Saturday, May 31, 2008 - The Cost of Deferring Repairs

We all defer some maintenance on our houses -- I have a small hole where a gutter nail has pulled out of the wall several years ago, when our apple tree fell over and brushed the corner of the house. I knew about it and we just haven't gotten around to it. Sure enough, during the gully-washer of a storm, the gutters were full of debris and the ceiling in my home-office developed a leak. It would have been cheaper to just fix the blasted hole when we first found out about it -- now we have to fix the ceiling as well.

But keeping up with the maintenance of a house can be a daunting task. It's not the money, as fixing this particular problem is more aggravation and time-consuming than expensive.

Of course, it sure is more expensive now.

(C) Susan Pruden.