Another Taste of Things to Come

I had this great idea: I was going to build a workout room in my basement. I bought a punching bag (100 pounds), got a hanger, and even drilled to holes to pick it up. And then I saw this:

And I thought, "Hey, what's that little piece of wood there for?"

I had previously though that these boards were leftovers from some other project:

Turns out, no, there were there to keep the middle floor joist (under the living room) from splitting in half.

You see, instead of the floor joists resting on a load-bearing beam, they're just tacked onto the frame for the basement landing. Then someone cut out a notch from the bottom of every floor joist. You can tell from my italics that I just can't believe it. I wonder if they truly believed that it would not compromise the structure. Anyway, here's the notch-and-2x4:

Look close, I took the picture with my aging iPhone 4. You'll see it. Now, here's the horizontal split down the middle of the defective floor joist:

What's the big deal? Well, the whole structure is sagging, and pretty soon we'd all be suddenly sitting in the basement to watch a movie. Here' another floor joist, whose top has peeled off as the weight of it sagged down:

What can I possibly do? I'm going to fix the fucking thing, like Mike Holmes on a budget. More to come on this one. Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading.