I was thinking it would be great to finally live in an apartment with no risk of tree disfigurement.
In two of the places I have lived in the course of our life, heavy tree limbs during thunderstorms caused serious roof injury to the building.
One of those instances occurred during a tropical storm and I was worried that I would have a moldy attic from the rain pouring down through the hole in the ceiling. As fortunate as I was to only need new shingles and had only serious water damage, it was a stressful situation with a lasting impact on our mental health. You can’t control this all of the time, although I set out to try to only live in houses where I could not have any problems with falling tree debris. So when I found this apartment that had absolutely no tree coverage, I was ecstatic to say the least. I was thinking that I had finally ended our search for the perfect apartment for our serious storm season here in the southeast. But, when the first summertime rolled around in our new house, I realized I had overlooked something big. During the times residing in homes with lots of shade, I did not understand just how much it affected our energy expenses for the good. Once that shade was removed, I had an outrageous electric bill from increased cooling system use. With the sun beating down on our roof all day long, it made the apartment warmer and thus harder to keep cool even under the best circumstances with the strongest cooling system cash can buy. Maybe I should have loved our shade when I still had it, but at this point I can’t get it back.