Roofrats

We have roofrats! OK, not really.

The new landlords decided we need a new roof, so they informed us late Saturday night via email that the roofers were scheduled to arrive at 7:30AM Monday morning. I’m not wild about the fact that the roofers are scheduled to be here all week as well, especially since that means we have to park all our cars in the already crowded street, rather than in our usual slots.

So, guess who arrived and started work bright and early at 7AM instead? This was not a popular decision, either with the folks living in the complex here, or the people in the apartment complex next door — the one that shares a wall with our back alley. After two people from those apartments shouted at the roofers about calling the cops for the noise, at about 7:25AM the roofrats decided maybe they should stop until 8AM. Thank goodness. Frankly, the new landlords made no friends this morning.

Interestingly, one of my housemates checked on-line for the actual law regarding not making a racket before 8AM. Apparently in San Jose that’s not the case; the time you can make a lot of noise is, by law, from 7AM to 7PM. That, I think, sucks — I’d rather see it be 8AM to 8PM. Anyway, with ear plugs I managed to get another two hours of sleep… but once they started peeling the old roof right overhead, I gave up.

The rattling and banging as the roofers tore off the old roof had the entire house shaking and the windows rattling in their frames. I was reminded of an old Gumby and Pokey cartoon I saw long ago, where there are confused robots wandering around and breaking down the house Gumby and Pokey are in. It scared me, as a child: home — the place that was supposed to be safe — clearly wasn’t. Worse, the house itself kept you from seeing precisely where the robots were, so you couldn’t just run out behind them, turn them off, and run back in again before another of the out-of-control robots tried to take you apart too. Experiencing what I did today as an adult, I can see how a child would be quite frightened — there were times where it really did seem like the house should come crashing down in pieces around us. I had a weird realization, as well: it’s rather disconcerting to open a cupboard — and see sunshine coming in!

The noise was simply incredible, to the point that I simply packed up my laptop and some books, and headed off to the Pruneyard for a nice, calm, quiet restaurant that would let me plug in and work there for the day. A big thank you to Patxi’s for their lunch pizza, delicious salad, and patience! They were very kind and kept my drink filled all afternoon, so I left a big tip. I came back home at about 5PM, and discovered the roofers were still hammering on the roof as they put on the base planks that everything else would be attached to. Fortunately, headphones drowned out a lot of the steady hammering — and at least it wasn’t that constantly stuttering, irregular rattling and shaking from tearing up the roof entirely. One of my housemates asked (only partly facetiously) if we all should go someplace quiet tonight… like a rock concert?

One last thing — and a plus in my book — the company’s name? Shadowfax Roofing, with a big gray horse as their mascot, and the motto “… strength through integrity”! ;)