Why Is It That We Leave
Our Houses Unprotected?
By Jeff D. Opdyke
From The Wall Street Journal Online
My wife, Amy, had one thing to say to me recently when I called
home while picking up our daughter. "Well," she said, "I nearly
burned your house down."
Apparently, Amy had just put some oil in a skillet on the stove
when she went to check on a noise in the garage. When she returned, the oil was
popping and smoking. She quickly moved it, but some of the oil spilled and
caught fire on the burner.
|
Love & Money columnist Jeff Opdyke and his wife,
Amy, debate the cost of homeowners' insurance after a near fire. |
She quickly doused the flames. But as I listened to her, the one
thought that I had was that we really do need to buy that fire extinguisher
that I assured our insurance agent we'd get -- in 2004.
I know that I'm not alone in putting off until tomorrow the things
I should have done last year.
But I also know that this lackadaisical attitude is especially
stupid when it comes to the biggest investment most of us will ever make -- our
house. Amy's minor mishap lit a fire under me to not only go buy that fire
extinguisher, but to check up on other items I've been putting off for too
long.
After all, when your home is your castle, do you really want your castle
to lay in ruin because of your laziness?
* * *
Here's why it's so easy to put off all the things you need to do
to protect your house: Your house doesn't do anything. It just sits there. Cars
ding and flash lights at you for every little upset -- door ajar, gas low, oil
needs changing. Our minivan won't let us open the side door if the gas cap is
open.
My house? Not once
did it ever warn me about the leaky roof. It didn't give me notice that the air
conditioner was on the fritz until I turned it on -- and felt the unwelcoming
breeze of tepid air on a steamy day.
Everything that needs to be maintained or protected is basically
up to you to remember to do. And with so many other pressing things to do on a
daily basis, the nonmandatory chores -- like taking time to stop by the
home-improvement store to buy a fire extinguisher -- keep getting pushed to the
bottom of the to-do list. Pretty soon those chores are so far down the list
that when you're at the store for some other reason you don't even remember you
need a fire extinguisher.
But our house's relative silence can't be the only explanation.
After all, I'll go out of my way to get my oil changed and my car washed, even
if the car isn't telling me I should. How, then, do I justify the effort needed
to protect a $17,000 Jeep, and not the actions necessary to protect a house
that cost more than 20 times that amount? It makes no sense.
Some of it is pure laziness. And some of it may be that, unlike
the car, the task of maintaining a house is just too big. We can't get
our arms around it. So we don't even try.
That's the explanation a New Jersey friend gives for not finishing
a paint job after a house painter he hired abandoned the work five years ago.
"Part of the house on the side is barely primed," he says. "Not
only is it ugly, it's no doubt hurting the shingles. And I still don't do
anything about it. It's crazy."
His reason: "The house has many things that need attending
to. I need to get somebody to look at the foundation on an addition we did, and
make sure it isn't cracking. Trees need pruning. The basement needs to be
sealed better. It's all daunting. So unless something really bad is staring you
in the face, you just put it off."
Worse, he knows this is just the sort of issue that can come back
to haunt you. Eight years ago, while renovating his house, contractors found
termite damage that required additional repair work. That added about $3,000 to
his costs. Today, though, he still doesn't have a pest-control service come out
and check for termites on a regular basis.
"I know it's crazy," he says. "But the to-do list
to protect this house is bigger than I have time for now, and it's bigger than
my brain can handle. So I stick my head in the sand."
My
But after waiting so long, she now has a plan of attack: "I'm
taking off two weeks in July just to take care of my house and the many things
I've let go. It's not my perfect choice for a vacation, but I really have no
other choice. I fear the collective strain of those little problems is going to
add up to a bigger problem if I don't deal with it, and I just don't have the
time during my regular work week."
* * *
For a while now, Amy and I have needed to deal with several issues
in our house that I've put off, frequently to Amy's consternation.
There's the fire extinguisher, for one. In addition, a storm
several months back ripped a small line of shingles off part of the roof. I
haven't done anything about that, either.
And then there's our homeowner's insurance. Given that I write
about insurance frequently in my job, I am well aware that homeowners, after
years of living in a house, often end up with woefully inadequate insurance
coverage. I'm a living example of that.
Hurricane Katrina not only reshaped my state in 2005, it revalued
the local real estate, as many hurt by the storm relocated to
For that reason, I'm calling some contractors this week to figure
out what rebuilding our house -- exactly as it is -- would cost in today's
market. Then, I'll be talking to our insurance agent about changing our
coverage.
And, in case you're wondering: We now have that fire extinguisher
in the kitchen. And one in the laundry room, just in case