What’s your least-favorite job around the home?

After working in the yard all day Saturday, we figured we should check our irrigation system. 

Zone 1? Nothing.

But, wait, there’s water coming up from the ground–right where our neighbors just installed a new fence....

The TL;DR is that their fence post went through our PVC but, by our eyeballs, our PVC was on their side of the line. So maybe call it a wash? But, either way, I still had to fix it.

Doing so only required two trips to Lowe’s plus one order from Amazon. (Thanks to Bike Week, I couldn’t easily get up to our Ace, and how can Lowe’s be out of flexible sprinkler riser?)

But the line is fixed, the dirt is back where it should be and, of course, it’s raining today.

So, what are your “favorite” jobs about the homestead? 

And because everyone loves pics:

I hate doing the dishes.  

Cleaning the shower - tile grout and fiberglass base.  Just did it this past Saturday.  

Undoing homeowner grade  "improvements." Drywall screws are not meant for outdoor use.

Although worse than dealing with the irrigation system: replacing the garbage grinder in the sink. 

Weed eating and cleaning crud around the little spots where the frying pan handle is attached to the pan when washing them. 

Mowing. I've been using a mower and weedeater since I was 8. This year will make 40 years of yard work and I'm over it.

And a small PS. 

Before attached that last sprinkler, I had strong water coming out of the pipe.

I attached the sprinkler and, of course, just a dribble.

Dirty filter? I couldn’t easily remove it. Plus I was tired. And I had another sprinkler head. Problem fixed. 

Mine is easy- dealing with anything that doesn't have a proper home. I can't stand picking up after clutter. My wife and kids are horrible about this. Both at bringing crap into the house without having a place to put it, and with putting stuff away randomly so that it's impossible to find or get to when you need it. Which leads to them buying more of the item rather than just finding what they failed to put away properly. I don't mind chores, but playing hide and seek to do those chores drives me nuts. 

I'd like to put owning a home as my least job around the house.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that I'm privileged enough to be able to own a home right now, but I don't appreciate all the things that suddenly seem to be broken or on the verge of breaking.

I'm with bobzilla, I have a white hot hate for mowing. It comes from years of working for my dad without the proper tools. He would mention, "Coy Road farm is vacant, we need to mow it." This would be about 2 weeks after the people moved out in the middle of summer. That property has a yard that is about an acre and my brother and I were sent out there with a 22" 3.5 horse mower.

No matter how many cool tools I buy to make yard work easy I still get in a bad mood.

In reply to jgrewe :

I grew up mowing a small cemetary (for free), our place (2 acres) and my granmothers place (3 acres mowed). By the time we got it all done, we started all over again from April until October. This was long before ZTR's became prevalent, so we were using an 18hp Craftsman tractor (48" deck),a 21" pushmower and a Farmall C tricycle front end with a Woods 5' belly mower.  2 acres now takes me just under 2 hours to do, then it was 3-4. 

I still want to get rid of our lawn. In the meanwhile, I let the ground cover advance. :) 

I will say, still love our 20-year-old Honda push mower. My rake is even older. (I replaced the handle. Does that count?) I have one of those manual edgers that you kinda roll along the curb. 

Mowing, for sure.  Lawns are berkeleying dumb.

Love washing dishes - hate putting them away.

Love doing laundry - hate folding it.

Love painting anything and everything in the house - hate the carpentry work before it.

I definitely have a yin and yang relationship with household chores.

Colin Wood said:

I'd like to put owning a home as my least job around the house.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that I'm privileged enough to be able to own a home right now, but I don't appreciate all the things that suddenly seem to be broken or on the verge of breaking.

Nailed it for me.

Dry and warm with a place to poop and it covers the requirements. Never understood why so many people make themselves the equivalent of a love-struck sugardaddy to a piece of dirt and timber. we don't own this place, it owns us.

bobzilla said:

Mowing. I've been using a mower and weedeater since I was 8. This year will make 40 years of yard work and I'm over it.

I say the same thing.  I've cut grass nonstop since the 5th grade.  I even cut extra in junior high - $4/lawn. 

I'm 60 - I have a big yard.  I'm done. 

Under sink plumbing. The plastic collars on p-traps break every.single.time. You'd think I would learn and have a bunch of them on hand, but I never do. Turns a 30 minute job into a Home Depot trip and it ends up taking most of the afternoon.  

Finding all the cleverly disguised berkeleyups from the previous owner

Colin Wood said:

I'd like to put owning a home as my least job around the house.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that I'm privileged enough to be able to own a home right now, but I don't appreciate all the things that suddenly seem to be broken or on the verge of breaking.

I was going to say, "Is everything an acceptable answer?"

If we didn't have all these animals, I would have likely sold the house last year before interest rates started to rise and looked for a nice place to rent. Having broken stuff taken care, the ability to pack up and move, etc. 

Scrubbing grout lines every couple of years in the tiled shower.  I ****ing HATE that job with a passion.  And no, sealing the grout does not prevent it from needing to be done periodically.

Trying to overcome teenager inertia. 

Appleseed said:

Undoing homeowner grade  "improvements." Drywall screws are not meant for outdoor use.

This 100%. My house is filled with previous owner(s) downgrades. From the live electrical lines rolled up in the basement rafters, mismatched drainage pipe ( solid and corrugated pipe) to upgraded plumbing with no shutoff valves. 
All my fault really for trusting a home inspector instead of taking the time to do it myself.

I can't stand mulching. Mowing doesn't bother me. The joy of having a small yard is being able to weed wack it.