The Underside of Landlord Life
Steve Kahn
Alaska Dispatch News
March 27, 2016
WILLOW — I’m grumpy just thinking about slithering around on my belly, but what should I expect? This area under the house isn’t called a “crouch” or “bend-your-head-slightly” space, but a crawl space — so I remove the square of plywood and enter.
My hand and knees stain brown from the moist dollops of dirt spotting the plastic sheeting. As I approach the first beam, I start cussing out my wife and her boyfriend. Not that my wife has a boyfriend, but she did before we met — and they built this house together and share responsibility for this belly-dragging, head-bonking dungeon.
After my dip and wiggle under the first beam, I feel my scorn morph into something closer to dread. There is an even smaller clearance under beam No. 2 (my wife and her ex-squeeze having shoveled out the area a bit unevenly) but I know once I snake under that 4-by-12, I’ll be face-to-face with the suspect plumbing, remnants thereof, or whatever surprises our renters have left. This rooting around makes me think fondly of past root canals.
Damp puddles on the plastic ground cover become more of a marshland as I creep forward. I avoid the deeper pools but give up trying to stay dry. My knees are soggy merit badges of stupidity (the renters’ or mine?) and I shine the flashlight’s beam on charred joists and melted vapor barrier. Apparently someone pulled off one piece of plywood skirting before jamming the weed burner’s business end under the house. I understand the effort to thaw frozen pipes, but where is the common sense?
Light flame, turn off brain. Or is it the other way around?