Turning Life's Struggles into Stand-Up Material

March 12, 2024

126. Turning Life's Struggles into Stand-Up Material

Ever think buying your dream home is all sunshine and rainbows? Think again!" In this eye-opening episode of "Homeowners Be Aware," host George Siegal gets real with Mike Knox, a stand-up comedian with a past life as a prison guard and a homeowner who's seen it all. From the highs of snagging a house during the 2008 crash to the lows of floods and faulty roofs, Mike spills the beans on what owning a house really entails. It's not just about the glamour; it's about the gutters, the leaks, and the unexpected costs that can turn your home sweet home into a relentless project. Mike's stories are packed with humor, horror, and a heap of advice that could save you a fortune. So, if you're thinking of buying, already own, or just love a good tale of homeowning gone wild, you won't want to miss this episode. It's real talk, real laughs, and real advice from someone who's lived through the homeowner's journey from hell and back.

Here’s how you can follow or reach Mike Knox:

Website: http://mikeknox.com/ 

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Here's the link to the trailer for the documentary film I'm making: Built to Last: Buyer Beware.

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Transcript

George Siegal: 0:00

I really enjoy sharing building and remodeling stories, whether they are good or bad. Learning what others have gone through can help us avoid making the same mistakes, or using a good idea can make our project even better. My guest today has some interesting experiences with projects that he's taken on since buying his house. Mike Knox is a stand-up comedian, the author of two books. He's also worked as a prison guard. From flooding to roof issues, mike has some great advice for anyone Learning of buying a house. I'm George Siegal and this is Homeowners Be Aware, the podcast that teaches you everything you need to know about being a homeowner. Mike, thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks for having me. Hey, I want to jump right into your challenges and problems as a homeowner. I always talk about mine, and the list is really long. Tell me about some of the stuff you've had to deal with in your days as a homeowner.

Mike Knox: 0:57

Sure, I always like to say I always like to tell people you don't have to own a home just because I've had such horrible experiences with mine. Mine started with I bought my home about 2008 when everything crashed. I got house fever. I thought I have to own a home. I'm going to all these places. Everybody's talking about it. Everybody's like you got to get into real estate. I was listening to that. I really just tell people to just slow down. Make sure that when you buy a home, you've got some money saved, because the second that you step into that home, when it's yours, there's all these things that everybody else wants.

Mike Knox: 1:30

The second I moved into my place, it's like we need new floors. Well, that was another 15 grand and then I really trusted the realtor and I really trusted the inspector and I always tell people you've got to meet everybody halfway and you've got to check all those things, because I'm still finding stuff that the inspector from 15 years ago missed and I'm still dealing with those issues where I thought that guy knew what he was doing. When they really come in for a couple hours, they go up in the attic, they're checking around the house, but I'm still finding places in the attic. I'm dealing right now with leaking that's coming from the side of the house because it's been raining so much in Los Angeles. We really don't get a lot of rain in Los Angeles, and so this year was a lot of heavy rain, so I'm noticing like I should probably get some rain gutters that I never had before. All those things are just always adding up. About a month ago I was on my way to go see some friends that I hadn't seen in a long time and I like the water heater burst and it was just had flooded the garage and now those are on and I was thinking, oh well, I guess it's been 10 years since I had the water heater.

Mike Knox: 2:36

But when you, when you're renting, that's all the stuff the landlord or the property owner has to deal with. When you're the homeowner, that's all the stuff you're dealing with, and nobody ever tells you any of that and that's the things that are constantly. It's like the upkeep of the house I always think of, like the in my mind. My house is small, it's 1200 square feet but I'm always thinking it's like this English mansion castle that I've got to maintain, but it's just me maintaining it. But there's always something that comes up and that's what it's so hard to kind of convey to other people that are looking to get a home is like it's. It just to me is always every day that I'm waiting for something else to happen.

George Siegal: 3:11

Yeah, that's a. That's a very common story. What part of LA do you live in?

Mike Knox: 3:16

North part of Los Angeles, in Valencia, so near Magiment.

George Siegal: 3:20

Yeah, I mean. So the challenges that that everybody has. Okay, the home inspectors I've had a bunch of them on as a guest on the podcast and a lot of them seem like great guys. I've met some a few of them in person and they and they really know their stuff. But they do admit they're only with you two or three hours, you know, maybe four, depending on the size of the house. You had a smaller house so it probably was less. So they're not going to catch everything, but you like to think the some of the stuff you're finding that they would have caught. As far as realtors, you know, that's another tough one. I hear good and bad stories. You know it's like how much are they obligated to tell you they really want to sell a house, they want their commission. So it's a tough relationship to know how much you can really count on other people and what I always say is you have to be your own best advocate for yourself.

Mike Knox: 4:03

Yes, and I think a lot of people go into like I did. I went in blindly thinking all these people are professionals and they're all going to help me and I don't really need to do any research. But that was finding out years later like I should have done better research. But you never know. It's a, it is a total gamble. I definitely am glad that I own a home, but you never really know who you're, who you're dealing with, inspector wise. For me the guy had known the real estate agent so he kept hugging her and he was more interested in like catching up old times. So that was a big reason why he missed a lot of stuff was because he was just chatting it up. And I learned, like, make sure these people don't know each other and they're friendly, because that works better. You know you really want. You really want that person that is in your best interest. That's not there to just have. He was just there to have. Oh my gosh, I've seen somebody who's just there to have fun.

George Siegal: 4:56

Did she recommend him? Yes, yeah, see, that's always a problem for me because there's a real conflict of interest there. Even if they're honest, I think it's better to go into a transaction with one in your pocket that you found, just to avoid that kind of stuff, cause I don't really want to chatty, cathy, you know trying to make out with my realtor. I want them to. I want them busted in their butt finding out what's wrong with my house.

Mike Knox: 5:19

Yeah, Same with the same with the broker. She knew the broker and that guy turned out to I mean, he turned out to same thing. He was more interested in like going to coffee or lunch with her than and I finally just went with another broker because he wasn't. He finally, after all these months, just was like oh I, I don't know how to deal with this anymore. And that was what killed me is you're just dealing with people like how did you get, how did you, how were you ever licensed to do this? And it was so hard to get people just to do their job Now in Los Angeles.

George Siegal: 5:49

the real estate disclosure forms are pretty comprehensive. So did they disclose everything? Was there stuff that they lied about?

Mike Knox: 5:58

It's not necessarily that they lied about, it was just my. The big thing for me was the the AC air ducts were all rotted so. So it's very hot in Los Angeles especially. I'm low desert, so I have to run the air conditioning all the time and the air. And within the first week of me moving in, I had to replace the air conditioner because we had fires going on. We had this huge Heat wave and the air conditioning went out, and that's why I've never forgotten that. Like I would hear people say that, oh, something's gonna happen the second that you move it into your house and, sure enough, my air conditioning completely went out. Well, that was at the time was another 4000. Now air conditioning replacing that stuff's probably around 15,000, if you get the parts at all, because they're ordering them from China.

Mike Knox: 6:40

Yeah, and I really a lot of times I wish I didn't have the money at the time when I moved in 16 years ago and I really wish there was stuff that I had done, because now everything Coming out of Kobe is three times more expensive. Like I'm looking at getting a new roof, well, that's three times more than it was when I had bids three years ago.

George Siegal: 6:56

Yeah, be careful with roofers, and that's that's a whole other scam business. There's some really good ones. But I had a leak at our house and a roofer came and he stood outside. He looked up at the roof, which was it's a two-story house. He goes yeah, it'll cost you about twenty five hundred dollars to fix your problem. And I said twenty five hundred dollars to fix what problem? You're down here, the roof's up there, don't you need to go up there? He goes no, I've been doing this for years. That wasn't even the part of the roof where the problem was and this guy was gonna rip me off for twenty five hundred bucks fixing something that wasn't even broken.

Mike Knox: 7:27

Yeah, and a lot of them know. They know that you don't like for me, they'll come in and they know that I don't know anything and so I'm I'm trust, I'm putting a huge amount of trust into somebody and this is a stranger that you know. And thank goodness for Google or YouTube, because I can at least YouTube stuff. That saves me a ton of money, which a lot of people don't do and a lot of people are just a simple putting so much trust in these people that they're there because they're trying to keep their job or make money for their business. And again, it just all comes down to money and how much more money I can make now, how much were you aware I guess I'm, I'm.

George Siegal: 8:01

I think I know the answer of the building code of the. Is it up to earthquake code? All the things that are Safety features of the house. Were you concerned about any of that?

Mike Knox: 8:11

No, because I had house fever. So moving in, I would just, I wanted to get into house. I had to get into a house. I could care. I could have cared less if it was. You know, I was living in a closet, I didn't care.

Mike Knox: 8:21

And then so, looking back, those are all the things that, because I've been, you know, right in the middle of when earthquakes happen, but the epicenter of earthquakes, an earthquake insurance I can't afford. It's way too expensive but that'll devastate your house if a huge earthquake hit. And those are. Those are things that nobody is telling you about. They're nobody's telling you about your insurance that you got to carry your property tax. They're not telling you that if you're not paying your property tax, they're gonna repossess your house. So there's all these other things that you're just not aware of. Building codes specifically. Every time something breaks, the guy comes in is like up, it's not a building code, that's another $300, and it's always. These building codes are always changing. Laws Are always change, supposedly always changing, which is another thing people need to be aware of, because they'll come in and, you know, rattle off some law where they have to charge you more money To just to install something. Now you probably don't have flood insurance either.

George Siegal: 9:15

I would imagine. No, it'll come for you to know. I just read this article that said 25% of Los Angeles is susceptible to flash flooding and flood insurance isn't terribly expensive out there. But if your house was to flood and we learned this in making the films that I make your insurance isn't paying you if your house floods. There's so many things. Have you ever actually read your insurance policy to know what you have that is covered? I have, but that's only because I have a family of insurance agents.

Mike Knox: 9:44

So that's been instilled in my head, but most people don't, because it's. It's so exhausting and boring to look through that stuff, but a lot of insurance, you know. It reminds me of a, of a warranty that I got from my car, where I read through it and it covered everything but the engine. Well, what do I want this to do? And it covered everything but the engine. Well, what do I want this policy for then? So, yes, I've got to read everything.

George Siegal: 10:05

There's a lot of exclusions in there and uh. Here in florida they took out a lot of policies. Don't cover sinkholes anymore. What's one of the main damages people get from their houses? Sinkholes. Hurricane coverage. The deductible is 2, so people don't realize the first 2 is out of their pocket and in our state you can't even sue and get attorney's fees. If you win, then anymore can you get attorney's fees in california.

Mike Knox: 10:30

I'm not too sure, but I've tried to sue and it is especially. Ellie county is by far the worst place to try to get somebody in the court or sue somebody, so I've definitely been through that wow.

George Siegal: 10:42

So With the lessons that you've learned, have you thought about just going back to being a renter? I would rent if I could.

Mike Knox: 10:49

I, I would too. It's just that I'm too far into it now and I really feel like you know what I, I give up now. I really just end at the point where I just give up. I mean, there's, it just seems like when everything's thrown at me now, okay, yeah, sure.

George Siegal: 11:04

Which is frustrating, because they make homeownership out to be the American dream. It's your biggest asset, it's your Center, a place for pride, and the reality is it's a money pit that you're responsible for, and and sometimes it's not fun.

Mike Knox: 11:19

No, not at all. That's another reason why you know people. The little quick answers that people always give you is well, why don't you just move out of state? And my thing is at least I know my neighborhood, my street. To me it's a safety net, it's I can. I can go home and feel safe. I don't want to go move someplace where I will I figure out that I have a wacko neighbor or there's all these other problems. At least I've pinpointed most of the problems in my house and I'm like I'm just not gonna move. But All of those problems do bother me. But I don't want to have a new set of problems and that's a Large reason why I don't want. I mean, moving is such a hassle also.

George Siegal: 11:54

Wasn't there a Tom Hanks movie called the money pit?

Mike Knox: 11:57

Oh, yeah, yeah, and I think that's very true. I love that movie.

George Siegal: 11:59

Yeah, yeah, that is very true. Now there's a lot of this stuff that's happened to your house. Make it into your comedy act. What's the act? Pretty much about?

Mike Knox: 12:08

My comedy act mostly is about my daughter's epilepsy, because that's a whole nother story. We're just trying to get epilepsy laws in place. It's such an underfunded Medical condition and then also I worked in a prison, so about prison stuff, but I would definitely you know definitely add this stuff. But it's just hard, for when you're talking to people that don't own a home, they think that it's you know, I'll tell people don't own a home and they think that I'm crazy, and so that's just one of those life things where you've got to learn on your own when you okay, I can't stop you. Especially now. It blows my mind that the interest rate is between seven and eight percent. I don't know how people afford to get a house now, but again, I didn't know how I afforded it when I tried.

George Siegal: 12:53

So Well, there's a lot of people that own homes that are underinsured. So if the asset, if you don't have a mortgage, I mean you have to. If you have a mortgage, insurance is Mandatory. But a lot of cash buyers are just saying, well, we're not gonna have insurance and then a wildfire blows through or a flash flood or something happens and it could be life-altering. It also says a lot that you get more comedy out of epilepsy than you do out of your home. The home is really not funny. What, what are the things you talk about? Because epilepsy, I know it's very challenging for for anybody to deal with. What, what kind? What's that been like having a daughter with that?

Mike Knox: 13:27

As a parent has just been horrible. But the great part is my daughter got a VNS in plant about eight years ago, which is a Vegas nerve simulator pacemaker for your brain. So she's been seizure free for seven years. She still has some difficulty stuff, but she went from. You know the diagnosis of never, never, never being able to progress past the age of six. She's 17 now. She's getting straight A's. She loves school and learning and, as somebody, doing comedy was hard for me because Eight years ago she was like a vegetable, basically Couldn't joke around with me, communicate with my wife and I. So it's just horrible to watch.

Mike Knox: 14:01

As a parent we were. Your child isn't progressing and being able to keep up, and now she's able to do all that. She's just. She's just a happy little kid, and so that Definitely warms my heart to see that she's just able to be a kid because she was in the hospital. I know the hospital so much. She stayed back in the fifth grade because she's just in the hospital so much. So the fact that she's not having seizures and she was wasn't able to sleep. She'd have a lot of insomnia, insomnia. So it's not just the seizures, it's also interrupting your entire life. You're just pretty much not even able to function, couldn't leave the house because she's gonna have a seizure and I've got to go rush her to the hospital or administer some medication. So it disrupts everything in your family.

George Siegal: 14:42

Wow, there's nothing worse than when there's problems with your kids. So when you're, when you're making jokes about it on stage to an audience, what's the reaction? Or people first a little while. I can't believe he's talking about it, or is it in a way that they go oh yeah, this is, this is rough, but he's, he's coping with it and has a sense of humor.

Mike Knox: 14:59

Yeah, it's all about. It's not making fun of epilepsy. It's trying to educate people about epilepsy, because I know I didn't know anything about epilepsy and so comedy is a great way to to tell people about their vulnerabilities, and I meet so many people after shows that are like you know, I have epilepsy and I'm so scared to talk about it, or have kids they don't want to come out of there, they're getting bullied at school because of this and I'm so glad that you brought it up and talked about it and that's what I've learned from all of it is it's it's about educating people, because they just don't know, and then also trying to get Laws in place, because California has no laws, so nobody has to recognize it. So I take my daughter to school and they should have a seizure at school. They didn't have to recognize that all or be trained how to how to administer medication or anything like that, because there's no laws to protect Anybody with the disability of epilepsy.

George Siegal: 15:45

There's a lot of it. Go ahead.

Mike Knox: 15:48

I was just gonna say there's a lot to be done in that area.

George Siegal: 15:50

Yeah, I would imagine a lot of comedy about maybe all the things that the state does recognize that are far less important. Yeah, and then something like that what was it like being a prison guard? Which prison were you at?

Mike Knox: 16:02

It's horrible. I was at the Lancaster, which is the only prison in LA County. It just it just dumps you down, and I was at the time. I was doing it. I just needed a job and I needed insurance and I was like I'm going to start a family, so I can't work in a prison, I'm going to get out of there, and it was to. I was told that you have to work in there to be a parole agent and I was doing an internship in college, which is a complete lie.

Mike Knox: 16:26

That was another you know bad information that I got and then I was like well, I'll write a book about it. And you know I am interested in prison because not a lot of people knew about it at the time, and so I did that. I wrote a book about it and I did what I accomplished to do. But it's you have more problems with the people that you work with than you do the actual inmates, because you're just trying to do your job and they don't want to do their job and so you end up arguing with them and a lot of it is like the, I always say, the Kruger Dunning effect. It's overly confident, dumb people because you've been given this badge and this uniform. And that's a large problem with anything with law enforcement is the idea is it's this one direction of communication. So if you're trying to communicate with somebody else that thinks they know everything, you're just at a loss.

George Siegal: 17:15

Now, how accurate are films or shows like Oz, shawshank, redemption, alcatraz when you see those? Is there any reality to what we see in those films?

Mike Knox: 17:27

Oh yeah, and those movies are. It's so hard to make a movie, so those the writers and producers, everybody they're consulting people that have actually worked in a prison. So they do a pretty good job, to the point where it's hard for me to watch because it is so much reality. But prison is really about 99% boredom and 1% of pure terror, because it's just a city, it's functioning and your function as working there is just to house and feed, and so you really don't have time to deal with everybody. They should be dealing with people's mental health. It should be a different aspect instead of just locking them up and forgetting about them, and so I had a lot of compassion. There's definitely there's a lot of them that are criminals, but there's a lot of dysfunction where they're throwing everybody together, and the idea of this violence, where everything has to be dealt with with anger and violence, was just unnecessary.

George Siegal: 18:20

Do you ever see? Was there a lot of stuff smuggled into prisons, like you see in these shows? Where things are coming in, things are going out.

Mike Knox: 18:28

Yeah, and the problem with that is that you know the idea of everybody wants to believe well, it's the prison guard that's doing it. But you have visiting that's going on five, sometimes seven days a week and those people aren't patted down or searched, you know. So stuff just flows in constantly, or it comes in through the back gate, which is where food is coming in or resources are coming in, and those are people that don't work for the prison. And then you also have inside the prison. You have teachers and free staff, you know medical people and cooking, and so all of those people that aren't really trained how to deal with, hey, these people are gonna come and try to manipulate you. So it's just, it's dysfunction from the start and you're just trying to stop the flow. But then the stories that you're reading in the paper or seeing online is that it's about this select few that are doing it, and in reality it's. You know it's a combination.

George Siegal: 19:16

Now I had to film in a prison one time and they took every piece of equipment apart. They thoroughly went over us. So it just makes me wonder. There's gotta be other ways that all that stuff's getting in, because it's not through the news crew.

Mike Knox: 19:29

Well, this is the other thing too. When you say news crew, it's like they know that you're coming and it's like we don't want, they don't ever want people filming in there. So we're gonna basically we're gonna kind of prevent you from doing this, we're gonna say that it's okay. Oh yeah, we want this transparency and openness, but they really don't. You know, at least that's what I saw.

Mike Knox: 19:46

I've been out of there since it's been 20 years since I've been out of there, so maybe stuff has changed, but it was just when I was there so negative and you just it just dumbs you down. Where you just all people are talking about is, you know what position do you have? And then they're mad at the position that you got because you had weekends off, or you know they're just talking about, you know, the overtime that I got and it's mindless and as somebody for me that's trying to come at like I don't know an artistic mind. That was not there and that was. You know, I'm writing stuff down because I was writing a book at the time and they're upset that you're writing stuff down. So everybody's very suspicious about each other and paranoia.

George Siegal: 20:23

Do you ever try out your comedy routine there? That'd be a good tough audience.

Mike Knox: 20:28

They were actually very mad If you do anything outside of being in there. And also when I was a parole agent, extremely upset. Somebody saw me doing comedy one time and wanted me to be fired for it. Because, again, they're not people that are, they're not trying to be artistic people, they're just trying to be law enforcement. And that's the problem. A lot with law enforcement, as you see, is people in law enforcement. They can't stop being law enforcement and they don't see two sides of the thing. It's just this very this wall goes up and I learned that too doing standup and improv is that you have no emotions because you're told constantly to have no emotions. And I really realized after I retired like how dead inside I was because of that job.

George Siegal: 21:06

Yeah, we went on a field trip in high school to Hatchopee prison, I think it was, and man, that scared the living daylights out of us. And that's not even a max, that's a pretty low security prison.

Mike Knox: 21:17

I think, oh no, that's a serious prison.

George Siegal: 21:20

It was scary and it made us realize, okay, we don't want to end up in here.

Mike Knox: 21:24

Yeah, that was a deterrent for me. They probably took you on the minimum yard because every place has got a minimum like a soft yard and a hard yard. But to Hatchopee definitely To me it's all concrete and steel. It's like I would not want to be in a cement box. I'm just surprised that you went on a tour there in high school.

George Siegal: 21:41

Yeah, I would. You know, I made me realize that wouldn't last five seconds in prison. I mean, they would just beat the crap out of me the moment I walked in. So when you're doing your standup, I've tried that a couple times and that's tough. I mean, it's tough to get up in front of people. If they're laughing, if they know you, and it's going well, it's great. But when there's crickets, when you've made a joke or you're talking about something, all of a sudden you start to sweat and get nervous and it's not an easy thing to do.

Mike Knox: 22:09

No, it's horrifying, which is a large reason I really. I Did comedy in college, then kind of quit and I had to quit because my daughter was sick. But I really realized like if I could work in a prison then I can do that. And a lot of it is just embracing the darkness and if you can stand up I give credit to any comedian, no matter how good they are, bad they are. But if you can stand up on stage and just embrace that silence, you're gonna be fine and that's what you do. You're just, you're going up there.

Mike Knox: 22:32

They know for the most part that they came to see comedy. I've only I, I've only been like heckled once and that was always a fear of mine, like I'm gonna get heckled or something like that, and really the guy was just totally drunk. So you use the comedian, know you're in, you're in control. For the most part you just got to keep yourself in control because all those people they don't want to be on stage. That's why they came to see you. So a lot of it is just Working through all that stuff in your mind and to me it's working on myself. It's great therapy but it definitely scares me to death and definitely gives me anxiety and I Definitely at the time, don't want to be on it, but it is great to actually get your material, to craft your material and get your material. You know up there and say it without forgetting your lines what's the biggest place you've ever played? The biggest place I've ever played is the ice house in Pasadena, and With cancel culture, everything's so PC.

George Siegal: 23:26

There's things that get you in trouble if you're making jokes. I mean I went to a comedy show in Austin, texas, and they made everybody lock up their phones in those bags so people couldn't film it. So there's no distortion of what you know. Little clips that take jokes out of context. I mean it's a little scary what can happen to people if people don't like what you're talking about.

Mike Knox: 23:48

It is scary, but I also think that that's your job as the comedian to adjust your job if somebody were to come. You know there's a there's a comedian that makes a lot of money and he he Is making fun of epilepsy and seizures and I hate that guy, but he gets employed and nobody says anything about it. So to me, if you, if there's somebody, had a problem with what I said and they came up and talked to me, I would change it, and I think that that's also with the climate. Now, if you're gonna say, okay, I see your side to it, that's not a problem, because there's jokes that I was, I was doing 15 years ago, I couldn't do now. But that's just. Your job is to adapt to what's going on and I think that every comedian knows that and can do that.

George Siegal: 24:27

Who's the best stand-up person you've ever seen?

Mike Knox: 24:31

I don't want to be cliche, but it was definitely Bill Burr and it was. This was before he became famous, but it was probably two o'clock in the morning at the comedy store and he was just bombing and he, he, just he stood up on stage until he turned the entire crowd around it. To me it was just like amazing, because I would have walked off stage. I mean, he was like 10 minutes into it where nobody was laughing, anything like that. He was like I'm just gonna stay up here until you guys start laughing. I mean, he really turned everything around and that was amazing to me.

George Siegal: 24:58

Yeah, wow, and favorite prison movie.

Mike Knox: 25:02

Off the top of my head, it's the one with Tom Selleck, an innocent man.

George Siegal: 25:04

I Don't know if I've seen that one, and I love Tom Selleck, so I have to see that that's good, good film.

Mike Knox: 25:11

Yes, it's definitely Exactly how person is.

George Siegal: 25:15

All right. So let's bring this back to homes. Yes, what would you be your advice to somebody who is buying a home, whether it's you didn't buy new construction? It sounds like right, you bought an existing house, or was it new?

Mike Knox: 25:29

No, it was. It was existing house and I would definitely say I, when I was going through homes, people were definitely trying to steer me. I had many, had a few real estate agents that were trying to steer me away from where, at the area that I wanted because it was a new construction. And I still, like that was burned in my brain, like I hate that guy because he wanted, he was trying to get me to place where I did not want to go to, and I really saw that a lot was those real estate agents were trying to get because they wanted more money or they want they were gonna get it some sort of you know other kickback for something, for directing to these new places.

Mike Knox: 26:02

And I Went in thinking, well, I could fix this stuff up, which I can't. I don't have any skills, but I definitely do tell people to go slow. And don't you know, the house across the street from my house was the one that I first wanted, but that got sold, and then the house that I was in got sold, but then they lost their loan and so I was able to buy this house and that was just by. Oh well, there's nothing I could do about it, but just by going slow and then also having some sort of savings. I know they'll give you a loan if you don't have any, but because of the fact that you're going through this she, it's the biggest deal you're ever gonna make in your entire life, and so you need some sort of Cushion for when you get punched in the face, because it's definitely gonna happen and regular maintenance.

George Siegal: 26:46

You have to do, you have to maintain everything regularly.

Mike Knox: 26:50

Yeah, you're going. You know, those are things that you know you. If a lot of people are like, oh, I'll do the gardening myself, you know myself, that's a huge ordeal to do. I have a pool, so I have to have a pool guy, because I don't know anything, if I tried it. I tried to do it in the beginning and it just turned a pool green and it's. Those are the conveniences, but they still, you know, cost money to maintain.

George Siegal: 27:12

Yeah, they do. And you know, like I say, where I live, renting is more expensive, almost than owning. You know there's houses that people are renting for 15 to $20,000 a month. So if you want to rent a house, you have no chance.

Mike Knox: 27:27

Yeah, same here. I mean, it blows my mind, especially like in Hollywood, where people are renting one bedroom apartments $3,200 and I, again, I don't know. I don't know what's going on, I don't know what people are doing. I.

George Siegal: 27:41

Don't either, but it's definitely a challenge. So how can people get in touch with you, follow? You know where you're performing, just to find out more about you.

Mike Knox: 27:50

Check me out on Mike Knox.

George Siegal: 27:51

Calm or Instagram or tiktok is Mike Knox comedy and are those links on your website also to you, to those social media? Yes, fantastic, and I'll also put those in the show notes so so people can get in touch with you and follow you. And so, with all this rain, have you had? So you got you had some damage from, from the rain, is it? It looks like it's died down a little bit today, right, is it? Things a little better?

Mike Knox: 28:14

Yeah, uh, I. So I was having like leaks on the side of my house because of the amount of rain and so luckily the week before, because it also rained, I had gutters put in for that side. So that seems to have cleared up the leak that I had.

George Siegal: 28:29

I mean, I had that leak for like 10 years probably and I couldn't speak you probably love it when you, when everybody talks about the atmospheric river that's hitting Los Angeles. You guys have had a tough year.

Mike Knox: 28:39

Yeah, and a lot of it is just because you know they love to build in Los Angeles and not do infrastructure. So, especially where I live, there's only, you know, there's two freeways and you, you know these. They keep putting up like 40,000 homes at a time and it's just, you know, stretching all in Northern Los Angeles and they're not going to stop. But that's why you're probably seeing videos of all these potholes, because it's just like they'll just put one layer, thinking it's not going to rain, and then it starts to rain and those potholes, you know, start sinking again.

George Siegal: 29:09

Pretty soon, la will be going all the way out to Bakersfield.

Mike Knox: 29:12

Oh, yeah, definitely.

George Siegal: 29:15

I used to live there. I mean, that's that whole area. I admire you for sticking with it, but I don't think I could live in California anymore. Just too much traffic, too much smog. Earthquakes scare me more than than hurricanes. If you at least a hurricane, you see it coming. Earthquake you're just in the middle of the night. Boom.

Mike Knox: 29:33

Yeah, I know, you know I. I got really upset a period of time a few years ago, so I started looking at homes and other areas and I did. I went to Florida and I went to Texas and Arizona. I was just like to me. It really is, except for right now, with all this rain. The weather is the fact that it's perfect weather most of the time, and then I could navigate. That was the thing, as I knew LA so well that I could navigate for the most part. I mean, there is horrible, horrible traffic. But that's what I loved about COVID was there was no traffic. But when there is traffic, I can at least navigate some sort of way, and that's why I don't want to move. I don't want to start over trying to figure out where these horrible areas are.

George Siegal: 30:11

Yeah, it's funny you were talking about potholes. I used to live in Detroit and during the winter they would have trucks driving around and they would just throw a handful of asphalt into the potholes as they were driving down the highway and then it would end up all over everybody's car. It would end up all over the highway. Is that what LA feels like with those potholes?

Mike Knox: 30:28

Oh yeah, because it's. You were thinking okay, there's potholes, so why don't we try to fix this up? Cause there's always that's the other thing about LA there's always construction going on, but there doesn't seem to be anybody doing anything, and that's clogged up traffic also, and so there's yeah, there's all these potholes, but nobody's doing anything to fix any of them, and when they do, you see eight guys standing around a hole and one guy working the machine.

George Siegal: 30:48

I want that job. Yeah, yes, caltrans, I think I'm qualified for that. All right, hey, mike, thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate your time and I hope to see you perform sometime. I'd love to see your act.

Mike Knox: 31:02

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

George Siegal: 31:04

If you have a story involving your home, good or bad, I'd really like to hear from you. There's a contact form in the show notes. Fill it out and you might be a guest on an upcoming podcast, and if you enjoyed what you just listened to, I hope you'll become a regular subscriber. A new episode comes out every Tuesday morning. Thanks for listening today, see you next time.