Roof Help

See, this is what it is... I was 17 years old when my Mom bought this house and moved us here the day after I graduated from high school. I was 100% sympathetic to her reasons for wanting to move so I didn't begrudge her the move per se, but the day after my graduation? She actually was going to yank me out of school in the middle of my senior year, moving into the new house and me into a new school after a lifetime of me forming friendships with the same kids at the same schools, all of us growing up together, and I was supposed to dump all that to start over at a new school in the middle of my senior year?

Not going to happen. No way. So the day after graduation was the compromise. And here we are and now I am fifty-seven years old and now my Mom is bedridden, on oxygen, on a tube feeding, and I am her sole caregiver.

We've had folks in and out of here, including my younger brother when he was still alive and my sister and her new husband early on in their marriage (their daughter is now in her 30's and her son is a teenager in high school).

We had an extended Mexican family living here for a year and a half. At one count, we had fourteen Mexicans living here and they were a G-d sent miracle because the lessons on living we learned from them forever altered the course of our lives and have probably saved our lives more than once since then.

Then there was the nasty El Niño wind and rain monsoon season that ripped shingles off our roof and allowed the pounding rain to collapse our ceilings all along one side of our house - dining room, living room, and two bedrooms. Big chunks of ceiling missing, carpeting and furniture ruined.

Hey, at least we could enjoy the rain from inside our house. That was different.

So... our Mexican family got up on our house and installed a new roof on that half of the house. And everything's been fine for a few years.

Now, the front half of the roof is going. We're in trouble.

I think we must have the last wood shake roof in existence in Southern California. They are against the law now because of the danger from brush fires and we do live most extremely close to the Malibu hills.

The front of our house looks like a shanty from the wrong side of the tracks because the roof is so old, so dried out, missing shingles, and it's just plain ugly anymore. It makes me feel bad every time I have to see it.

Nobody should have to feel that way about their own home. But, that is the way I feel. If the neighbors only knew that I want to see a new roof up there even more than they do, maybe they wouldn't hate me so much.

I am poor. I am disabled. Even if I didn't have to be here inside the house 24/7 to take care of my Mother, I am not able to work. And Social Security Disability is not enough money to pay for a new roof.

So, here we sit. Meanwhile, I can dream, can't I? I can pretend what a new roof might look like. I can dig up information on roofing and pretend somehow it's all going to mean something to us here one day.

When I go "pack rat" on collecting data, I gather the online links together in a folder in my Favorites. And I thought they just might qualify as "useful" so here they are...

[THE USUAL DISCLAIMER STUFF: I cannot personally recommend ANY of these links or verify any of the information contained in these links because I don't know crap about roofing. These links should be considered a mere starting point for a quest for information. That is all.]