The "Or Else" List

I suspect that anyone who has ever bought an older home has gotten one of these from their homeowners insurance company, a list consisting of everything that needs immediate attention to avoid the "or else." Ours contained no surprises. In fact, the same things were on our own to-do list. Even so, there is something fundamentally annoying about the idea of having someone standing over our shoulder, arms akimbo and foot tapping, demanding that we do things we are in the process of doing anyway.

Now, to their credit, I have to commend our company for not doing what my in-laws insurance company did, i.e. simply canceling the policy with no prior warning because of x, y, z. Ours at least asked us to send them a "what we plan to do and when we plan to do it," response within 20 days thank you very much.

Our "Or Else" list looks like this:

• Back steps lack a handrail
• Roof has curling/lifting shingles that need repair
• Trees are overhanging the home that need to be cut back in order to prevent loss
• Siding has peeling paint, needs repair

Fortunately we can write back that all these items are either in the works or imminent. And at least one thing was already taken care of, the handrail. Of that, here is a "before" photo:

This was one of the real estate photos. Pretty sorry hand rail, huh? It was a 2x4 nailed to two posts. Obviously our insurance company didn't recognize this as a valid handrail. Actually, we had to replace it pretty quickly because DH cut that one down order to get some of our furniture into the house when we moved in.

Here's the one he made and I painted. The "after:"

We've discussed ideas for this area. We already charcoal grill out here. So should we create a patio? Expand the porch with decking? We're not sure yet. So for the time being I'll probably just repaint the concrete, and get on with the rest of our "or else" list.

The "Or Else" List copyright July 2009 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/