Tell us your immigrant stories
czarinalex
7 years ago
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WANTED: Tell me your worst basement toilet horror story.
Comments (4)Upflush systems work well, when you know what could go wrong and how to take care of it. I rebuilt a house, where we put a basement upflush tank and pump for the new toilet and shower. The next occupants had their 25 year old son living in the basement. (He sold me a cell phone, and then later became an apprentice electrician, and I worked with once, somewhere else. A nice guy.) He held a big party for everyone he knew. They all came, and as could be predicted, a circuit breaker popped, and the lights went out. No problem, he thought, as he knew a lot about electricity. His guests flushed the toilet while the circuit was inoperative. Long story short, he took time to get the circuit live again, and the holding tank had filled up by then, and (maybe someone kept on flushing) and the toilet overflowed. Nice basement party ruined. Floor too. He has now learned to communicate. And to connect the dots. A pump needs electricity, so he could have figured that out instead of waiting to be told, on the next day. His guests need to be told to wait for the lights to come back on, before flushing; and above all not to flush continuously. hth...See MoreHelp.....Does your toddler tell big stories?
Comments (15)Preschool children (and some a little after starting school) have no short term memory or real life experience to guide them and to inform their actions. They live in the moment, and so do their thoughts and feelings. They will tend to answer questions based on what they think or feel or are experiencing at the time the question is asked. A young child fearful of a scolding who ducked under the covers might answer _any_ question with the name of the first comforting adult that comes to their mind; they might answer a 'yes' or 'no' question, or a name question with whatever they think the asker wants to hear (to please the angry adult). They also are not so good at differentiating 'good' from 'bad' attention. They just tend to like attention and need attention for their survival... All that normal developmental stuff can end up with the most convoluted stories which do nothing more than illustrate the internal world of the toddler's thinking processes (normal for a toddler is not normal for an adult). Talk to your pediatrician about the situation and ask them for recommendations for your son. A child psychologist might be able to help sort out whether your son was likely having a problem. That you can do, to help your son or figure out what if anything can help you and him communicate better. The law enforcement processes are out of your hands at this point. Talk to the investigator about the interview they got with your son, and find out what the next step would be. They probably have a protocol they will follow as to charges, or what would happen with the accused person. You may or may not be able to exert an influence by sharing your doubts or expressing an unwillingness to proceed based on your current understanding of the situation. You can give it a try though. The daycare center will probably act to preserve itself no matter what. They have an interest in portraying everything as normal or as not related to their environment. That's normal and expectable, and if it seems possible that your son was not harmed when he was there then it might not be worth pursuing. This is where taking your son to a child psychologist can help because they can help with that first assessment of whether your son seems to have been harmed/molested and then work on where or who did that. Relatives, and apologies for major accusations are difficult. It's something that time and being consistent and stable can help them and you. Mothers of young children are generally known and respected for being protective. If a mistake is to be made, erring on that protective side is usually understandable at least intellectually in the abstract. You can share what you felt and what you thought which guided your actions if you want, or not if you don't. the books 'the gift of fear' and 'protecting the gift' are really good at explaining how you can take charge of your security and your children's security, and how you can notice your own instincts and honor them as situations call for...See MoreTell me your worst neighbor story
Comments (30)The neighbors we had in FL are the reason we live on about 90 acres of wooded property now. I can't decide which neighbor was the BEST one- the single woman who was very nice but never home and her house alarm would sound for hours and hours, just blaring. Or the married man across the street who would come home at lunch time for nooners with his girlfriend. Ick. To our left was the couple who stripped every tree off their lot, built a house and opened a day care center, in city limits out of their home. Legal, I called to ask, as long as they never had more than 6 kids there, including their own. And very often, he would mow his yard as soon as we went out on the screen room to eat dinner. The house behind us, nice enough people but they kept their poor dog staked out there in the swampy, mosquito-y area and that poor dog barked and howled all day every day. I felt so badly for him. Catty-corner from us was a guy with a big dog that used to poop a loose stream of yuk all over our yard every day. He wouldn't keep his dog in his own yard so Woody would scrape it up with a shovel and deliver it back to his driveway every day. We fenced our back yard so at least that part stayed clean and we could go barefoot out there. The man was a real jerk and threaten to come over and kick our butts but he was all talk. And a karate instructor, to boot. What a great role model. We just called him "Glassbowl". Sort of. There was a young mother who would take her kid and let her play in everyone's back yards on their toys and playsets and she even came in our yard to sit on our back porch. HUH? We ended up having to put locks on our gates. And the best one? The kids across the street who stole plywood from every nearby construction site and built this huge, wonderful skateboard ramp and had 20 kids over every night to go ker-thunk,ker-thunk,ker-thunk,ker-thunk,ker-thunk,ker-thunk, KER-THUNK until the wee hours of the morning, like 2 AM, until I would have enough and go flash our outside lights at them. That was their warning, next call was to the police. The City told me they had a permit for that thing, which was a LIE. We had to put up with it for over 2 years until finally the power company made them tear it down, then the city said it was illegal all along. They had built it right under a power line, it was amazing no kid was killed there. I think that and the crappy dog and the kids next door were the most annoying things about having neighbors....See MoreYour Funniest Buying/Selling a Home Story . . .Tell Us!
Comments (71)When my husband and I were selling our house last year, we went through a string of bad luck. We staged our home and put a lot of stuff in his office (he had his own business). Needless to say the building the office was in burned down and we lost a lot of pictures, but mostly just junk. We finally sold the house only to have the first buyers back out 4 days before the closing, but we were locked into buying our new house. We then put our home back on the market and prayed we would sell it in a newly SLOW market. Anyway we had many potential buyers come back and view the house 3 and 4 times but after 5 weeks still no offer. With the stress of holding 2 mortgages we were desperate. One day when my husband was commuting home from work it just so happened he was sitting next to a realtor. They got to talking about our house and she mentioned to him when ever she needed to get a house sold she would burn sage leaves to ward off evil spirits. That weekend we were holding an open house. Unbeknownst to me, as we were leaving the house my husband ran back in to "get something." He was taking a really long time so I ran in to find out what in the world he was doing. I saw him running through the living room with a smoking piece of aluminum foil and the overwhelming smell of burning herbs which smelled very illegal! I wanted to kill him. At the same time our realtor arrives and was nearly knocked back at the smell. At the time I didn't think it was funny and I was fuming. Needless to say, we got an offer that day, and we closed in 4 weeks. The ironic thing was our buyer was a Drug Enforcement Agent. He must of knew it was sage and not something else....See Morebpath
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