Gehlke Family News & Views

We have long endured the challenge of living next door to noisy neighbors — from idling freight trains, to ferocious barking dogs, to enraged chickens, to squabbling children — but not until now have we ever encountered the daily assault on our senses that is an amplified sound system mounted on a backyard patio pavilion. That is what the current occupants of our neighboring property have wrought on us, and it has frayed our nerves more than a little.

Any time of the day or night is prime time for an outdoor concert, it seems. Contractors working in the yard, kids on break from school studies, dinner hour, socializing with friends or family late at night. We mostly have tried to endure and shut out the sound while attempting to sleep, watch television, or conduct conference calls for work. Being neighborly has always been a thing we strive for, even at times when it seems others are less so, and it took great effort for us the day Roni went next door and politely asked if they could lower the volume because colleagues on the other end of her Zoom meeting could hear the music as though it were originating from our living room. They were good about it. That time.

The breaking point was reached on Valentine’s Day weekend in the form of a private party that broke out at 11 p.m. on what had been a peaceful Friday night. Suddenly our walls were shaking to a driving bass and the whoops and hollers of a small crowd cheering on a karaoke performance — a really bad one, to boot. Ben had just gone to bed for the night, while we were in the living room reading and playing on the computer. We instantly went on the defensive, retreating to our own music underneath headphones and cranking up the volume on the bedroom television. It was impossible to drown out the noise, even with all the doors and windows shut fast.

At a quarter-to-one, the party was still in full swing and had gotten no quieter. Would it ever end? That was when we finally did something we’d never done in 33 years of marriage — we contacted police and filed a noise complaint. We don’t know what happened after that, but the music got quieter about half an hour later before finally shutting off for the night at a quarter to two. Peace restored, but far too little too late.

OU MIGHT THINK that getting a visit from the cops in the wee hours of the morning would change one’s habits, perhaps make them think twice and consider whether their activity might disturb the neighbors. And sure enough, a week later when another spontaneous karaoke party broke out next door, they shut it down right at midnight. Better, if not still in violation of the city’s municipal code that dictates 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. as quiet times.

But little else has changed, and the music continues to entertain us at other hours of the day. Sometimes it moves indoors, other times not, but it is always loud enough to hear, and try as we might to ignore or escape it, that simply isn’t possible. It has prompted several discussions about relocating as we weigh the benefits and disadvantages to abandoning the paid-for property we have lived in for almost 30 years.

This isn’t the first time the prospect of moving has come up, and the reasons have not always had to do with problem neighbors (although that usually seems to be when the discussions get more serious.) Now that we are on the back side of our fifties, we are coming to terms with the reality that we are no longer the young family living the dream of owning their first starter home. We are the elder statesmen on our block, where the homes are all in their mid-thirties and most of those living in them are younger than that. This neighborhood is nobody’s destination, just a waypoint on the road to somewhere else bigger, more expensive, or in another town.

So why then did we stay here all these years? Because it worked for us. It was very affordable. It was close to jobs and schools. There were activities we were involved with, social clubs and business networking groups. It was close to the amenities of the Bay Area without actually being part of it. There were no rear yard neighbors, and the ones to either side of us were mostly ignorable. That is, we didn’t have to think about them being our neighbors the way we do now. We liked all that. But the community is changing and has been for more than a decade as it has grown more diverse and attracted refugees from more expensive parts of the Bay Area. Traffic has increased. Crime is more common. Developers have added more houses without bringing more businesses or jobs. We’re becoming just another faceless suburb of Oakland or Silicon Valley, and considering that we no longer commute to jobs in any of those places then why live here at all?

But it is not like we are rushing out to seek our dream home just yet. First you have to have an idea of what that place might look like and where it would be located, and we don’t have fast answers for either. Nor do we have a plan to finance such a move that wouldn’t require selling our current place outright, and to do so would necessitate a ton of work to improve its curb appeal, let alone enable us to sell it at current market rates. It is, as they say, a “fixer-upper.”

So why not just fix it? If not for somebody else, then for ourselves. Because for all of its wrinkles, this is still our home and we have lived in it for three decades. You don’t just give up on it because of something that could be a temporary nuisance. They don’t call these starter homes for nothing; most folks don’t stay in them more than three to five years before moving on. But still, that’s a long time to have to suffer in silence — or lack of silence — while you are waiting out the bad seeds to blow elsewhere. We need solutions and we need them now.

S A RESULT of current circumstances, we have begun to take a hard look at the things that need doing around our property. It’s a very long list, and high on it is replacing the roof and gutters — projects we have been contemplating for a few years now, and for which the time has come. Another thought we have entertained is installing solar panels while there are still financial incentives to do so. If we have to do the roof anyway, might as well do solar at the same time. Much lower on the project list was overhauling the Writing Sanctuary, but that is the one we decided to start with.

Recognizing the fact that our noisy neighbors aren’t likely to become less noisy soon, if at all, Roni decided a reasonably quiet space was needed where we could escape to for meetings and concentrating on important things such as reading or watching TV. The only place that meets those criteria is the Writing Sanctuary/den/library — not much used these days, but still the most isolated room in the house.

With its rows of bookshelves, an old sofa, wall-to-wall carpeting and loads of boxes for storage, there are numerous sound-absorbing surfaces that make the room perfect as a sound bunker. The main problem is that it is cramped and doesn’t afford a space to spread out and work. Roni decided that needed to change. Normally Glenn is resistant to altering the Writing Sanctuary, given it has been a cozy spot for his creative pursuits for the past two decades, but these are difficult times and a solution to noise concerns outweighs nostalgia.

So we decided on some modifications to the room to make it more inviting, starting with cleaning a lot of dead computer products out of the closet to free up space for more books. Believe it or not, even with the shelving we put in the room a few years ago, we have tons more books that didn’t have a home other than boxes until now. We shelved them in the closet, getting some of those boxes off the floor.

Next we decided to upgrade the computer desk. The old 4-foot desk dates back to the mid 1980s and was a salvage item from when Glenn worked at Service Merchandise. We chose to replace it with a 6-foot laminate countertop that will be mounted on a couple of cabinets we purchased from the home improvement stores.

But the biggest change to the room involves replacing the carpet, which is as old as the house. We have become big fans of Home Depot’s Lifeproof vinyl planks, and when we found several boxes on clearance at the Brentwood store we decided the price was right for this project. As we put this newsletter to bed, Glenn is in the process of removing the carpet and getting ready to install the new floor. More on that project next month.

Other modifications to our home are being considered, unfortunately not all as cheap as the library update. The biggest one that may actually come to pass is replacing our exterior doors and windows. Yes, we are motivated now by the need to deaden sound, but this has been a needed upgrade for a long time given that the existing windows were installed by the developer for their cost efficiency and not their functionality. We’ll certainly have more to share on this topic next month.

ITH ALL THE projects taking shape on our home improvement list, we are in the early stages of shopping for a home equity loan. Interest rates are low, but there are signs that may not stay the case much longer. It is those interest rate jitters that have been driving the stock market in recent weeks as investors rotate away from technology stocks and into companies that offer dividends or value in their recovering share price.

We were very lucky in early February to exit some of our high-dollar put option trades before the major indexes started to sell off. For the first time in weeks our margin balance fell to a level that we were able to purchase stocks again, and so we added 50 shares of the GlobalX NASDAQ 100 covered call fund QYLD when the price fell hard on Feb. 23. It’s one of our favorite dividend payers these days.

We also bought 77 shares of Blue Apron (APRN) to round out the small position we were left with after the company’s reverse split nearly two years ago. It’s not because it’s been such a great investment that we felt compelled to own more of it, but rather because now we hold 100 shares which enables us to sell covered call options on the position, the goal being to lower our cost basis to something closer to zero (it was $21+ prior to adding the new shares, which brought it down to $12.37.) The first call we sold is a 12.00 strike that expires on April 16. We collected a premium of $230, which lowers our cost basis to $10.07. Hopefully the price doesn’t see 12.00 by then, which would allow us to sell another call. The shares were trading at 8.81 as of Friday.

Our other purchase in February was quite accidental. We now own 100 shares of Sundial Growers (SNDL), a “pot stock,” after selling a one-week put option that expired in the money. We optioned the stock at 2.50, receiving a premium of $65. The price collapsed to 1.50 the following Friday, so we bought the shares for $250 at a slight loss. Like the Blue Apron trade, we are now selling covered calls on SNDL in an effort to lower our cost basis or exit with a profit. It’s a small fish, fortunately, so we aren’t too worried about the outcome.

One trade we are very excited about right now involves Rocket Companies (RKT), the parent company of Quicken Loans. In what is a rare can’t-lose scenario, RKT surprised analysts with stellar quarterly earnings and announced a special dividend of $1.11 per share, payable March 9. We don’t yet own the stock, so we optioned it at 23.50 for March 5, bringing in a premium of $216. If the stock closes below our strike next week, we would buy the shares for $2,350, cost-adjusted to $2,134 after the premium, and get a dividend of $111. Then we would start selling covered calls to collect more premium. If the stock closes above our strike, we keep the premium (which is still more than the dividend) and walk away from the trade. We want to own the shares anyway, so fingers crossed it all works.

February was extremely kind for options trades overall, as we collected roughly $4,500 in premium across all our accounts, marking our second best month ever since we started doing this a year and a half ago. We are currently on pace for $54,000 this year — still small potatoes for serious options traders, but a lot more than we ever expected. If you keep your expectations reasonable, you will always be amazed when you exceed them.

The sound and the fury

Glenn, Roni and Ben