The Utility Circus

My mom asked us about how things were going with home ownership now that we’ve passed a year since having our offer on our house accepted. The best way to describe our current home situation is a utility circus.

In the course of one week, we received our new trash and recycling cans… which will probably never be completely full. We rarely filled up our old can before. Another odd thing is that the recycling can is green, but prior to the new service recycling had to be placed in blue bags. Since there’s no label or symbol on the green can, people seem to be using it for trash although the pamphlet explained which is which. (Nerd Alert: I read pamphlets.)

The water company replaced our meter and the gas company was less than thrilled that they couldn’t access our gas meter to inspect it and now we have to schedule yet another time during work hours for Brad to be home to let someone in to check out the meter.

The cans are part of city trash service that our taxes pay for and the utility providers aren’t “charging” us for the new meter or the inspection (seeing as how they’re required and all). But it’s just a little annoying that we have to make phone calls, read pamphlets and arrange to work at home to accommodate the schedules.

Obviously the benefits of home ownership win over the drawbacks of apartment-living but sometimes it’d be nice not to have to worry about it.