I wasn't purchasing from an RV lot or anything, it was on the side of the road. I figured all the RV dealers would do would be jack up the price and sell it for $5,000 more than I could otherwise get it for. While this was true, being a first-time purchaser, I perhaps should have opted to go with a dealer. There are things I had no clue about, nor thought about, that were important to consider. Does the furnace work? What's an arctic package? Does the AC work? Any water damage?
Who would have even thought that the sewage holding tanks wouldn't be empty?!
I'm
getting ahead of myself. I asked the parents of a good friend to come
with to have a look-see. They've got quite a bit of experience with
RV's. They came, took a look, and thought it was a good deal. The guy
came down a bit on his price, but not as much as I would have liked.
C'est la vie, all said and done, I bought the thing.I dragged my pastor and friend with me to pick it up (I needed the support).
The seller helped me in hooking it up (I didn't know how - it's a fifth wheel) and gingerly drove off. And... the electronic brakes weren't working. Not a huge surprise - it's an older truck, and older RV, and both were new to me, so I didn't know which to blame. In any case, drove from Merrillville to Michigan City this way. I could feel the truck screaming every time we stopped, but it held itself together.
My church (well, one of them) allowed me to keep the Behemoth there for a couple weeks. During that time, I tore out the 'entertainment center'. The entertainment center was state of the art (I'm sure) in 1998, but was pretty worthless by today's standards. It was built-in to one of the pop-outs that used up about 24 square feet of living space. It was gonna go.
In tearing it out, I found it. The walls behind the center were soft enough to push my finger through from the years of water seeping in along cracks. That'll have to wait until spring. Until then, my desk will be going there, so it should be generally unnoticeable. :)
Also during this time, I had one of my Elder friends (meaning, Elder of the church, not old guy) take a look around the thing. I knew there had to be the monitoring system for the waste tanks, but I couldn't find it. He found it for me. There were (apparently) two grey water tanks, and one black water.
For those not 'hip' to that jargon... 'Grey'
water refers to wastewater that is not the 'nasty' stuff - water from
the shower and sinks are typically considered greywater. Blackwater is
the 'other' stuff that comes from the other water consuming facilities
that nobody in their right mind wants any part of.One of the greywater tanks was from the shower/sink in the bathroom area, and one from the galley sink. Then, of course, there is the blackwater.
All three waste tanks were half full. :S
Oh, that's just nasty. How am I supposed to deal with some unknown multiple persons' ... yuck?? Like it or not, I bought that, too.
