Boring as it may be, light bulb inventory can save homeowners time and money
5 tips to make sure your lighting is safe, clean, corrosion-free and lasts a long time
When I saw the email, I thought it was a joke. Clear out of nowhere, my neighbor emailed me two sentences: “I’ve got bulbs. They’re free.”
For a brief minute, I wondered if “bulbs” was a new slang term for “marijuana.” But that wouldn’t work. Marijuana is made of seeds and clones. And I stopped smoking weed in college.
He sent me another email saying, “They’re in the basement.”
Now I’m curious. I must see why I’m being notified about “bulbs” that I never asked for — and hadn’t talked to this man at all for a couple of weeks.
I grab my dog to go for a walk, and I poke my head into the laundry room to see a huge bag full of actual light bulbs. As curious as this email was, I could feel my mouth turning up into a smile. I was ecstatic to see this variety of light bulbs that would save me a trip to the nearest hardware store.
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These are those moments that I know I’m a real “grown-up.” I hadn’t been this “grown-up” happy since the time I found out I wouldn’t have to replace a toilet that had inexplicable scratches on the inside. (Mineral buildup from hard water and abrasive cleaning tools, such as steel wool and hard-bristle brushes, can do this.) Someone online suggested Bar Keepers Friend to me, and all of those porcelain scratches disappeared as soon as I used it. Mind blown!
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My reaction to the bulbs went from confusion to glee. Why? Because when I first bought my condo unit, I had no idea that just about every light in this crazy place had a different bulb. All three ceiling fans had different bulbs. The lights underneath my cabinets had another kind of bulb. The kitchen ceiling light had different light bulbs — on top of tricky switches that could turn the light off on one side and stop the other side from turning on too.
While I was unpacking that first week, I had to take light inventory — and find the three-way bulbs for the lamps I brought along because my prior condo rental had no lights at all installed in the living room. I’d grown so used to not having ceiling lights or a ceiling fan that this was taking me back to the days of my eight-year apartment rental (before Satan moved in with a treadmill.) But when I bought my current home, I could totally understand the frustration of this Reddit user who asked, “How the f**k do people keep track of lightbulbs they need?”
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Been there. Dealt with that. I have five suggestions — outside of having neighbors who (for some inexplicable reason) have hundreds of brand new bulbs to give away.