House Building: October 2009 Archives

One of the best parts of living in a neighborhood is having a nice place to run that doesn't involve short laps around an apartment complex or risking my life running along a heavily travelled road. As a bonus, there are even some trails in our neighborhood -- both along the edge of the development and on the large golf course that fills the interior.

(Note to golfers that might be annoyed to hear that I have run on the golf cart trails: I only run on them after sunset, when I know there won't be any golfers out. I don't run on them in broad daylight because I do not have the desire to 1) get yelled at or 2) get smacked in the head with a golf ball. FORE!)

Last night as I did a 3.5 mile out-and-back, I thought about two observations I've made that, despite my love of our new house and everything that it entails, are actually pretty annoying.

First: Tuesday is trash day, so a lot of our neighbors put their trash out on Monday evening. Last night as I was running down the sidewalk, I had to dodge at least 5 trash cans at 3 different houses. Why? Because people put their trash cans in the middle of the sidewalk. I don't get this. There are always people walking up and down my street and kids riding around on their bikes and scooters. Why block the sidewalk? You could put your trash can at the edge of your driveway. (Maybe they're afraid it'll block them from backing out of the driveway? But it won't.) Or you could put your trash on the grass strip between the sidewalk and the curb. (Maybe they're afraid it'll kill their grass? But it won't since you're going to put the empty can back in your garage the next day.) So if you are my neighbor, please don't put your trash can in the middle of the sidewalk. It's annoying.

Second: Our neighborhood is still being developed, both in the section of 60-foot lots that we live in and in the neighboring section with 70-foot lots and slightly larger homes. The roads are all laid down, but sidewalks are only put in when a lot is sold and a house begins going up. This means a lot of running down the sidewalk followed by "oops, 60 feet of uneven dirt and grass!" And I know there will eventually be homes there, so there will eventually be sidewalks. But what gets me is are the "common areas" of the neighborhood that have strange sidewalks. For example: near the pool and clubhouse, the sidewalk inexplicably ends about 50 feet from the intersection that serves as the main entrance to the neighborhood. There's a crosswalk there, and the sidewalk picks up again on the other side. But there's a 50 foot chunk that's just missing. It is the weirdest thing, and because that road is actually kinda busy, I have to stumble across the swath of grass. Trail runner, I am not. I look pretty dang awkward, in fact.

The missing chunk of sidewalk is a developer/HOA thing, which reminds me of something odd that we've recently discovered about our house: wacky light bulbs. Seriously, our house has the strangest light bulbs I've ever seen.

It started when I decided that I wanted to replace the bulbs in the four can lights that provide the majority of the light in our kitchen. The bulbs put in by the builder are very bright and blue and kind of garish at night. I know they're supposed to approximate sunlight, and maybe the brightness is similar, but the color of the light is just uncomfortable. (I know, first world problem.) Anyway, I bought some soft white bulbs and cracked open the light bulb changer that Karen gave us as a wedding present. (I laughed when we opened this present, but then realized with our high ceilings it could be quite useful.) I reached up with the pole, used the attachment to grasp the light and turned.

Nothing happened. I tried harder. Nothing. I reconsidered, because I didn't want to twist the thing so hard that the bulb broke. I tried a different light, wondering if some strong man had just screwed the bulb in really tight. Nope. No joy.

Since the lights were working just fine, I gave up for the evening. A few days later, we went to replace one of the bulbs in the ceiling fan in our bedroom because it had been flickering rapidly and discovered that the bulb was unlike any we'd seen. It doesn't screw in; instead, it pushes/snaps into the fixture. With this knowledge, last night I decided to perform a closer inspection on the can lights, this time attacking the can lights in the hallway where the ceiling is lower and thus easier to reach on a ladder. It turns out that those are the weird snap-in bulbs as well, which explains why twisting it with the light bulb remover didn't work. I have never seen a snap-in light bulb like this, but they are all over our house! In the can lights, in the ceiling fan lights in our bedroom, and who knows where else.

We didn't see anything like this at Lowe's. Unless I can find them somewhere else, I'm going to have to order light bulbs on the internet. And that's something I never expected to buy online. Very weird.