So our marathon of house repairs were done, and the appraiser came by today and did a
walk though. Of course, while he was outside at least 3 planes flew over the house (we are in the flight path, a fact that I did not
realize till after escrow closed and I got the keys) and a fury of sirens went on for at least 5 minutes - Nice. Then, the finis was classic - He was all done except he needed a picture of the
water heater, which is on the back of the house. We go to the back door, and the 100 year old mortise lock jammed and the door would not open AT ALL... We had to go outside and around the gate - after he left I had to pry the door open with a
screwdriver and discovered that the latch BROKE - it could not have happened earlier in the day or after he left, but right then -
.......
Of course, I have a collection of at least 8 mortise locks and so I went on a hunt to see if I could cannibalize another lock for the broken piece - I should no better - out of nine mortise locks, no two were even remotely similar - even the screws that hold the cover plate on are different - so I ended up replacing the lock with a different one and had to chisel the door because it was slightly different - after that fiasco was dealt with, I had to readjust the strike plate because the latch was in a slightly different place -
Needless to say, I am on my second Soju martini...
