Agent Smith: No explanation required
Met Stega when you could still poke strangers on Facebook. Can’t tell you what he does for a living but it does not involve tractors or anything related to Ian Fleming. Honest.
Stega: Thump
Escaped corporate world after a series of seemingly random positions, a smattering of economic world turmoils and some truly horrible bosses. Does stuff with computers, takes thousands of useless photos, plays video games, and makes strange and sometimes wonderful sounds.
The Boys: QA Leads
Tenar and Thlayli both enjoy Wheetbix and hanging out near us. They also have their own Instagram: Tenar is usually the one doing the posting.
Tenar: Good with tools and ready to assist. Does not care for robots. Shouty if ignored too long but generally well tempered–unless Agent Smith’s feet are nearby.
Thlayli: Klutzy comedic relief especially when he tries to stand up to the robots. Tendencies towards destruction–namely vinyl flooring and wood.
Supporting Characters
Agent Smith’s Father (aka Old Smith):
He visits almost every year for about a month to assist with projects and drive around heavy machinery. His original idea for retirement was a cherry farm in South Australia. He sold that off a few years ago and now contents himself with yearly visits here.
Agent B:
Worked here three days a week from late summer 2021 to mid-summer 2025, handling the house plants, bird feeders and baths plus various other small projects. After a short break, they came back in 2026 to tend the veg boxes, as they really like gardening. They live just a few miles down the mountain.
Agent Pigeon:
My primary PA since summer 2026. We met when a friend’s rescued pigeons needed a safe place to stay and Agent Pigeon came up to help unpack the coop. They first filled in during June 2026, feeding the boys while I was at Little Purgatory, and now keep the house plants and bird feeders and baths going, plus they’ve been busy making new plants from cuttings.
Agent P:
Has been working behind the scenes since 2023. They live far afield but help out with website work: keeping the images over at stega.org ticking over, plus copy editing and back-end work on this site. When the long-planned podcast gets off the ground, their role will expand.
Super Girl Housekeeping:
Maria and Zoryada and their team arrive every two weeks and help keep the inside of the house clean. Maria started working for us through a big service but when she was pregnant with her second child the service wouldn’t guarantee she’d be able to return to her current clients after her maternity leave. So she started her own business and I immediately clambered aboard. Their company’s listing on Yelp.
Damien’s Landscaping:
Carlos and Miguel show up weekly and take care of the plants surrounding the house: they also help keep stuff elsewhere on the property tidy. They’re pretty awesome. They also work for close to a dozen other properties up here (at least!). I hired them back in 2018 when I suddenly was in need of a new service.
(The gardener that worked for the previous owners basically “came with the house” was kind of meh, but he did know the property only his machismo would crop up often. Then he was the driver in a hit and run and so ended his tenure here.)
The Franks and Francescas, Dopey Deer, Turkey Girls and many other random nicknames we have for the wildlife that shares our space: Since shortly after buying this place Stega has been taking pictures of all if them and posting the better shots over at stega.org.
Other Characters
- The Previous Owners or POs: The people we bought the house from. They did very little to maintain things in the almost 30 years they lived here. Although to be honest, the husband’s father bought the house and gave it to his son who apparently used it as a party house until he met the woman he married in the late 1990s. His partying ways ended and they had a kid who apparently really liked dark purple. Most of the issues we fix here at Purgatory are because they did so very little to take care of things. They sold this place and followed their only child to college.
- The Doc: He and his wife built the house in 1966 and lived here about 15 years with their three children. As part of divorce settlement the Doc sold the compound to the father of the PO in the early to mid 1980s. The house has pretty solid bones and a lot of nice touches for which we are grateful to the Doc. Sadly both he and his ex-wife passed away a few years ago. I did get to meet two of the three now-grown-children who grew up here back in the 1970s.
- Our Nearest Neighbor: lives just a few hundred yards away as his driveway is off an easement on our land. A nice guy who works primarily as a general contractor, he has a number of friendly dogs who love to visit us.
- Our Second Nearest Neighbors: are fair distance off, as they are share the driveway off the easement on our land with our Nearest Neighbor. You can just see their house if you walk from the north wing of the house out to the far north pasture.
- Former Agents: A short series of assistants who have come and gone (see Agents of Purgatory).
- Agent D: the first PA, hired off Craigslist before the pandemic for house plants and a home inventory system. They lasted about nine months and left behind a bug-infested ficus, which has since flourished.
- Agent M: monitored the nest boxes for NestWatch during the 2024 nesting season.
- Agent J: took over the nest box checks in 2025, then Agent B’s duties too, until early July 2026.
Last edited 10/28/26