Dear Suzy,
Here in Austin it is damp, really damp. I live in a pier-and-beam house built in 1952, and it is presently sitting in a mud puddle. Friends have given all sorts of ideas — run the AC (yuk), buy a de-humidifier, seal the ground under the house, move…
What are your ideas on this? I don’t want to run the AC or buy another machine, but my shoes are green. (Oh God, that rhymed!)
Thanks,
Holly
Dear Holly,
So the weather in Texas is sticky,
To move farther north would be icky.
Then air con was invented
And the stickiness prevented.
But then you got folks who were picky.
Some folks want to save on their bills
Others say air conditioning kills
All our precious ozone
And makes the earth groan
`Cause it’s such an environmental ill.
Aw, hell, I’ll go mad if I try to write the whole column in limerick form. Besides, the news I have to impart isn’t going to sound any better in verse. All the remedies you mention would be about as effective as taking a vitamin pill to cure a broken leg. You need to think about not only keeping the water vapor from the inside of the house, but also — and more importantly — about keeping the water away from your house, period. This means, at the very least, you’re going to have to move the earth. The ground must slope away from your foundation or your problems are going to be much more depressing than green shoes. (There was a guy in my high school who was quite odd before being odd was considered quaintly eccentric. Sometime he would forget to wear shoes to school and when the principal called him on his lack of footwear, he would go to the art lab and paint his feet green. It actually fooled the principal.)
If your house sits in a puddle every time it rains, your piers will sink and they will rot if they’re wood. Termites will love you. Doors and windows will skew at odd angles and won’t open or shut or both. You will become a social outcast or else you’ll be forced to transform your home into a tourist attraction, a wacky shack where balls appear to roll uphill and only people with one leg much shorter than the other will be able to maneuver across your rolling floor. If this sounds appealing, do nothing. Otherwise, get outside with a trusty shovel and a six-pack and divert that water where it belongs — in your neighbor’s yard. This may be as simple as rearranging some poorly placed flower beds. It may involve guttering part or all of your house so the rain will shoot out a downspout downhill from your house. You may even have to tackle a French drain, which is basically a trench filled with gravel. I guess they call it a French drain because after you dig it you’ll be about as gracious and tolerant as a French national.
Whatever you have to do, just do it. (And please don’t ignore my advice just because water pours into my home office under the base plate after every heavy rain and I’ve yet to do anything…)
Are you sure you want my advice? If so, then e-mail your questions to me at: Suzebe@aol.com or snail mail ’em to: The Austin Chronicle, PO Box 49066, Austin, TX 78765.
This article appears in July 11 • 1997 and July 11 • 1997 (Cover).