Dude… That’s bleak 🙂

Yes, I have one 🙂 These things, and smoke detectors are legally sold at cost here. But cost is no object to me for things that can save our lives.

The chimney is swept every year by law. Even if you don’t use the chimney, it has to be done, else the insurance company will use it to deny any damage claim - although I think maybe if the chimney is never used, it’s every 2 years.

Anyhow, the chimney sweep came just before we bought the house. It’s good.

It reads levels, and it has a test button.

lol ITT, OP excited and everyone else telling them this is how they die.

That’s the internet for you 🙂

The fireplace is never unattended. We only go to bed when there are embers only left in it.

I turned off the extractor. But this house got me confused, because the previous house we had was less well insulated, and the stove had no trouble breathing even with the extractor at full blast. This one though is much more airtight, and it took me a couple of hours to make the connection between the fire getting choked when I closed the window and the extractor pulling a vacuum. I turned it off and now it’s fine.

I do have a CO detector. Not a peep.

The amount of soot above the door makes me think there’s a persistent draft issue.

In fairness, the stove has been in daily use 6 months per year for 50 years though. I’m not too surprised that the surroundings are blackened.

It’s a brick chimney. It’s a single story house with a low roof. The chimney is maybe 3 feet above it.

And yeah, there is a draft issue. Or rather, it’s a ventilation issue, like in all houses around here: winters are harsh here, and it’s always a fine balancing act between keeping the warmth in and letting enough outside air in to prevent mold and humidity. And when you have a chimney or a stove, letting it breathe enough.

At this point, I’m convinced the motive for most of what the Trump regime does is gratuitous cruelty. Once you accept that explanation, all those motherfuckers do starts to make sense.

Kash Patel lumping artists with terrorists in 3… 2… 1…

There aren’t fewer trans people - young or old: a lot of them simply choose to stay quiet in a dangerous reactionary fascist country.

And just like the Wehrmacht, the US military won’t lift a finger to stop the ICE thugs because they’re brainwashed into obeying blindly, like the dumb servile robots they are.

The Gestapo wouldn’t have stood a chance against the Wehrmacht either, yet they terrorized Germany for 12 long years.

They don’t need the military. They have the ICE Gestapo-style paramilitary.

As for giving up, I gave up on the United States 25 years ago when I gave up my citizenship, after Dubya shat out the very fascist USA Patriot Act.

This country is hopeless, and it’s been hopeless for a very long time.

Wow, I’m so surprised. And nobody saw this coming…

Buh-bye mid-terms.

Buh-bye Republic. See you in 10 years when the regime collapses.

Makes senses: the California National Guard are now grizzled, battle-hardened warriors after bravely fighting in the trenches of the Great Los Angeles Insurrection, and therefore best suited to tackle the horrors of the Portland warzone.

They might even be asked to patrol farmers’ markets, where dangerous hippies might throw chia seeds at them! Oh the humanity!

That is one of the reasons. The other reason for me is, Wikipedia’s stated values are incompatible with staying in the US. So as long as they’re there, they don’t meet my expectations.

I’m not giving money to Wikipedia anymore until they move out of the United States personally.

The worst thing Israel could have done to discredit Greta Thunberg and damage her brand would have been to give her a nice meal, a warm bed in a nice hotel, gently push her onboard the next 1st class flight back to Stockholm the next day and release a statement telling her to go play SJW somewhere else. Instead, they’re doing everything possible to confirm they’re truly bad people, like dumbasses.

The nation’s treasures are not Trump’s to give.