We’ve lived in a long line of rental properties over our time in Costa Rica. In sequential order, we started in a tiny apartment where we experienced an earthquake and then a small house where the dirt road out front covered everything in a fine layer of dust. We then moved onto a nice house in a mostly abandoned gated community where the house almost got burned down in a forest fire.
Next up and a few towns over was a little house on a hill where a mudslide smashed through the back door into the kitchen during a terrible storm when my wife was nine months pregnant. After that was a house where we were in the middle of a noisy little town followed by a beach house that we built and sold a few years later. Now, we’re in a rental house once again, which has begun to reveal its quirks to us after having lived here for a little over a year.
Doorknob Roulette
All of the doors in our house are red, and I mean bright red. It’s not the choice I would have made as a homeowner, but I have discovered that I can get used to just about anything. Unfortunately, the redness of the doors hasn’t been their defining feature – the doorknobs have. Ever since we moved in, the doorknobs have malfunctioned in an endless variety of different ways.
One disintegrated in my hand. That wasn’t a big deal. Another decided to lock itself randomly. It happened consistently enough that I began keeping an old Pennsylvania driver’s license in the living room so that I could slide it between in the door and the frame and unlock it.
At least I thought it was an old license. I realized, while sitting in the DMV in the US last month, that I had been using my current license and the teller noticed, too. As I handed it over, he cocked his head and questioned me as to why the edges of my license were so jacked up.
The bathroom doorknob was the latest to go. I was home alone showering and when I tried to leave the bathroom the doorknob refused to do its duty. I ended up having to do a full-nude doorknob disassembly using a combination of brute force and improvising an attachment for my beard trimmer as a screwdriver.
Plumbing Problems
As I mentioned earlier, I’m a guy that can get used to things. When the faucet on the kitchen sink began to shoot a little stream of water at the user, I just positioned it in a way where it shot the nearby window instead of the person attempting to obtain water. When the little stream turned into a more significant stream, I tied a piece of plastic bag loosely around the faucet, causing a kind of bubbling, splashy mess that eventually became too much for my wife.
It was clear it was my job to replace the faucet when a new one in a box suddenly appeared on the kitchen counter. What should have been a straightforward fix became a little more difficult when I realized that access to the bottom of the faucet could only be achieved by me laying faceup on a series of three kitchen chairs and inserting myself into a 12-inch wide cement storage space under the sink that was surely home to a scorpion or impressively large spider that I didn’t want to meet. I eventually triumphed over the faucet with the help of a disinterested ten-year-old and a trip or two to the local hardware store.
We Call That the Lizard Hole
It wasn’t always there. At some point after we moved in, and seemingly not caused by a member of my family, a half dollar-sized round hole appeared high on the living room wall just under the AC unit. If I owned the place, I’d fix it, but I try to limit my fixing of other peoples’ houses to exploding doorknobs and water-squirting faucets. We could hassle the landlord about it, but it’s not terribly unsightly.
Besides, this circular hole has brought my family a little joy because it seems to be the source of, or at least the safe haven of multiple house geckos. If you pay attention while watching TV, out of the corner of your eye you’ll see a fat little gecko appear out of the hole and run and hide in the AC unit. My younger son is a particular fan, screaming “Lizard!” and pointing at the lizard hole every time he sees them doing their thing.
Each of our Costa Rican abodes has had its little quirks. When the quirk comes in the form of a tendency to burn down in forest fires or perhaps collapse in a mudslide, it’s time to think about moving. When the quirks involve naked doorknob disassembly and lizard holes, you’re probably just fine.
About the Author
Vincent Losasso, founder of Guanacaste Wildlife Monitoring, is a biologist who works with camera traps throughout Costa Rica
