How to Fix a Dead Landlord’s Chimney

“Squeeeeak!” “Squeeeeak!” It was happening again: the rotating cap on the dead landlord’s wood stove chimney was complaining in the breeze. It was probably almost ready to fall off, too. The last time I’d been up on the roof, it was leaning rather severely, but seeing as how the landlord has long since shed his mortal coil, I wasn’t concerned. The rusty, metallic creaking had to go, however, or I’d be joining him sooner than expected.

First of all, you have to understand that many years ago, the enterprising fellow built a studio apartment for himself on one end of the adobe house, so he could rent the larger place out to make some money. This worked fine for a while, despite the fact that he’d built it right on top of the septic tank. (I’ll let you ponder that for a moment.) At any rate, he died several years ago—go figure—and his clothes are still hanging by the front door. I don’t know why they didn’t just let him mummify along with everything else, which he probably would have liked. As it was, a few neighbors and a relative held a ceremony with an actual Indian medicine man-cum-I Ching expert from Harvard, and we tossed his ashes in the acequia.

There are two houses on this property. The second one he gave to a long-time tenant, this one to his niece in Pennsylvania, thereby throwing everything into everlasting probate where it’s been for years. With the division of the property in dispute, no one is willing to fix anything, so if it needs doing, I do it. Hence the squeaking chimney cap and my having to go up onto the roof. [above] That’s just a portion of it in the photo—the roof of the dead landlord’s attached apartment is out of sight to the right—but it shows how much junk a Siberian elm can drop in just six months. I used to care about the debris, but now I just want to get the hell out of here. The brush pile is probably home to all kinds of deserving vermin, anyway.

Now then: because he’d built on top of the septic tank, installing the pipe for his tiny Jøtul stove required way too many bends and jiggering. This meant that he was only able to burn aspen wood, as it deposits much less creosote than anything else. Even so, he had to completely dismantle and clean out the system twice a year. In our end of the building, I burn piñon, which produces much more heat along with tons of greasy black stuff. There was once a similar rotating chimney cap on my stove pipe, but as you can see below, it sits neglected: after just a couple of weeks of burning our wonderful piñon, it clogs up too much to be of any use.

The long 2×2 behind the insulated stove pipe is what I use to “clean” the chimney. This is especially necessary with piñon. Fortunately, banging that stick around inside the pipe is enough to knock most of the crap down into the wood stove, and that’s what makes the world go ’round. In the background you can see the sealed-off kiva chimney, brought on by the collapse of the interior wall of said fireplace that prevents the smoke from going up the chimney like it should. The chimney then being useless for anything except allowing heat to escape when it’s 20 below, capping it with bricks ranks as one of my more ingenious emergency improvements.

But back to the slender rationale for this post. There it sits below, in all its glory. I had to use an aluminum extension ladder to get up there—a artifact of my earlier life in Merryland, where I mostly used it to re-attach loose siding after a gale—and ascended with a pair of pliers, old coat hanger wire, and a wad of rotten rope, the right tools for the job!

That’s what the evil thing looked like after I straightened it out as best I could. It certainly isn’t on there firmly, but what the hell. When it falls down next January in a blizzard, I won’t be here, God willing, and no one will give a damn except the ghosts. The main thing is, I fixed it. Well, you know, sort of. We know how to do stuff right here in el Norte. Just don’t bother me with any more rules, money, or good taste than one man can stand.

[drum roll...]

For BEHOLD! Knotted rope and twisted wire for the ages, or at least until next week:

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