The house from the road in (with the ocean view as a backdrop)

We haven’t seen a whole lot of wood houses in PR.  In Rincon however, they do exist throughout Puntas so it is do-able, possible and not entirely crazy.  Our first thoughts about keeping the wood house revolved around the idea that, wood houses in tropical areas don’t last.  After seeing the current wood house that has been there 20+ years and the wood that has been protected still looks fresh, we are starting to change our opinion.

Not a whole lot going on here.  It’s winter and most people are staying inside.  We had a good time with friends watching the super bowl and having get togethers, but we are ready for spring already!

To be honest, the first time I saw a Super Ducha I was afraid.  The thing you hear all the time in the states is never use electricity and baths / showers. When we were trying to buy the property in Lares, the cabana had a Super Ducha. This thing was anything but to safe: no GFI, no real grounding, it was wrapped with electrical tape and the outlet was really close to the shower head.   We hesitated to use it at first, but given the choice between a cold shower or a slightly warm one, we took the risk. Then we slowly became accustomed to it. We stayed and showered there for about two weeks.  By the time we left for Colorado, I was pretty comfortable with it.

The Super Ducha at the property in Lares, Puerto Rico

Flash forward to now and our property in Rincon, Puerto Rico. We decided on our last trip that taking a shower shouldn’t be like jumping in a swimming pool.  It was ok during the hot and humid summer, we could put up with it, but in January everything cools down by a good 10 degrees and it was pretty chilly to hop in a cold shower.

Here in Colorado every house that I can think of is plumbed for a gas powered hot water heater, but there is no natural gas “utility” that automatically comes with a house in Puerto Rico.  So there were only a few options to getting hot water for your shower and elsewhere.  Put in an instant-on water heater, put in a tank on the roof (solar heater) or just get an electric shower head.

We were only going to be there for a week and didn’t want to turn the hot water into much of a project.  So we opted for the electric shower head. We couldn’t find the Super Ducha brand, but we did find Dur-o-matic.  They actually sell them at Home Depot in Mayaguez which is where we ended up going.  Home Depot has an easy return policy which worked out well.  There are 3 variations of the Dur-o-Matic.   Green (15A), blue (22A) and red(25A).

Dur-O-Matic Green Box

The more water pressure you have, the higher you want to go.  We started with Green because I wasn’t sure what the circuit breaker was rated for in the cabana.  It went fine and the shower was warmer, but it was still pretty cold unless you turned the pressure way down, or ran the water in the bathroom sink while showering (Cassie’s trick).   Our circuit breaker is 20A.  We took the green one back and tried a blue one.  This one was warmer and the circuit breaker still didn’t pop.   We might have been able to use a red one, but we didn’t try. They run about $60 and are very simple to install. All you have to do is get some teflon tape, unscrew the shower head, attach the Dur-O-Matic using the tape, and plug it in. It heats the water before it reaches you. It never gets super hot, but it creates a nice warm shower.

Dur-O-Matic Electric Shower Water Heater Installed!

They also sell them at the Do it Best in Rincon.   Had I known about this store earlier, I might not have made the trip to Mayaguez.  In either case it warms the water up about 30 degrees.  It made it much nicer to be able to shower and for Cassie she was able to take more time to wash her long hair.  However, it is inherently more dangerous to have an electric anything in the shower, so next trip I’ll try to fit a GFI circuit in for  peace of mind. Everything in Puerto Rico is just a little bit different. We’ve learned a lot about what’s really necessary in life, what is just a “want” and all those little in-betweens like a warm shower.

Don’t worry, we did spend some time at the beach too!

Well we had a list of things we wanted to do on this trip; some for fun, some for utility. Of course, we often put off the fun and do the work first, but I think we did pretty good overall.

Here were our goals: what we didn’t get to are in red, and what we accomplished are in green.

* Plant banana trees (BK)
* Visit with ARC ENG -the architecture/engineering business in Rincon (CK)
* Visit the Rincon Treehouse place to talk about specifics (BK)
* Visit Mangosteen person in Mayaguez if we have enough time (CK)
* CRIM? We haven’t done this yet and probably should (neither really want to)
* Fix up kitchenette to have running water (BK)
* Get estimate for cost of our property ideas by local contractor
* Get hot running water rigged if possible (CK)
* Buy a heavy duty weed-wacker at Home Depot, as the property is probably very overgrown by now (BK)
*Take a surf lesson – if we have time (CK)
* Have a small little fire at night on the property (BK) (A reminder to be careful what you wish for!!)
*Walk to the beach from property (CK)
* Get rest of bees removed from walls if possible (BK)
* Find closest hospital (just in case-ha) -CK
*Find thrift or 2nd hand stores in the area (CK)

So as you can see, we got quite a lot of the major items taken care of in the time we were there. In addition to these things we also:

*Found our trees that we had planted last time and cleared away the vines and growth from around them
*Weed-wacked the whole fenced area and a little beyond the fence line
*Met with a variety of friends in Rincon/Moca for dinners and poker
*Tried new restaurants
*Planted more sprouted coconut palms
*Planted our avocado pits from the Avocado Party (we’ll see what happens!)
*Found a nearby hardware store in Rincon with prices better than Home Depot and a discount day (10% off on Saturdays) for women!

We still haven’t quite made a decision one way or the other about the wood house. We go back and forth and forth and back, sometimes in the same conversation. There are so many pros and cons to either decision. Getting the bees out of the house really helped us feel more comfortable in it and around it. We could see more potential, and less of a desire to “just get rid of it”. Still not sure though. We would have a long way to go to make it feel like home. Next up for it will be bat removal!! Yikes.

I think we have a pretty decent plan to get the cabana very livable and then we can make our big decision on the wood house. It is definitely cool to have a wood house, as it makes it seem more like Hawaii-style housing: warm and inviting and less like concrete storm bunkers, but as we have seen with all the animals in the house it may be a little TOO inviting.  As you can tell we’re still in limbo on that one.

The wood house from the roof of the cabana

In addition to the bats and the bees, we also had some unexpected canine visitors on our last day there, but they were friendly:

I got up on the deck of the wood house to get a better view and snapped this picture:

So close you could hear the crackling of the fire and flames and see ashes flying thru the air!

Now the way my brain tends to work, I try to figure out how the fire got started and being a problem solver I try to think of how to put it out.   At this point my brain is trying to figure out how a fire way down below could have started….

The canvas the bee guy used in his bee smoker

Being from Colorado when we have fires, they are usually caused by some careless camper that didn’t extinguish their campfire or from hot embers that rise from campfires.  It’s also the dry season here and I’ve noticed a lot of areas around Rincon have gone crunch dry brown.

My initial thought was, “Oh crap, don’t tell me that the bee guy set the property on fire……”.

It was really pretty far away so I was totally over-reacting but still, once that thought had entered my mind it was lodged there for a while.  We set Rincon on fire!  We’ve all seen the news stories in CA when fires start and people’s houses burn down and huge areas are just consumed by flames.

The plumber saw the flames and called the fire department.  They let him know that they had received several calls already, so I wasn’t the only one concerned.

We went to talk to the neighbor.  He informed us that there is a guy who always sets that field on fire to get rid of the Pica Pica (from what we hear Pica Pica is a bean pod looking ‘weed’ that releases a fuzz that makes you itch) …LOL.  So my fears of having indirectly burnt Rincon to the ground were put to ease.   The neighbor let us know that once the fire reaches the trees, it stops.

We went back home and in about 10 minutes as the flames reached the tree line, they stopped, just as the neighbor had said they would.

It’s hard when you’re in a new place and you don’t know what is normal and what isn’t.  It’s a good exercise for my worry side to learn how to relax and go with the flow.

Hibiscus Flower at our Front Gate

Hot water heater showerhead!
For the hot water there are a variety of ways you can do that here. There is a reason why houses in the tropics don’t have hot water. Houses here in the Caribbean tropics of Rincon/Puerto Rico do not need a furnace so there is no central heating components (or any natural gas bills) but along with that means there is usually no huge water heater hooked in. So you can get an instant-on, a solar water heater, or if you just want a warm-ish shower, then you can get an electric water heater that attaches to the shower head and plugs in to the wall. While not the “best” per se, it is definitely the easiest for a do-it-yourselfer like us.   Britton can tell a little more about the shower water heater, but all I know is that it is SOOO much better than “YIKES! It is so cold in here” and just splashing water on you to avoid the complete chill-down. When we were here last summer it wasn’t so bad to be without hot shower water because everything was a lot hotter, but here in the winter it cools down to the low 70s at night with a slight chill in the air making it not so welcoming to jump into water that is nearly 30 degrees colder than your own body temperature.

We also set about getting water to the sink in the kitchenette of the cabana. We were surprised that there wasn’t water already hooked up when we bought the place since there was a sink and cabinets. So we contacted a plumber (Julio) who had been recommended to us by a real estate agent here. I can see why he recommended him. He and his wife were on time, friendly, gave us an estimate and stuck to that estimate, was a steady worker and spoke English (and Spanish) and even gave us a receipt! When we noticed a small leak, he came right back and fixed the problem. Service with a smile.

Here’s under the sink area before (with a hole drilled)

Julio and his wife working outside

If we had tools and knowledge of how to work with concrete we might be tempted to try and do this ourselves, but as we don’t it was nice having some professional help. Plus it took all day long -from 9am to 4pm- for the expert to do this work, so we don’t even want to guess what it would have taken us (Britton). While it cost us money, it is an investment in the property. We also found out while he was back there working in the concrete that it is plumbed for a solar water heater so we may install one in the future. Then instead of just the shower having hot water, so would the bathroom and kitchenette sink. But as it is now, we are happy to have running water in general!!

We love running water!! The finished product

Because this is post-construction, the pipes are exposed, but it is the back of the house and not visible unless you actually go back there.  He had to hammer drill (is that the right tool name?) through the concrete in order to tie into the pipes from the bathroom and then connect the outgoing water to the main pipe. (I am not a plumber, so I am not sure if that is the right jargon, but you get the idea.) As you can see, the piping doesn’t need to be buried because it never freezes here. All those little things we’re not used to in Colorado

Under the sink now

We tried calling our bee guy, Jose again, but he apparently didn’t have time or didn’t want the work, so we thought we wouldn’t be able to get the rest of the bees out this trip. Then we lined up the plumber to work on the sink in the studio cabana (we’ll write about that later) and just happened to tell him about the bees in the house. He said that while doing plumbing he often runs into bees in the water lines/boxes and knew of a guy who loved bees and could easily remove them for us (for a fee).

Staying away from the bees-at the beach

And so that is how we met Enrique. Enrique definitely does love bees and was enthusiastic and ready to remove all the rest of the
three hives right then and there. He went in to do the job with no bee suit, no gloves or any protection. He apparently just tore down the wall panels where the bees were located, grabbed the queen with his bare hands and the rest of the bees followed into the cardboard boxes. He made really quick work of it.

He told us they would be agitated in the move and that we might want to leave for a few hours to avoid being stung.  So in that time we went down to the beach and hung out, got some food and came back. In the same time it took the methodical, cautious and precise Jose to remove one hive, Enrique took out three! We returned and there were a lot of bees still buzzing around but Enrique assured us that it was safe to go into the house to see his finished work because the remaining bees wouldn’t sting if they didn’t have a queen to protect (I was still a little freaked out by all of them buzzing around my body).

He had removed all of the bees from inside the walls as well as their honey and comb. He offered us to keep the honey and comb, but we weren’t sure what to do with it. We did get to taste it, and it was really good -sweet and waxy! Britton managed to take a little video of Enrique showing us the removal and the honeycomb afterward. We are definitely relieved to have the bees gone and hopefully by tomorrow all the orphaned ones will realize their queen is gone and they will scram as well.  Although we are a little sad to not have all the thousands of little pollinators working on our fruit trees. Maybe someday we’ll get a hive of our own…just not inside our house

I am never quite sure what to expect when we go to government agencies here but they all generally have the same florescent lit waiting rooms with lots of people waiting, standing or sitting in plastic chairs.   I showed up to the CRIM office in Aguadilla in the afternoon.  Cassie got antsy and left me waiting in line and she went outside for a bit to walk around -as the ocean was just across the street.  I was standing in line…waiting…then I started to question if I was in the right line.  I noticed that everyone around me had papers that looked like bills….The room with the chairs had people with manila envelopes.  Then it hit me..”AH….I am not in the right place!”

I asked a lady if she spoke English.  She responded no…So I did my best to ask if we were in the line to pay.  I simply asked “Pagar?”.  She responded “Si”.  So I then pointed at the room and asked “registro?”.   She said something to the effect of “Si”  and talk to the ”recepcionista”.

I understand more Spanish than I speak and I need to improve, but I was working my way around none the less..lol. Since I didn’t have my “muleta” (Cassie- my crutch) I had to make do.

I spoke to the recepcionista and she put me on the list.  Cassie came back and joined me in the waiting room. We ended up being the very last ones to be helped that day.  I think normally we would have been turned away, but not sure.  I got the impression that they gave out numbers earlier in the day, then stopped at some point.

We waited for about an hour then spoke to a CRIM employee that was doing the change of ownership for us.  We were taken into a little space with about four employees, in drab cubicles, bad lighting and boxes piled to the ceiling. There is a form to fill out and some questions you have to answer.  They also made a copy of the deed we took with us.

Since we had 4 cuerdas there is an extra charge.  We weren’t sure about the exemption stuff or any other legal status issues, we just kind of went in blind.  We most likely ended up paying too much, it came out to $38/yr for property tax.

Honestly, I was just glad to get it taken care of.  For $38 I’d just pay it to be done.  In the future we can just pay CRIM online like the water and electric bill. That would be awesome to never have to go back there again. I hate waiting in lines at government agencies no matter where I am…and when there is a beautiful beach on the other side of an imposing and depressing concrete government building it really made us want to leave.  All in all though this wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.

This blog post about what to expect at CRIM was helpful for me too here’s the link.