The Radon Racket

There’s nothing like selling your house to find out how many rackets there are.

Take the radon racket. 

I know what you’re going to say. Radon kills. It seems that the number is 20,000 a year. Statistically insignificant (unless it’s me).  

We have not required radon mitigation when we bought a house and I actually refused to do it once when I sold a house, something I wouldn’t get away with today. But as I said at the time, the couple we bought the house from nearly a decade before were still alive and well in a retirement community and she did all of the laundry in the basement. What's to fear?

The people buying our current house wanted radon mitigation and even though we have a walkout basement with windows, what could I say? 

My real estate agent pointed out that the house was already piped for mitigation so not to worry.

The radon mitigator shows up and he’s making a mess. I ask him how it’s going and he reveals that he must replace all of the piping because the original piping is cheap and won’t do. 

I don’t know if that’s going to increase my cost but I’m now kicking myself for standing on my principle and not demanding a radon check from the previous owner. He bought the house brand new so he wouldn’t have had a radon check done.

And our next house is being built as we speak. Maybe I should do a radon check.

(Next: The illegal connection to the sewer line)

I'm Confused

Margo Martindale in The Americans

We watched The Millers the other night and greeted it with several belly laughs. I am doubtful that it will survive, but that’s just my gut thinking out loud. (Talk about a mixed metaphor!)

What confused me was the starring role of Margo Martindale. There she was providing laugh after laugh after laugh. We first became aware of her in the Gifted Man where she defined a serious role as the doctor’s administrative assistant and sometime conscience. 

Then she showed up in the Americans as the handler of two Soviet sleeper agents, a role that seemed destine for a long run. There she was not only testing the loyalty of the sleepers but murdering an American agent who had killed her one-time lover back in the Soviet Union. 

I did some research and learned that she had also had a role in Justified, which I watch but don’t remember her.

What has me confused is that she seems to be in more than one show, which was not the norm a few years ago. You were tied to a show and did not appear in another. 

Yet here she is the mother in a comedic series and a killer in a spy thriller on another channel. I hope I can remember which is which. I wondered to my wife if the fact that she’s in a new series means she was probably killed off in the other series. 

From what I read, she will be back on the Americans but we won’t find out how frequently until January when the Americans returns for another season. I did some superficial research but there was no mention of her roles for 2014. However, I did learn that she’ll be in an episode of Masters of Sex this year. 

Now I’m really confused.