Stuck With A Money Pit House? Here’s Your Homeowner Horror-scope
By: John Ficarra
Tags: Satire, Fixer Upper, DIY, Humor, Home Repair

Photo: Roya Ann Miller/Unsplash

For many people, homeownership remains the American dream. But as any veteran homeowner will tell you, your “dream” can quickly turn into a nightmare with an endless stream of unexpected costly repairs and weekend maintenance projects. Are you one such unfortunate homeowner? Have money pit disasters become a way of life? Perhaps turning to the stars to find out what awaits you in the coming weeks will bring you some comfort and peace of mind. Probably not.

ARIES

A frustrating day. A tool you loaned to a neighbor last month appears to be gone forever — just like that sketchy guy with a van you gave $600 cash to fix your leaky gutters and haven’t seen since. Your desire to create an “open concept” in your home goes a bit too far when you accidentally demo an active gas line and blow the back half of your house to smithereens.

TAURUS

Your life-long dream to own water-front property is in reach when your basement sump pump fails during a heavy rainstorm and water is now cresting at the top of your basement steps. A squirrel you recently evicted from your attic quietly plots revenge.

GEMINI

Your spouse’s sexual obsession with those identical twin brothers on HGTV is slowly eating away at your marriage, much in the same way termites are slowly eating away the foundation of your home. You would be wise to seek the advice of a marriage counselor/exterminator.

CANCER

Distant relatives are planning an extended stay the moment you finish remodeling a guest bedroom. Consider faking a nail gun injury and putting your remodeling plans on indefinite hold. Your recent letter to the mayor bitterly complaining about high real estate taxes brings a moment of laughter to the City Hall mailroom clerk who reads it before discarding.

LEO

Your plan to fix a leaky toilet by watching a YouTube video on your phone is delayed when you drop the phone into the toilet. You gain a sense of satisfaction when you give up attempting to refinish a table and just put it out on the curb for trash.

VIRGO

The stars converge in perfect alignment for you. Unfortunately, the crown molding you’ve been attempting to install on your wavy dining room ceiling does not. No amount of re-measuring or re-cutting will change this. Consider moving.

LIBRA

Your efforts to finish renovating your basement so you can rent it on Airbnb go over budget when you accidentally sheetrock the dog behind a wall and your spouse insists on reopening the wall to let it out. A newly installed, state-of-the-art security camera proves effective in capturing colorful images of the thief who stole it.

SCORPIO

You learn a valuable lesson in the A.M. about the need to cover work areas with tarps when you knock over a ladder and send an open can of paint flying across the room. Tossing out a book on de-cluttering that a friend gave you for your birthday sparks unexpected joy.

SAGITTARIUS

A simple trip to the home center to buy some screws yields surprises when you return with $2,000 worth of high-end power tools. The simplest of woodworking projects will still prove elusive, but owning the exact same table saw as the guy on This Old House fills you with the false hope that anything is possible despite your pathetic carpentry skills.

CAPRICORN

The weekend offers an opportunity for some quality family time. Gather with loved ones to re-landscape the front yard now that workers have finished digging it up to install a new $15,000 sewer line. Use any free moments in the evening to resubmit all the home refinancing documents the bank lost. (Twice.)

AQUARIUS

You pause and reflect on the wonders of nature as an early Winter storm dumps a foot of snow on your driveway within minutes of your finishing bagging up the last of the Fall leaves. Your design concept to use floor-to-ceiling Legos in your son’s bedroom as a load-bearing accent wall is fraught with peril.

PISCES

A leaky drain trap, a rubber gasket, and a flange conspire to ruin your Saturday afternoon. Meanwhile, your plan to quickly flip a house in four weeks ends badly when you find yourself in the emergency room having no memory of the last 36 hours and missing two fingers.