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We have learned some important things about our house already.
Lesson #1:
Single-ply toilet paper only. Sublesson: Walmart is not open at a reasonable time on Sunday mornings, the grocery store doesn't sell plungers at all, and you can't necessarily trust that Walgreen's will sufficiently stock their supplies.
Lesson #2:
Only soft items down the garbage disposal. Even though Bill and I have never had a problem with citrus peels and the Blech parents have never had a problem with banana peels or celery, we will now cease to feed these to the sink. At least not when the dishwasher is also running, draining down the same pipe, late in the evening when the stores are closed.
Lesson #3:
Use liquid soap with a steady hand in the front-loading washer. Too much detergent results in a build-up of suds that even 2 extra rinse cycles will not fully take care of. Sublesson: It can be mesmerizing, even hypnotizing, to stand in front of the washer and just watch the cycle progress for 30 minutes or more.
Lesson #4:
When reattaching the screen door (which had been removed to allow the couch to fit through the door), check to see the door is unlocked before all four people in the house come out onto the deck to help hold up the door while one person power-screws the hinges on. Or if you do end up on second-story deck behind a locked screen door with all the humans on the outside and the front door locked, have a supply of repelling gear and a front door key handy. Sublesson: Verify the door is actually locked and not just sticky before succumbing to hysterics while gazing through the glass into the kitchen where two dogs are staring at all four of you confusedly.
Lesson #5:
Never turn this switch off. If you do, the hot water goes away and the contraption in the basement doesn't respond to any button you push. Sublesson: Our landlord is very responsive. After calling him at 8:30 to tell him the hot water heater had broken, he got off his commuter train, took a subway and a bus, and arrived at our door apologizing for coming by so early in the morning (as if we didn't call and ask him to interrupt his work commute to solve our problem). Sub-sublesson: Our landlord has a sense of humor. He thought we were all very cute when he discovered the problem was only that we'd turned of the switch, thus the power to the appliance.
So we're settling in to the new environs. And luckily every lesson we've learned has been an easy fix. So far.
