Wednesday night. Under a gray sky, a mass of fat rainclouds rolled over the house. So low you could almost touch them, but opaque and thick like dark gray cotton balls, not misty, like fog. They moved fast. Lifelike spooky, leviathans that hurried east across the valley where they collided with the Sandia Mountains, and broke apart as rain.
Husband critter and I watched, delighted by the first rainfall in months. Outside, rain collected in puddles on the brick pathways.
After a few minutes we looked at each other and said, “The roof!” We made for the master bathroom. (“Master bathroom” being such an incongruous term for a room the size of a closet.) Once there, we studied a section of ceiling near the ventilation fan.
See, the homebuilder didn’t bother to hook the bathroom fan vents to the exterior vents (Tiffany/Collatz Builders, I’m lookin’ at you). So for nearly a decade, the ventilation fan had been pumping humid air into the gap between the drywall and roof. Ruining the roof, insulation and some of the roof framing.
Husband critter and his parents repaired most of the damage. But that section of roof still leaks on the rare occasion of a real rainfall.
Fortunately, the roof held on Wednesday night. So scratch “roof-tar-goopy-stuff” off the weekly Home Depot/Lowe’s list. Nevertheless, we both surveyed the bathroom, silently cataloging a litany of dreams. A new vanity. Fresh paint. And did the mold just move?
Our household doesn’t just shop at Home Depot. We tithe there weekly.
