long?" Oftentimes you can make small fixes now and as your budget, knowledge and ideas ripen over time, you'll have the flexibility to approach things from a different, wiser perspective. Unlike the stupid fix-it shows on teevee, remodeling and improving a house is in fact a long term process that requires a lot of forethought, planning not only in design, but choice of materials, relation of cost to function/value and of course, investment in sweat or dollars. The best fertilizer for that planning/development process is prudence, which often is exercised only when we have to.

Yes MamaGoose that is a wonderful thought provoking image. You and LL have been rung through the mill. I also had a few issues with medications for Joe. This is when I started to keep a detailed journal. Some thing that could not just be heard from me but written so the doctors and nurses would see I was keeping details and when he was told to take this or that med is showed up in his food journal as barfing his guts out. Stop the meds he was better. And even though these meds were supposed to keep him from getting sick they did not work that way. I was also very frustrated on the way they were taking care of him in the hospital. His skin was horrible and his toe nails were awful. No one even bothered to look at his feet but me. Interesting the first thing the home health nurse looked at was his feet and she was pleased I had cared for them She said it is common in hospital to neglect the feet. And when they brought him food they did not open the container even after notes taped to the tray and written on his board in the room. I would get there and everything closed up. He could not open the containers so he would go hungry. He was too out of it to ask. I had to spoon feed him for a couple weeks after we got home. Sometimes he fell back to sleep eating half a cup of custard. LBD sounds like a horrible disease. Spiders coming from the ceiling is more than enough to make a person go over the edge. Feeling so bad for your and and Hubby. MG and LL. We did get some sun. We canceled the dentist appointment yesterday AM. too much snow and emergency weather alerts saying stay off the roads. I think we got 5 or 6 inches of snow but at some point in the night there was a bit of rain so it laid down an ice slick under the snow. This morning we woke to sun and about 13 degrees. We did breakfast then out to put the snow plow on the ranger. Joe had about half of it done then I went out to help him do the rest. I know he wanted to do it all by himself but it is good for me to refresh my brain on how it goes on and comes off. Then I went off to the post office and Joe plowed the driveway. LOL He even plowed a swath across the back yard for the kitties to travel on their adventures.

The longer rectangular box that is mostly painted over is a super-old Winegard TV distribution amplifier (as someone suggested above). Here is almost the exact same one, I'm pretty sure: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Winegard-DA-8150-82-Channel-Distribution-Amplifier/193941261031?hash=item2d27cccae7:g:SZEAAOSwxjZgRUNJ The other box that is completely painted, with the two connections at the top and power coming out of the bottom, I think is one of these: https://www.ebay.com/itm/303839191777?mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&campid=5338722076&toolid=10001 a pre-amp TV signal booster, effectively similar to the longer box. But, those boxes utilize coax cable-TV-style cable, and the intercom amplifier uses thinner, twisted pair wires that are orange red and black. The cable going into the antenna device in the closet appears to have a larger, heavier gauge wire with green, black, and red conductors....I would try to trace that specific cable as far as you can and see where it goes first. Were there any other kind of junction boxes underneath the house? The intercom amp appears to have a line coming into the DOOR input, one line going to the regular input and one line going to the output terminals, which would suggest that they likely just had one door speaker, and one inside speaker to communicate with the front door. If you had multiple intercom speakers throughout the house, typically you would have multiple wires going to those terminals, but I do believe those particular nutone systems could be "daisy-chained" as well, with one room station wired to the next, in a line, etc...so it is possible there could have been more. I am absolutely fascinated by what this thing in your closet could be! If it is, in fact, somehow wired into one or both of those two TV distribution amps, maybe it was some kind of project idea from Popular Electronics that utilized making your own antenna and using those amps to power it somehow, but I just can't imagine why you'd have it in a closet, it is so intriguing. The key-switch on the wall looks very common to many old alarm systems of the time, but typically you'd have other security system components around, like sensors on your doors/windows, and a siren mounted somewhere outside your house...It is also entirely possible that the TV distribution amp boxes underneath the house were not related to that antenna thing, but it seems like it would be too much of a coincidence, especially since someone wrote "closet" down there on the joist. This three-year-old mystery is so damn interesting! haha