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The "House" that Daily Kos built: Thank you, one and all!!! [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-08-16

Hello, everyone!!! I’ve been posting updates on Wheelie-House in the PWB Peeps diaries, but it finally dawned on me that most of the folks who helped make it happen wouldn’t see them there. So it is HIGH time for an update and an official thank-you to the over 110 Daily Kos members!!!! (and some personal friends) who pitched in to secure a home on wheels for my small family!

We CAN haz wheelie-howse! Srsly, tank uz!!!

The community here — especially JekyllnHyde, aashirs nani, BMScott, and elenacarlena — worked absolute miracles to put together the purchase funds for Wheelie-House in an amazing three weeks ! I’m still having to pinch myself. I can’t begin to tell you what it feels like, knowing that whatever happens, whatever the future holds, however long my disability takes, I and my kitties** will not be homeless.

I can’t believe it’s already been two weeks since I brought Wheelie-House “home” — the time has just flown by. Between the laundry list of small fixes & odds and ends Wheelie-House has needed, learning all the systems and getting used to driving such a beast, pruning out everything I can get rid of and slowly packing my apartment, the days have absolutely evaporated. Every so often I’ve simply had to crash — with the obesity, long Covid, fibromyalgia, and the fact that I’m no longer 35 or even 55 anymore, there’s a serious limit on how much I can do in a day, dang it!

But bit by bit, everything is getting set to rights :-)

I tend to be bad about remembering to take pictures, but I’ve managed to document a fair bit of the process thus far:

Trimming the river birch...

Before even retrieving it from the dealer, my friend George (who’s lending me his driveway until all the prep and “move-in” work is done) and I had to prune back trees and make room for Wheelie-House.

Even at that, it barely fits, lol!!

Next was to address the things it needed for inspection (which is scheduled for tomorrow): the front clearance marker lights and a new plate light. That was it! Everything else passed :-)

Once that was out of the way, I started going over everything, learning the systems and how it all worked. I was freaking out because the A/C & heater wouldn’t come on, and the electrical outlets didn’t seem to be working. (They had both worked fine during the test drive.)

WELL! The first thing to check was the batteries, and I quickly discovered they were all pretty worn out. So I replaced the engine battery with the best one AutoZone had (3 year warranty, baby!) and got two reasonably-priced 12 volt deep cycle batteries for the camper:

Old 6 volt batteries, wired in series

New batteries were definitely needed, but they didn’t solve the problem — ACK!!!!

Fortunately, Mike and Kathleen (the couple in the header photo and Wheelie-House’s prior owners) had given me their contact info and said to shout if I had any questions (how cool is that?). I called and, since we couldn’t figure out the problem over the phone, drove to Maryland last Friday — my first “real” drive in it, 180 miles round trip.

Sadly, I couldn’t take pictures while driving because as it turns out, Virginia’s Northern Neck is positively infested with dinosaurs!

New 12 volt batteries, wired in parallel

I managed to avoid getting eaten, and soon arrived at Mike and Kathleen’s. It took Mike about three minutes to find the problem — there’s an “override” switch on the generator which lets it run but not send power to the batteries and camper. He pressed the switch and bingo! A/C worked, heat worked, outlets worked. Problem solved :-)

Bonus #1: he walked me through all the systems, annual maintenance, etc.

Bonus #2: he had a seriously heavy-duty storm/storage cover for Wheelie-House he let me have for $100 (the comparable one I’d picked out on Amazon was over $400).

We are now hail- and hurricane-ready!

Wheelie-House with awning frame!

Bonus #3: he still had the awning frame for Wheelie-House which he let me have for free (they’re generally $500-$800, non-motorized). He even reinstalled it for me :-)

Now I just need to get a new awning!

As much as I’d like to do a full solar conversion, turns out it’d be 4-5k to make Wheelie-House truly energy-independent, with everything including a/c & heat running off solar/ batteries. So that’s going to have to wait. But there are a few things that really should be done now/soon:

service the generator

recharge the a/c

repair the slide (it’s scraping and going in fits and starts — it may just need lubrication, or it may need a new motor)

truck oil change and tune-up

I’ll do as much as I can myself (pretty sure I can manage to change the oil & filter on the generator! Probably not the engine, though...) but the tuneup, slide repair, and possibly relocating the fusebox are all things I may have to beg a little more help for. The batteries, parts, new lights etc have used up almost all the extra funds from paypal & the GoFundMe. Still, the total costs for Wheelie-House so far are:

$7924 — purchase price & tax, title, registration, dealer fees

$275 — insurance — 12 mos

$270 — truck battery

$230 — two 12v deep cycle batteries

$100 — storm cover

$110 — vent lid & cover, sewer hose, power adapter

$135 — smoke detector, led bulbs, battery tester, vent crank, clearance lights

plus roughly $50 on caulk, plate light, wiring harness

= $9084

— which is amazing for a Tioga in this shape. (Did I tell you the engine only has 35,000 miles on it???)

I will do all I can with what I’ve got on hand, and get quotes for anything else that needs to be done right now. I also have a wish list on Amazon for some parts/supplies I could really use, if anyone is so inclined: the roof right now is fine, but I’d like to seal it thoroughly before winter; it would be AMAZING to have an awning, now that I have the frame for one; and the bike cover, hooks, and ratchet straps are so I can turn the back ladder into a bike carrier for my bike :-)

Unfortunately, I’m going to have one final month of rent ($565) for September — I can’t possibly get everything done/fixed/packed/moved in the next fourteen days, dang it. I’ve made a good start, tho.

My little Seeya girl

**Also, with everything else in this diary I didn’t know how to squeeze it in, but Seeya, my little Siamese mix girl, was diagnosed three weeks ago with advanced renal cancer and, while it’s impossible to guess how long she’ll be comfortable on her current medications, it is untreatable and aggressive. So in the midst of all this I’m also trying to spend as much time with her as I can.

That’s such a down note to end this update on! I hate that I’m losing her, but at the same time these past three weeks have been such a gift — I was so afraid I was going to have to let her go right then, when we first got the diagnosis. But she is currently on prednisolone and an anti-nausea medication, and for a while there was actually gaining weight, and much more comfortable than she’d been in weeks.

We do seem now to have passed the peak of what “rebound” she was going to have, but every day I still have with her is a day to be treasured.

I’m sorry to share sad news, but believe me when I tell you it doesn’t take away one jot from the depth of my gratitude to the 110+ incredible Daily Kos members who gave of their own hard-earned resources to guarantee a home for me and hopefully both!!! of my wonderful fur-babies. Thank you, and bless you, and there will be more Wheelie-House updates as we go along!

— ue, Seeya, and Wheezer

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/16/2187498/-The-House-that-Daily-Kos-built-Thank-you-one-and-all

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