“Peace and harmony do not require perfection. Thank goodness for that-because life so often seems to be an itch here, a glitch there, a mess waiting to happen. Harmony is flexible. It bends with imperfection. So should you.”

Jerry Spinelli, author of Children’s and Young Adult novels

 It all started before we left Florida to spend the summer at our Maine house. The loud beeping of one of our smoke alarms told us it died. Sure enough, the date was a little over ten years old. We checked the rest of the alarms and had to replace all five. We ordered them online but encountered a problem. To connect to our wiring, they needed adapters. So, we ordered those and installed the devices, a somewhat daunting task perched on a tall ladder to reach our high ceilings. We breathed sighs of relief when they all flashed green lights.

As the June moving date drew near, I cleaned the house to leave it in good condition for our return in September. I made the mistake of wearing backless sandals going up and down a stepladder while doing the windows, and I ended up with a sprained ankle. I finished cleaning as I hobbled around.

A few days before our move, our HOA threw us a curveball. For the first time in our six years of living there, they wanted all residents to submit proof of house and flood insurance. Easy, right? Not so fast. They wanted proof that we insured the house for the full value, but ours was insured for the value when we bought it, not the current higher value, and we didn’t have flood insurance, which we were told wasn’t necessary because we lived seven miles from the ocean and weren’t in a flood zone. We contacted our insurance agent, who was surprised by the HOA request. After calling them, he said he doubted they knew what they were doing but found us a flood insurance policy, which we paid for online.

The day before our departure, as we were packing up, our agent found us a new house insurance policy with a different company from the original one we had. Since time was short, he said he would take care of having the payment forwarded from our bank account and would send copies of both policies to the HOA. Phew! We could relax, or so we thought.

A few days after arriving in Maine, we received notice of a pending policy cancellation due to non-payment! A call to our agent revealed he had forgotten to send the payment. We said we would do it ourselves online, which we did immediately, and we received confirmation of payment and reinstatement of the policy.

Then, they told us the new policy required a house inspection, and someone would have to let the inspector in. A call from Maine to a Florida neighbor with whom we had left a key solved that problem.

Forty days later, we received a second pending cancellation notice! The auditing office of our new insurance company claimed they didn’t have a record of our payment. On our agent’s advice, we sent a copy of their payment confirmation and proof that the money was taken from our bank account. The company reinstated the policy again.

But now they wanted proof that our home alarm system was working. We called the alarm company, and they sent a certificate to the insurance company that verified a working alarm. Finally, in the middle of the summer, everything was set.

Then we received a letter from the HOA saying that they never received copies of our insurance policy, and by the way, we didn’t need flood insurance after all. Argh! We emailed copies of both policies that our agent had forgotten to send, and we plan to cancel the flood insurance.

Meanwhile, we dealt with unexpected issues in Maine. When we opened the door to the shed, there was a wasp nest inside the door. We were lucky to destroy it without getting stung. After our experience with the smoke alarms in Florida, we checked the ones in Maine and replaced three. The clothes dryer wouldn’t start, and we had to replace the thermal fuse. That involved removing the back of the machine to get at it. The new canvas top for the metal pergola on our deck filled with water during a storm and caused the metal crossbars to sag at the joints. We had to remove the bars and reinforce the joints with steel plates. To prevent water buildup on the canvas, we installed grommets in many places in the middle to allow water to flow through. We learned that the cover is suitable for shade but obviously not a rain shelter. Then, the most surprising thing of all happened. A furry streak ran across the living room one evening and disappeared. A squirrel appeared on the stair landing the following evening and calmly watched us! Investigation showed it had eaten a hole through the wood of one of the eaves near the back chimney and gained entry. We soon got it out and repaired the hole. We haven’t had a problem since and are thankful there was no damage inside. I read that rodents don’t like the scent of mint, so, as a backup, I planted mint around the foundation in the back.

We also dealt with expected issues. Someone mowed the lawn periodically, and after my ankle sprain heeled, I got busy with weed-whacking the lupine stalks. We re-stained the deck boards faded by winter weather. We had someone cut down several tall evergreens that were leaning precariously. Since the driveway had washed out in spots, we had someone grade it and add more crushed shale.

The good news toward the end of the summer was that fiber internet was finally available at our address. We were excited because the DSL connection was always unreliable. A company representative came to the house, but the bad news was that the fiber cable along the road ended uphill and didn’t reach our home. Since they would have to dig new trenches to extend it, we might not have it before we headed south to Florida. Then, by some miracle, the date was moved up, and we had it up and running just in time for us to start packing. Though the major benefit would be for next summer, things were looking up. I did some last-minute weed whacking and wielded a pickaxe to get out some roots, only to end up spraining my neck muscles.

After a couple of days of a prescribed muscle relaxant and armed with a bottle of ibuprofen, we closed up the Maine house and headed to Florida. The house was in great condition, but a baby gecko skittered in while moving the patio furniture from inside to out. It was small, and we caught him a few days later after we saw him walking across the ceiling.

Then, my printer wouldn’t print. I cleaned the print heads, but after a few days with no improvement, I uninstalled the software and installed a new version. It was operative again.

The next glitch was with the TVs. The NBC channel broadcasting the Notre Dame game (a must-see for my husband) had no sound. A trip to the Xfinity store resulted in upgrading to Xfinity XR15 voice remotes and X1 boxes. Fantastic! Right? It was wonderful for the main TV in the living room, but the two upstairs wouldn’t work, and they had different issues. After contacting Xfinity, they did a reboot, but it didn’t work. Two more visits to their local office convinced them to send a technician.

The technician was great. It turned out that the problem was actually that the main box was defective and not communicating with the non-working TVs. He replaced the box in the living room, and all three are working great. We are relieved that the tropical storm didn’t knock the power out. 

Before the technician left, I asked his advice on installing the Wifi extender we purchased. He said the unit they sold us was not a Wifi extender to eliminate dead zones in the house but something to extend the internet connection if the power goes out during a storm. I was livid because the salesperson took advantage of the fact that I didn’t recognize it as the wrong item and upsold me a more expensive unit. I made another trip to the Xfinity store.

I had to convince two salespersons, but a refund for the storm gadget was applied to my account. Then, after making sure it would be what I wanted, I purchased an xFi Pod to extend or boost the Wifi to all parts of our home. The activation directions were: use the Xfinity app, plug the pod into an outlet and wait for it to light up, turn on Bluetooth on your phone, hold the phone close to the pod, and wait for the home network to recognize it. Simple, right?

I kept getting the message, “Sorry, there seems to be a problem. Try again.” I did—several times. Then I tried other outlets—same result. I did trouble-shooting via the app and went to online forums. I followed many suggestions, such as reactivating the modem, unplugging, waiting two minutes, etc. Nothing worked. Then, after searching more online, I found a way to activate the pod manually. I turned off Bluetooth and inputted the pod’s serial number. It still didn’t work!

I returned to the Xfinity store once again. They said the modem we’d had for six years was 4g and too old. The pod needed 5g. They gave us a new modem, which I installed, but the pod still doesn’t work! Today, I will pop some ibuprofen and return to the Xfinity store with the old modem and the headache-causing pod.