First Year Home Owner - Home Maintenance (1)

I am still not completely sold on the home owner status versus remaining as a renter. Truthfully, I do not know where people even learn this stuff before. Perhaps the general American upbringing teaches these to the next generation, but I am pretty sure my parents did not do most of these things.

I just learned a new list of things that I have to do:

• Sealing grout in bathrooms
• Sealing granite countertops
• Sealing grout in tiled rooms
• Sealing wood floors
• Caulking showers
• Caulking counters
• Changing air filter (this one I knew)
• Clearing water tank
• Closing external water lines (winter)
• Cleaning out lint box behind dryer

Of course, I did not think to check all this beforehand so I also had to learn how to clean a bunch of things before all that. For example, sealing helps prevent staining. Well, some grout has also already stained so I had to learn how to clean that.

While cleaning, there is even more things to learn like acetone, caulking, and a bunch of other tools. Life as a renter was definitely much simpler. And this is only the tip of the iceberg because these are just known maintenance work. At some point, there are going to be major repairs because I am sure I am going to miss something, somewhere.

When do I get to realize the financial advantage of being an owner? sigh...

Reference

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/home-maintenance-for-dummies-cheat-sheet.html