THE CRABGRASS CRISIS

One year into owning a house, the homeowner was already done with it. "One year into owning a house and I already hate it," they wrote, after listing a string of repairs and headaches that had turned the dream of homeownership into a nonstop maintenance shift.

The frustration started with the simple wish for a break. "I just want one month where I'm not fixing or replacing something," they said. There had been no time to settle in and enjoy the place, only one task rolling into the next.

Outside, the work never let up. Yard work itself wasn't the problem, the poster even said it was a decent workout, but mowing was another story. "I HATE cutting grass with a passion," they wrote. Then the grass died, and in its place came "an acre of crabgrass." The yard had turned into its own project.

And just when one issue seemed obvious, another showed up from nowhere. Some things, the homeowner said, were never mentioned until they became a problem, even though they apparently should have been common knowledge. Living in clay soil meant learning that the ground around the foundation had to be watered in the summer. "How the f*** am I supposed to know the soil around the foundation has to be watered in the summer!?" they asked.

The indoor problems weren't any kinder. "Oh look my brand new dishwasher broke," they wrote. Then came the sump pump trouble: "Oh man my sump pump (whatever the hell that is) is not working so now there's a hole in the basement full of water." With no family background in homeownership, their family had grown up renting, they said they were learning everything themselves, one broken thing at a time.

Still, they didn't pretend renting had been perfect. They said they enjoyed life a lot more when they were renting, when a broken appliance meant calling maintenance, not taking on the repair alone. They liked not having to worry about being sued if someone got hurt on the property. They liked being able to move in a year if they didn't like the apartment. But they also admitted one thing they did not miss: "I will say I love not sharing a wall with other people."

After people responded with kind words, the poster followed up to say they knew what they were getting into and were only venting to fellow homeowners. They said they'd give it a couple more years before deciding whether to sell.

Then, a few hours later, they added one last update: "Oh and of course a few hours after I posted this my outdoor spigot broke."