Finding Great HITs 05/01 Toe-Tapping Thinking Thinking Tuesday

When I was a kid, we had a cistern lined with tar (too far out in the country to have city water.) If the water level got too low, big globs of tar would come out of the tap, so my mother rationed water. We were only allowed a bath once a week, with only a couple of inches of water in the bottom of the tub, and our hair was always so greasy that people commented on it. Fun times...

 

Worst we ever had it was when we first moved back to Cleveland. We had to run a garden hose from an adjacent sister building to the back building in the dead of winter (before we got our first home). All because the water company refused to actually come out and fix the broken at the street intake for the back home (the entire property was in foreclosure). Imagine waking up to icy sludge coming out the faucet as the pressure tried to clean out what had frozen in the hose that night lol.

Yours sounds way worse, like sticks of nowhere Alabama worse.

 

It was rural Ohio, but yeah, poverty. Until I was in high school and my mother managed to save enough money to buy her first business: a restaurant. All of her daughters worked in it, for no pay, for a long time, and then for very little money for a lot longer. Eventually she sold it, and bought a factory. One of my sisters, who was married to someone who made decent money, put her house up for collateral to let Mom buy that factory. Flash forward several decades of all of us slaving for her for next to nothing in return, and the business belongs to our much younger brothers, because they were born the all important joysticks that control the world. Well... I've told you all of that before.

We had a well for drinking water, because the cistern held rain water and was too contaminated to drink, even if it hadn't been for the tar problem. When the water level in the cistern got too low, I had to hook a hose up to the well spout and run it into the cistern, which I was terrified of falling into, because I was tiny then. Then pump water into the cistern. I still remember how happy I was when my useless, vicious father finally hooked an electric pump onto that well.

 

Requires a phone with a QR reader function, which I don't have right now(dead battey). Returned because that's some bullshit right there...

 

Sometimes when requesters ask to write about nice and pleasant memories...I'm like duh. What are those? I can see a silver lining though. Made me very resilient and appreciative what I have now. Sometimes even warm water from a faucet is a luxury.

 

I know the feeling. I live in Cleveland, a city that just sucks the happiness from you like Flint Michigan does lead from it's pipes. I mean, it's better than Baltimore , MD by a long shot. I'm usually very snarky when it comes to "remember a time" crap.

 

4 minutes

Title: Please take this 5 minute survey for $0.50 and a $0.20 to $0.25 bonus(~ 5 minutes) | PANDA Requester: Berkeley Dietvorst [A3EKLYB6P787W8] (TO) TO Ratings: ★★★★★ 4.00 Communicativity ★★★★★ 3.91 Generosity ★★★★★ 4.74 Fairness ★★★★★ 4.85 Promptness Number of Reviews: 36 | TOS Flags: 0 Submit a new TO review Description: Complete a short survey by answering questions Time: 2100 HITs Available: 80 Reward: $0.50 Qualifications: Total approved HITs GreaterThanOrEqualTo 100;Exc: [2595104-85933] DoesNotExist ;SurveyGroup [976] DoesNotExist ;HIT approval rate (%) GreaterThanOrEqualTo 90;Location In US

 

7 minutes

Title: Survey about online comments | PANDA Requester: Philippe Duguay [A180OSXUN2JPCC] (TO) TO Ratings: TO Unavailable Submit a new TO review Description: You are invited to take part in a project consisting in reading 16 online comments and responding to questions about how they make you feel. Time: 3600 HITs Available: 1 Reward: $1.00 Qualifications: Masters Exists

 

The hot water heater I have now(which I originally installed, including re-plumbing part of the attic to accommodate it) also needs to be replaced. Until I arrange that, its heat some water and wash. But..My problem is that I can no longer do this kind of thing easily. My point is that if I--a small female type-- could do it, so can you. Do what I did and read up on it. Think it through, plot it out, be careful. Check you connections, both water and gas. Just go slowly....and don't drop it! You don't need to give a plumber that kind of money for something you really can do yourself.

 

I couldn't do this sort of thing myself in a million years.

Low 'spatial intelligence." I do stupid shit-- things like put thread tape on in the wrong direction. What's worse, is I can't seem to correct these mistakes. I try to redo something I did wrong, only to find I'm still doing it the same way, over and over again, even though I totally know what it is I'm doing wrong. Plus, I have no strength in my hands any more, thanks to arthritis. I would absolutely have to hire someone to do any and all of these things, no matter how much it cost.

There are a lot of people like me out there, utter mechanical incompetents.
Even some people who think they're good at this sort of thing are utter mechanical incompetents. I know because I've hired one.

 

It's looking like I will have to; the gas thing still scares the shit out of me though. I oddly have a pretty nasty fear of open fire, despite backround as a former welder. So last option is buying channel locks, relearning hold to solder pipes(which is a bit different than old boards) and doing it myself.

 

Anything involving gas--you don't fool with. I've done lots of plumbing for customers (I'm also small, 4'11") but I diidn't touch gas, not even for the kind of money I was making.

 

I avoid electronics repair for this reason. I know how to repair all kinds of game consoles, but don't because I have shaky hands and poor accuracy. I get it right about 75% of the time, but back when I did it I would miss solder something and toast the entire console(happened to an snes that i was fixing a sound chip for, a tiny bit of solder connected the voltage regulator to the board and fried the entire thing.

Sostrange is a loss aversion person like me and probably is also not into gambling when it REALLY counts.

Fuck...I sound like a shitty Mturk survey now >>.

 

This is Cleveland, they sooner watch my house explode. We had a shut off valve at the intake fail and it took the water company about a day to get out and turn it off. I had to put a ball cap on the end and caulking the fucker shut to stop the basement from flooding. Also, when they get out here they just shut off the gas and tell you to fuck off fix it yourself.

 

check with your power company,
they may have a rebate/trade in program
look into an on demand tankless heater
probably use less energy overall and you're not paying to keep water hot 24/7

 

ohso and Paleface--
I usually write about something in my childhood. I can't think of too many since lately. Lacking too much negativity maybe, but not joyful.

This conversation has been an education for me. I grew up in apt bldgs in NYC, where basic utilities were taken for granted.

Don't diss yourself, it might be a little dyslexia. I have/had a home repair business for 35years, (now mostly dead) and you would think I have good spatial intelligence. For at least the past 40 years, I keep blowing out the tires and hitting things on the passenger side of my car because I can't judge distances on that side.

 

It's worth asking them about a rebate/trade in program. Some companies do. The worst they can do is tell you to fuck off.

The thing about on demand tankless heaters is that they cost a fuck ton more than conventional ones. Around two grand, I think.