Fear of a New House

[ava_x]

This is kind of a two part post on anxiety over moving / living in a new house.

My fiance and I recently bought a new house (about 4 months ago)  the anxiety started when we were in the process of looking for a place and packing.  I started to get such severe anxiety over packing all of my things up that I pretty much waited until the moving truck was there to throw things on it (not a smart idea).  Now I still have a bunch of stuff at our old place (it's a family house so we still have access to it) and the thought of going there and packing everything up is SO overwhelming to me I just would rather someone go in and throw everything away.

My newest anxiety problem started about a week ago when our water heater started leaking from the pressure release valve.  We managed to stop if from leaking but I still was going into the basement and checking it when I was home alone about 3x an hour for about three days until I felt satisfied it wasn't going to start pouring out water.

Yesterday we tried to flush the tank to see if we could stop it from making a noise and there was a point during this process when there was water spraying EVERYWHERE in our basement and we couldn't get it to stop for about a minute.  My fiance managed to fix that issue but shortly after that stupid pressure release valve started leaking again.  We turned the temperature down on it and everything has been fine since about 11pm last night.  I still have this incredible anxiety over something going wrong and the water heater basically exploding and pipes bursting off and water going everywhere.  I feel like I just want to take a chair and sit in the basement watching this stupid thing for any sign of a leak happening even though I don't know what I would do if it DID start leaking.

I have never had this type of anxiety before where I can seriously see this stuff happening in my head.  I'm not sure if it's just because we bought this house so I feel a strong sense of possession towards it or because I'm afraid our basement will flood and ruin our things.  When my fiance and I started dating he had his basement flood three times and all three times it was the biggest pain to clean it all up I just can't bear the thought of that happening to ours so I'm not sure if that has something to do with it.  Or just the anxiety of moving into a new house on our own and having to make decisions about stuff with it.  I also don't know if this is a delayed reaction type of thing moving into a new house and the water leaking just set it off.  It's almost as if I'm scared of my own house!

Has anyone else ever had anxiety like this over moving or worrying constantly about something bad happening to your house?

[Bamboo31]

Ava, I just so happen to be going through something similiar.

I am a neat/clean freak and feel comfortable only when all my things are in order. Well, last weekend, my husband started pointing downstairs.  He must have been dreading to tell me there was water in the basement.  The entire carpet in our finished/carpeted spare bedroom was soaked.  It is a decorated room full of expensive furniture.  I scrambled to get the things I could out of the water and put bags over the legs of the wooden furniture. 

We had been told we needed to rip up the carpet, remove the padding, and let the carpet dry out. My husband had to move all the furniture to the family room and rip up the carpet.  He had to take the bed apart, remove all the dresser drawers and slide the furniture out.  Some furniture legs are cracked, and the wet carpet has such a rotten odor.  The wet carpet smells like cat urine, and that smell has overtaken our entire house. And of course my husband had to go out of town today. 

I surprised myself; I was taking it pretty well, until yesterday. I just exploded-about EVERYTHING!  What, is there a crack in our foundation? What are we supposed to do, spend thousands of dollars we don't have to have that repaired? If we don't look into the cause, will this happen whenever a lot of snow melts or was it because our downspot came off?  Everything is out of order, my husband is gone, and our house stinks. AHHHHHH!!!!

I wish I could offer some words of support, but this all goes with homeownership.  We've had water spraying out all over from our water softener malfunctioning.  We've had our roof leak.  We've had our furnance die in the dead of winter.  Our house isn't even that old. 

You are anxious from the overwhelming task of househunting, packing, and moving.  Moving is one of the most stressful events in anyone's life. You are thrown off balance, and it takes a long time to get situated.  Now the hot water heater is one more thing to have to deal with. 

I am trying to use visualization to help me.   I am picturing my carpet back in place and freshly steam-cleaned.  All my furniture will be in order.  I haden't vacuumed behind my dresser in a long time, so it will be cleaner than it has been.  I will reorganize my belongings, and it will be better than before.  It will smell clean and fresh, and I will appreciate it more.

The effects of the hot water fiasco will lose its hold over you gradually.  You can start visualizing your belongings coming together in your new home. The time will come, before you know it, when you are all settled and enjoying your home.



   

 

       

   

[ava_x]

Thank you so much for sharing your story! It makes me feel like I'm not so alone in getting so upset and anxious over house issues.  That's part of the anxiety I feel is because our basement is partially finished too so there's lots of furniture / electrical equipment / collectibles and the thought of having to move all that stuff (right after we just moved it all in) is so overwhelming to me, even though there's a chance it may not happen. I will say I've taken a shower, done the dishes and run the dishwasher just to make sure that nothing is leaking down there so I can sleep peacefully tonight! Even though I know things like this happen to every homeowner, it still feels horrible when it's your house it's happening to.

I hope everything with your water issues in your basement is worked out soon and you have that beautiful clean (and fresh smelling) place back again.