The Not So Twin Peaks

Worked with dh again today. The current jobsite is 88 miles away. On the way, 12 miles in the distance we can see these mountains that ds2 has named The Not So Twin Peaks. And here they are close up.

Worked on a few different things... like spraying the master bathroom shower with some stuff that's supposed to remove the calcium and lime, then working on the kitchen counter. I'm replacing some of the strip pieces that are broken. I will try to post some pictures tomorrow.

And dh found this critter -- a 4 inch long scorpion -- when he was moving the old front steps to the back door.

I discovered later that dh moved the steps over especially for me, because I am too short and out of shape to easily climb up from the ground to the floor inside the home which is 34" off the ground. I was using a 5 gallon bucket turned upside-down. That was very sweet of him.

I find that most people have a "thing" against manufactured homes - the stigma I think comes from the "trailer trash" trailer parks. But it's not just that; the value of your property is less when the home is a manufactured home. Especially if the manufactured home is not "affixed" the land - which is a fancy way of saying you have turned in the motor vehicle department certificates! "Affixing" the home to your land means you can never move the home again. So the land becomes more valuable, I guess because they are taking your word that you will never move the home. And you can actually get a normal home mortgage once those certificates are turned in.

We were blessed that our current home is a Cavco. When we were looking for a place out here, we didn't know anything about manufactured homes, so it was not something we were focused on. After all, I'd lived in a "mobile home" and a "trailer" and I've never had anything against them. I was so grateful as a young person, in my early twenties, to be able to afford to rent my own little home which was a trailer. It was small, but I had a bedroom, kitchen, living room and bathroom! If memory serves me, it was 8 feet wide and about 23 feet long. Sure, if you walked too fast you passed right by the bathroom into the bedroom. The bedroom was nearly from wall to wall with a full size bed. It was quite cozy and I loved it. $200 a month. This was in the 80s and at that time my other option would have been a studio apartment. But with this place I even had a tree in my very own little yard. One of the really neat things was the neighborhood I lived in. Lots of seniors and I loved to make friends with them, sitting and visiting in the evenings. I had lots of time on my hands back then, even though I worked forty hours a week and sold Avon on the side. Yeppers, I sold Avon for a few months in my twenties. I had an incredible first campaign, and was given a second neighborhood, where I did great there, too. But the success was short lived, as the neighborhood was full of low income folks who had not had an Avon lady for several months. After those first campaigns, my luck dwindled.

My trailer was similar to this one here, although this one is actually a hobby toy. Thank you, Lucky Irish Man Discount Hobbies site. I hope you don't mind that I borrowed one of your pictures.

The mobile home we lived in for the past 8 or 9 years (prior to moving here) in the big city, was located in a mobile home park. Purchase price: $10,000.00. My paternal stepgrandparents loaned me the money and it was paid back within 8 years time at $150/mo. We struck an agreement to pay back at 3% interest. I think it was 35 years old. It originally came from back East, so it was well insulated and constructed to withstand cold regions.

All the "trailer" homes I've lived in, the trailer, the mobile home and this one, have all been constructed very well. In fact, seeing the construction of new homes going on in my town, I'm sure our manufactured home is made better than those. How can chicken wire and styrofoam make a well built home? This Cavco is so well built, and so well insulated that we have never once used the heater in the winter, even though it gets down to below 20°F on many days.

Anyway, my whole point in reminiscing about the "trailer" homes (it's really not correct to call them that, they are MANUFACTURED HOMES! lol) I've lived in is to say the manufactured home we are working on now has got to be the most cheaply made home I've ever seen! Most of it seems to be plastic. Doorknobs, faucets even! I'm astonished at the low quality, and even more grateful that our home is a 12 year old Cavco. Cavco's are said to be the "cadillac" of the manufactured homes.

Until next time.