I’ve been living in a decrepit suburban tract house, one of three in a row, rented cheap from an old college pal for almost seven years of wonderful marital separation.

In theory I’ve been fixing it up while living in it but in actuality I have fixed up less than than I thought I would.

From having a death in the family, minor surgeries, disabilities, laziness, and motivation issues (weed).

My old school buddy/landlord knows my problems and never pressed me to work on his house. And he’s a bit mental as well, having the hoarding syndrome.

So he’s more concerned with having things rather than using things, and happy to have me keep his house from further deterioration.

The house had been vacant for two years and before that was subject to tenant neglect and abuse.

In fact a family of racoons had moved into the attic and I had to run those dirty noisy pests out of the house for my peace of mind.

The first thing I did was cut up and rip out seemingly acres of pet fouled carpets.

I rolled it all up and it was filthy and heavy to walk it down the steep, not up to code, dangerous back steps. Luckily, I am strong like bull and also smart like tractor.

I piled the carpeting in the back yard, along with junk abandoned by previous deadbeat tenants, in a huge mound taller than me.

In fact my first and biggest expense was paying $900 to have the big pile of debris and junk hauled to the dump.

Both front and back stairs were dangerously degraded so next I plated the back steps with redwood boards I cut out of recycled dog-ear fence boards on hand.

Softwood isn’t recommend for steps but I’m not building for the ages, just enough to keep from breaking a leg. My goal being a livable house at minimum cost.

The big house across the alley stares right into the kitchen and porch here so I salvaged more dog-ear fence boards and built a Ft Fetterman style pallisade for privacy.

But before I built it I had to brace up the ancient decrepit pergola to keep it from falling on my head. I used salvaged wood or cutoffs from other projects to brace it up.

Finally, I scavenged four steel electrical conduit tubes from near Dry Creek to make diagonal braces for more wind resistance, burying the bottoms in the dirt and screwing the tops into the pallisade brace. It’s still standing.

The large back porch faces SW, and while too hot to use in the summer, was a joy in other seasons.

I used leftover green screening material to enclose it, stapling it firmly and it’s still in good shape despite seven savagely hot Great Valley summers, and some stormy winters.

The double figure eights are my television antenna, allowing me to pick up PBS for good documentaries and channel 10 for football games.

Here’s the closet I painted, taxing to my 75 year old body with my arthritis, peripheral neuropathy and a Terminator style fake right hip joint.

Prepping the middle bedroom, painting it, and trimming it was quite a long chore because a previous tenant had put in lots of shelving for his Hot Wheels tiny car collection.

More spackling than I ever want to do again.

Furthermore, a young (most everyone is now young to me) renter had painted the middle room turquoise and brown. In a house as dark as a cave! Kids.

So it took at least two coats of white paint to cover it. And I hate painting.

My hardest job was putting down pink fiberglass attic insulation above the living room. The raccoons had trampled what was up there to razor thinness.

Tract houses from the 1970s were sturdy enough wood gorilla cages but they scrimped on fixtures, windows, doors, plumbing and insulation.

The 1995 flood rebuild wasn’t much better, from worker shortages and junky Contractors Warehouse fixtures.

I shopped for cheap building materials and tools at the local Denio’s flea market and at Jimmy Carter’s Habitat for Humanity outlet called Restore.

I lucked out finding forty something rolls of 3″ insulation at Restore for about $100.

However, crawling and duck-walking from one joist to another all bent over to lay the rolls out took me days to recover from.

But the difference in temperature stability in the LR is noticeable.

When prepping my late father’s house for sale in 2022 I removed and saved the pretty knotty pine shelving he’d installed in the garage.

Since the front porch flooring here was well worn and ugly, I cut the pine boards to fit and varnished them with a satin finish polyurethane.

It’s has a lot of authentic patina and my cat Yellowboy likes it.

Last week I finished the last project I’m likely to do here at Tod’s Fortress: The Palisades.

I plated the worn front steps with more of my dad’s shelving plus other scrounged planks, again spraying it with satin finish polyurethane varnish I bought at the flea market for $4 per can

Of course the salvaged wood looks irregular and the fit isn’t perfect but this house is destined to be a rental unit and its fine for that.

To be sold, both front and back stairways would need to be torn down then built to code.

Remember, my landlord/pal is a hoarder and unlikely to ever sell it, despite it being valued at over a half million USD.

The reason I’m laying down tools here is that, after seven years of blissful separation, I’m finally divorcing the wife-and most of my family-who much prefer her to me.

And I’m buying the estranged spouse’s half of our house. Which is right next door to Tod’s Fortress: The Palisades. Funny old world, ain’t it?

So all the paint, spackle, hardware, tools and supplies I bought to fix up Tod’s Fortress I will move next door and use on MY doppelganger, though shorter, house.

Hope it doesn’t flood again like it did in 1995 before I even move back in, in this El Niño year, the biggest in recorded history.

I’m grateful to my landlord/friend for letting me live cheap for seven years and do useful work.

It was a welcome refuge from marriage hell and I’ve enjoyed my time here. It’s important to have a few friends.

Thanks for viewing.

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