The soffit was the underside of the eave where the roof met the wall. A horizontal panel between the fascia and the building. You looked up and there it was. The soffit was the ceiling of the outside. The last piece of the building before the sky began. Nobody looked at the soffit. Nobody talked about the soffit. The soffit did not need your attention. The soffit needed your roof to not leak.

The soffit had vents. Small holes punched in the metal or slats cut in the wood that let the attic breathe. The soffit vent was the building's nostril. Hot air in the attic went out through the ridge and cool air came in through the soffit and the attic stayed dry. A building with sealed soffits was a building holding its breath. You cannot hold your breath forever and neither can a building.

The soffit collected wasps. Every spring the paper wasps built their nests in the soffit vents because the soffit was warm and sheltered and nobody bothered them up there. The wasps and the soffit had an arrangement. The wasps got shelter and the building got free pest control. The exterminator charged forty dollars to spray the soffit and the wasps came back in June and the exterminator came back in July and the soffit watched the whole thing and did not take sides.

The soffit rotted. Wood soffits on old buildings in New York rotted from the inside out because the vents clogged and the moisture had nowhere to go. A rotting soffit was the building's first cough. You could not see it from the street. You had to look up. Nobody looked up. The soffit rotted and the fascia rotted and the rain got into the rafter tails and the carpenter who came to fix it said this has been going on for years. The soffit tried to tell you. You were not looking up.

They replaced the soffit with vinyl. White vinyl panels that snap into a channel and never rot and never breathe and never need paint. The vinyl soffit is maintenance-free. That is the selling point. Maintenance-free means nobody has to look up. Nobody has to climb a ladder. Nobody has to care. The wood soffit asked you to care about it once a decade. The vinyl soffit asks you for nothing. That is not the same as needing nothing.

See also: Tin Roof, Cornice