Project: Bathroom Cabinet Hardware

This is what the previous owners left us in the bathroom.

I think these knobs used to be shiny brass, but that must have been a long time ago. Judging by the decor in the rest of the bathroom - tons of shiny gold-look brass - the bathroom was re-done in the 1990s and the knobs are probably 15-20 years old.

I looked into restoring them with scrubs and polishes, but they weren't solid brass. With brass-plating, once they're this far gone, there's not much to be done. I considered buying a metallic spray paint and making a mess in the backyard trying to get paint onto every edge of the knobs, but they'd need to be sanded down first to even out the tarnished surfaces, and it felt like more work than I was willing to put in for a bunch of knobs. Not to mention that my husband was not delighted with the idea of me screwing around with spray paint in the backyard, even though I reassured him the grass would only look shiny for a week or two while it grew out.

A short trip to Home Depot, fifteen minutes with a screwdriver, and I've got a bathroom that looks a tiny bit less neglected and dated.

The white plastic knobs are a little bigger than the old ones, but not awkwardly so. Most importantly, humidity won't bother them in the least, and they'll be easy to clean.

There's nothing I can do about the shiny gold trim on the shower doors, so I'll have to live with a little bit of bathroom bling. But I'm glad I was able to upgrade the cabinets to a smooth white-on-white look. Baby steps, right? Maybe new sink faucets next!

Home

This is the 23rd of my "Advent Calendar" Christmas ornament posts. For some background information about this project and why I'm challenging myself to complete it, see here. Note: it's entirely possible some of these memories are inexact, but I'm sticking with them anyway.

I was addressing my Christmas cards last week and noticed how many addresses I've had to cross out as friends and family pack up and move to new places. For some who moved almost annually, I started writing in pencil, because I was running out of space on the page for new addresses. I've had eight addresses myself, but I hope that the current one is permanent enough to be safely written in ink.

The Little House

I grew up next door to my grandmother's house, in a tiny red house with a wide porch and a big yard. There was a birch tree that made me sneeze, and a tamarack tree so tall I had to lie down on the ground to see the very top without hurting my neck. We played outside a lot, even if "playing" meant lying on a blanket with a coloring book in the backyard. There was a path to my grandmother's house, through the cedar hedge, and we could run over for a visit anytime.

The Big House

We moved to a different city, twenty minutes away, when I left elementary school. It was a split-level style, with a garage, and a huge backyard for Dad to mow and Mom to plant gardens in. We got our own rooms - mine was gigantic - and there were two living rooms to watch TV in. It seemed like a perfect house, but at the end, there was anger, contempt, and bitterness in that home. Parents on the brink of divorce, and teenage kids feeling the pressure and acting out in different ways. My parents eventually split up and we had to leave the big house. I don't remember very much about the big house, now.

The Loud Apartment

Dad went to live with his mother for a while during and after the divorce. Mom found us an apartment and we all squeezed in. My sister moved out, and then back in when things didn't work out with her roommates. It was a second-floor apartment on a busy street, and the downstairs neighbors hated us. They screamed at us through our floor, banging brooms against their ceilings, threatening us with bodily harm if we didn't shut up. We were quiet, so I don't understand why they were always so angry with us. I think it may have been because we spoke English. The place wasn't really big enough for us all, and my sister was sleeping in the living room. I was going to McGill by then, and I decided to give everyone more space by moving in with Dad for a while, until I could get my own place.

Dad's place

But Dad didn't have his own place. He was still with his mom, my grandmother, while he looked for a suitable condo. I got one of the upstairs bedrooms and stayed a few months, but everyone's personalities clashed and I just couldn't stay. I found myself welcomed back to the Loud Apartment, and sleeping in the living room.

The Nice Apartment

Mom left the Loud Apartment as soon as she was able to. It wasn't a healthy place to live. She found a wonderful third-floor walk-up on a quiet street, a block away from a bus stop and a grocery store. We had a parking space and a square of backyard big enough for a patio set and a garden. We had big windows with wide sills for the cat to sit on and pretty views of winter sunrises through the trees. The neighbors mostly minded their own business. My brother and I each had a room, and my sister had moved out again, so we had enough space to breathe. Unfortunately, there was only one bathroom, which is why I still ask my husband if he needs to pee before I go shower, even though we have five bathrooms in our current place. Habits die hard. We were happier in that apartment. Mom redid the kitchen, put up flower boxes on the balconies. She's still in that kitchen or on those balconies with her coffee every morning. This is the place that's brightest in my memory.

My First Apartment

When I moved to Maryland, I didn't do it the easy way by moving in with my boyfriend. I wanted my own place, to prove that I could do it. I got an apartment near the hospital I'd be working at, and adopted a cat so I could blame the strange night noises on his prowling. I felt safe enough there, despite the loud foreign-language fights in the parking lot at night and the time a drunk guy banged on my door asking to be let in, because he thought it was his friend's apartment one building over. There was a solid deadbolt on the door, and I had a vicious attack kitten to protect me. I set up cable and internet. I paid bills. I did groceries and cooked for myself every night. I dragged laundry down three flights of stairs to the dark laundry room and fought with the coin slots. I did very well there on my own, but I was lonely between my boyfriend's weekend visits.

The Townhouse

I moved in with Dave when my lease expired, and I loved his townhouse. Sure, it was always freezing cold or burning hot in the bedroom, because of a high ceiling and terrible insulation, but we were happy there together. Parking was a creative endeavour because of how few spots were available and how many were taken up by assholes who had driveways and garages they didn't feel like using. We were always either tripping over the three cats or pinned under them on the couch. I tried to girl the place up by planting lavender outside and it grew to monstrous proportions, crowding the walkway with bee-covered purple stems. I attempted to cut and dry some in the oven... lavender is thus now forbidden from all gardens, all soaps, all candles, and pretty much everything that comes into or near our home for the rest of eternity.

Our Home

We chose this house, together, for our forever home. It's too big, and it's too old, and it needs too much work, but we love it. I joke that it's made of bathrooms and built-in bookshelves, with some bedrooms and stuff thrown in. We've been here almost three years now and we've made incredible progress making it into the home we want it to be. The mint green and burgundy paint is gone. The jungle in the backyard is under control and the sick trees were cut down. The silver wallpaper is gone, and the stained blue carpet is now beautiful hardwood. It's familiar now, and comfortable. It feels like us. It smells like us. It's home.

Christmas Decorations

I can't believe December is knocking at the front door so soon. It just doesn't get cold enough here in November for it to feel like Santa's reindeer are out training for their big run. I'll admit, though, that it is easier to put up strings of lights when you don't need to be fumbling with thick mittens, so I do appreciate the milder climate.

I was outside last weekend, putting up the lights and giant ornaments on the front porch. It looks almost the same as last year's design, except that I put the white lights on the shrub and the colored lights up on the eaves. I stick to that general arrangement because it's the simplest way to decorate the front of the house without putting in support hooks around the window or door, or running extension cords to light up other trees. Maybe I'll do that eventually, but this is easy and pretty.

I searched in vain for last year's wreath to put up on the middle hook. It refused to be found, so I went to Michaels for some supplies and made myself a new one. It's not bad, but not quite fancy enough. I tried putting some ribbon on it and wasn't happy with it. The result looked like a quick craft project from Michaels, and I was hoping to achieve more of an illusion of actual value. We're going for simplicity this year, folks.

Of course, it's not Christmas without the return of Christmas Duck! I lost the little scarf he wore last year (possibly eloped with the wreath), but I think this new floral arrangement works well.

This year's addition to the lineup (besides the new wreath) is Mr. Moosletoe. First of all, it is a moose. Wearing a garland of holly and bells. This, in itself, is fantastic. But, even more impressively, it is a pun. Therefore, it could not be left at the store. Mr. Moosletoe had to come home with me.

All right, December.

Bring it.

Can't call it the Green Room any more

We've been referring to the wood-paneled room downstairs as the "Green Room" since we moved in, deciding to name it for its astroturf-like carpet instead of the woodsy charm of its pine walls. It's mostly a storage room for now, because it's got a whole wall of built-in shelves for books and DVDs, a deep cabinet for musical equipment, and a closet suitable for Christmas decorations. You can see that it's also home to stuff we haven't found other homes for yet. Dismembered computers, mainly, waiting for the day my husband will need a cable or a fan to repair another machine.

"Green Room" before the project

When we updated the floors in the house, we decided to leave this room alone, because the carpet was in decent shape despite being so old, and we weren't using the room very much. Unfortunately, after we got a few quotes and started the process, Mojo started to pee in the corner of the room. At first I was able to get the smell out, but he kept going back, and it became unbearable. We plan on replacing the carpet with vinyl tile sooner or later, but I couldn't stand coming home to an unfriendly whiff of cat pee every day (worse if the heater was on, because he was peeing by the radiators). I took matters into my own hands and pulled the carpet out.

I started by pulling the corner free of the tack strips underneath, which was easier than I expected. I folded it over and used a box cutter and something called a "flooring knife" to cut off small, manageable sections. It didn't take me long to figure out that cutting it from the underside was much easier than trying to drag the box cutter through the fluffy carpet side. The main difficulty with that was the need to fold over a large enough area of carpet to work on, and the backing was a thick plastic netting with very little flexibility. The geometry got tricky at times, and I had to kneel and work at funny angles to avoid cutting myself. This is what the floor looked like underneath:

First corner gone

Thin orange padding, disintegrating into dust, and some ugly tiles that are possibly made of asbestos. I had no serious concerns about working on the carpet demolition, because asbestos is only a problem when it's kicked up into the air as dust. A handful of tiles were cracked, but as long as I wasn't cutting through the tiles with a saw, or beating them into smithereens with a hammer, my lungs were safe. This was not a dangerous venture, according to the Internet and the two flooring guys we spoke to.

I did wear gloves and a mask, though, because the carpet was nasty. Between the cat pee and the pounds of powders I'd dumped onto it to mask the smell, this was a seriously offensive project. The area of carpet closest to the radiator was very badly stained. As I worked across the room, I found several old, dried up stains, which makes me think the previous owners also had pets who enjoyed peeing on carpets.

Almost done

I filled a total of six large trash bags with carpet and padding, and I was delighted that the trash collectors actually picked them up. I was afraid they might be over the weight limit and we'd have to drag them to the dump. Under all that carpet and padding, I found a mysterious substance - sand. Lots and lots of sand. Part of it is just plain dirt, part of it is disintegrating padding and carpet backing, and part of it is the remains of powder-based carpet cleaners that make their way through all the layers and don't get vacuumed back up. A few minutes with the Shop-Vac took care of most of it, and when I take a mop to the floor later this week, I'll get the rest.

The tack strips along the edges were nailed down incredibly well, and I wasn't quite strong enough to get them up. I had to ask the man of the house, he of greater upper body strength, to take over. There were two rows of strips, and he pulled them up using a hammer and small pry-bar. There are some missing pieces of tile at the edges of the room, and the nails from the tack strips left some holes, but I think that the vinyl tile will be able to go right over all that without any trouble.

So, here's what we're left with as we wait to get flooring installation estimates from a few other companies. It doesn't look any better than what we started with, but the house is rid of its stink, and I am delighted. I'll take ugly tile over stinky carpet any day.

"Green Room" after full carpet removal

We survived Sandy!

Many of my friends are doing a "30 days of gratitude" exercise through the month of November. I applaud the concept, but I don't think I'm going to be able to dedicate my blog to gratitude all this month. It's not that I have nothing to be grateful for, it's that a lot of it is difficult to put into words. Maybe I'll manage a thoughtful and introspective post around thanksgiving, while I'm immobilized by a food coma. That said, I do need to express how very, very grateful I am that we came away from Hurricane Sandy with only minor inconvenience.

We didn't lose a single tree. Only some small branches broke off in the wind, and none of the siding or gutters or roof have even a scratch. Despite some serious water pooling on the side of the house, we had no flooding in the basement. There was water collecting in the garage, which we expected and prepared for by moving most items off the floor.

Our house didn't lose power until Monday evening, and since the government shutdown kept us both home form work, we both got to spend a day here on the couch, watching TV together. It rained incredibly hard for the entire day, and the wind picked up steadily into the afternoon and evening, so I was surprised the electricity stayed on as long as it did. We spent the first night at home, sleeping under some extra blankets, but in the morning we decided to head to Dave's parents' place for a hot shower and a meal. They were also kind enough to let us keep our food in their fridge and freezer, a transfer made easier thanks to my weekend freezer organizing.

As usual when this sort of thing happens, we left the cats behind with extra food and water. Because it was cold in the house (56 was the lowest I saw, so it wasn't that bad) I left extra blankets on the couch so they could burrow and snuggle in a warm kitty pile.

Miraculously, the power was back on by Wednesday night, and the heater switched back on immediately without us needing to reset anything. I was expecting a week off the grid, given BGE's historical restoration pattern! I'm not sure why everything went so much more quickly this time. Maybe fewer communities lost power, compared to Irene and the derecho, or maybe they're finally getting their act together after the state and county laced into them about their previous failures. Either way, I am delighted to be back in my own home so soon, and I'm so grateful that our property and our persons are intact.

Not everyone was so lucky. I know several people in New York and New Jersey who had to leave their homes because of a lack of power and water, or who are toughing it out beside their fireplaces, trying to stay warm.

I've made a small donation to the American Red Cross, whose disaster relief teams are on the ground in the affected areas, doing what they do, helping people stay warm and fed and safe.

Because the storm caused many blood drives to be canceled and shut down donor centers and blood transportation for a few days, the Red Cross has put a call out for donations. Especially if you live outside of the affected areas, please consider making a donation of blood or platelets. The Red Cross normally only has a buffer of about 2-3 days' worth of blood products even in disaster-free times, so a pause in collections in a big area like this can have bad consequences across the country.

See redcrossblood.org to find a donor center or community blood drive near you. And if you can't or don't feel comfortable donating, then tell a friend, or say something on Facebook or Twitter about the need for blood. Every little bit helps.

Hurricane Readiness: Freezer Edition

This summer, a freak storm called a “derecho” ripped through Maryland, Virginia, and DC, pulling down hundreds of trees and leaving our neighborhood without power for a full week. I think the overall damage to power lines may have actually been worse than with Hurricane Irene. BGE's response was chaotic and disorganized and their customer service abysmal. I did my best not to abuse the telephone representatives, since obviously they couldn't fix any wires for me, but when one of them told me I should be better prepared for power outages and maybe I should get a generator if it happened often... I may have gotten a little rude. I still can't believe that the power company had the balls to tell me essentially “Yeah, we can't guarantee power to your neighborhood, so you should buy a generator. Oh, and keep paying those extortionate bills, please.”

We are planning on buying a whole-home generator eventually, one that runs on natural gas and would switch on automatically, but they're quite expensive and need professional installation, so we don't have it yet. That means I need a backup plan to save my food.

When the derecho hit us, we had recently filled up the freezer with stuff from Costco. Like many people, we use our freezer to stock up on meat when it's on sale, and to store leftovers after cooking in big batches. Just ask my pal Tasha how useful a freezer can be. Unfortunately, that means that if the freezer dies or the power is interrupted for too long, we lose a whole lot of food and, by extension, money.

Once it was obvious that the power wasn't going to return quickly enough to rescue our food, we filled up a large Rubbermaid storage bin with the more valuable stuff, like chicken breasts and tilapia fillets, and drove over to my brother-in-law's place. He was kind enough to give us space in his big upright freezer, allowing us to minimize our food losses. Since we only had the one big bin to use, we left some items behind in our freezer along with bags of ice to keep them cold. What was left was mostly things that weren't as expensive to replace or that could handle being thawed and refrozen, like bagels, cheese, and frozen fruit and vegetables. Unfortunately, it did not occur to me that the frozen fruit and vegetables, once thawed, would be very wet and squishy. Also unfortunately, the bags they come in are not completely watertight. Maybe they are when they come from the manufacturer, but once they've been shoved around in a freezer for a while, they develop very tiny holes. Holes that don't become a problem until the stuff inside is melting in an inadequately cooled freezer, releasing brightly colored juices all over the goddamn place.

Blueberry juice, for the record, is very difficult to get out of a freezer.

This weekend, we're waiting uncomfortably under the threat of another hurricane, Sandy, who is aimed directly at the Mid-Atlantic region. We're being told to expect several days of heavy rain and strong winds, because she's a very large storm. Landfall is predicted to occur Monday night somewhere between Virginia and New York, but the impact on the whole region is expected to be pretty huge. I'm obeying all of the rules of hurricane preparedness, except for buying eggs and milk and bread, because without power, those are fairly useless to have around. Why in the world do people buy those up when a storm comes?

This time around, I'm trying to avoid as much food wastage as I possibly can, so I have a plan. First, eat the food. And don't buy more. That's the easiest way not to waste any. I skipped my grocery run this week, knowing the storm is on its way, and we've been trying to cook up freezer foods for our meals. Spaghetti and garlic bread. Chicken breasts and pierogies. Lots of ice cream.

Then, a triage of the freezer contents. Here's what the freezer looked like on Friday evening. Pretty full, and very messy.

I pulled everything out and piled it up on the counter. I took out everything that could stand to thaw and re-freeze, and moved it to the second freezer we have in the mud room. It's not as good as the kitchen freezer and will probably lose its cold much more quickly. In the kitchen freezer, I used metal baking sheets and pans to contain any foods that might leak. Stuff I care less about went into the back of the freezer, and the meat, fish, and pastas that I'd want to rescue are closer to the front. Nearly everything is in a container of some sort, which will make it easier to retrieve if we need to move it to a neighbor's generator-powered freezer, or to a family member's place.

Here's the freezer after all that work.

I also bought a case of water bottles, both for drinking and for stuffing into the freezer for use as ice packs. They'll help keep the freezer cold longer when the power's out, and then they'll still be drinkable. They also fit into small spaces very well, so they work better than a big bag of ice. A full freezer maintains its temperature much better than an empty one, so I could have left the bagels and things in here, but I also want to be able to grab and go when it's time to transfer the food. Having the trays in there will make it easier to select what we want to bring, depending on the space available to us in someone else's freezer. I plan on consolidating important fridge items as well, just in case.

I've done all I can to be ready for the storm. I downloaded the American Red Cross Hurricane app for my phone, so I can get alerts and information. I programmed my phone with numbers for BGE, homeowner's insurance, and my employer's emergency information line so I can see if work is closed. I also have those numbers on a board in the kitchen. I have a full tank of gas in the car. I have cash, because if the power outage is huge, some places that may be open may not be able to take credit or debit cards if the system is down. I've got enough kibble for the cats, and some food for us, although last time we were powerless we just went out to eat all the time since most places got their power back within a day. If necessary, we can cook on the grill. I have enough of my medications to get me through a few weeks – I won't need that much, of course, but medications weren't something I had even thought about until someone at work brought it up. If I were right at the end of a bottle of something and needed a refill this week, it might be a problem. We have plug-in storm flashlights in almost every room so that we can have light at hand when the power dies. The big flashlight battery is charged in the garage. I've moved all the candles and matches to a central location so we don't have to rummage around at night to find anything. We'll be moving trash cans and plastic flower pots into the garage in case the wind gets really bad. We'll sleep downstairs so trees can't fall on us. We have a ton of water bottles, wine, and board games.

There's nothing else we can do now but wait. And keep eating.

I Killed My Oven

Remember my intelligent wall oven? The one trying to speak to me in Morse code? I think I killed it.

I was tired of hearing the oven screaming at my delicious green beans, so I went to jiggle the part that I always jiggle when I need to silence the irritating alarms. I must have jiggled harder than usual, because this time the whole thing fell out into the oven, trailing ancient wires and insulation with it. The best part? The alarm was then permanently on. One frayed wire had come loose from its connector on the part, so I tried to jam it back into place with my oven-mitted hands, with little success. I couldn't get it to stay in place, and even when I held it there, the alarm wasn't shutting off. The shrieking wouldn't stop until I turned the oven off - as soon as I tried switching it back on, the alarm came back, no matter what I did with those wires. It was a few minutes before I realized that I was playing around with wires that may be hot in a couple of different ways, and I gave up.

Dave made a valiant effort at fixing it, but it's beyond our abilities. Looks like I'll be exploring the art of microwave cookery for a while. I wonder if any appliance repair guys will know how to fix a 30+ year old oven, or if we need to consider moving up our kitchen remodeling plans.

What Have We Done to This Place?

I'd love to give everyone another update on the new floors, but unfortunately, nothing new has happened since the end of July. Not only do we still have our old nasty carpets, we've still got a pile of old hallway carpet sitting on the front porch because the nice Columbia Floors folks never took it away. We're still missing the shoe molding around the new tile by the door, and in the laundry room where it would hide the uneven edges left by the tile guy. All of this is supposed to be done by the mysterious carpet people, who keep cancelling their appointments at the very last minute (and only after we call to ask what time to expect them). Part of why it's taking so long is because we want one specific guy to come back and finish the work, because he showed up on time and had some pride in his work, but it's been hard to book him.

As of this post, he is scheduled for next week. Again. I guess we're just having a hard time finding reliable contractors. We bought into the Angie's List thing, thinking it would save us some grief, but we've been so disappointed with this company despite their good reviews online. Hopefully the end is almost here, and I can have my cozy new carpets in time for the cold weather.

But you know, we've done an awful lot to this place in the two years we've been here. It's not all drama and chaos and epic failures in our quality assessment of hired professionals. I made a list of the accomplishments:

• Painted red room, bedroom, family room, computer room
• Removed wallpaper and painted living room, dining room, hallway
• New curtains and rods in most rooms 
• New vertical blinds in dining room and family room
• Replaced porch light
• Replaced front door and doorbell
• Pulled up shrubs by lamppost
• Replaced mailbox
• New a/c and air handler
• Added doors to family room fireplace
• New sliding glass doors in family room
• Hardwood floors in living and dining room
• New vinyl tile in laundry room
• Replaced ceiling fan in bedroom
• Replaced doorknobs everywhere
• Replaced fan/heater assembly in two bathrooms
• Re-grouted shower in master bathroom
• Updated closet door hardware in family room
• New fridge
• New light fixtures in computer room, red room, hallway, dining room
• Had trees removed in backyard
• Had trees removed in front yard (post-Irene cleanup)
• New section of fence and gate (post Irene)
• Tore up vines along fence
• Repaired side fence
• Cut down dying shrubs in back and side yards
• Landscaping work in front yard, removing poison ivy 
• Put hooks up along front porch for easy Christmas light installation
• Had chimney rebuilt
• Repaired roof leak
• Painted outside windows
• Put up drywall ceiling in computer room (replaced tile ceiling)
• Replaced toilet in downstairs bedroom

There are so many things left on the to-do list, not the least of which is getting the carpet situation settled, but when I list out everything we've gotten done so far, I really feel that we're making progress. Just look at all that stuff! Bit by bit, it's all getting done, and the house looks and feels a whole lot more like we wanted it to. It feels like home.

My Oven is Talking to Me

I don't know enough Morse code to know what it's trying to communicate, but I'm pretty sure my oven is trying to speak to me.

Can anyone translate for me?

This happens every time I use the oven. As far as I can tell, something is wrong with the temperature probe wiring. It's a very old, very small, Maytag wall oven, and I would love to rip out its guts and replace the whole thing. Unfortunately, since I want to get away from the wall-oven-and-separate-cooktop setup I currently have and put in a regular old stove, I have to wait until we redo the whole kitchen. Otherwise, I'd have to take a chainsaw to some cabinets. As much fun as that would be, I doubt the end result would be functional. Or pretty. 

I've done a bunch of reading, but can't figure out how to fix it. I've considered finding an appliance repair guy, but with an oven this old (I can't even find a model number anywhere), I'm doubtful that anyone will be able to find parts for it. Currently, when it beeps at me, I open the door and use an oven mitt to smack at what I think is the temperature probe. Usually, it goes quiet for a few minutes, while I beam with pride over my repair skills, but nothing is a permanent fix.

Luckily, the oven still seems to work properly and maintain the temperature I set, so I'm able to cook with it and get reliable results. That's why I haven't tried disconnecting the temperature probe entirely. Instead, I camp out in the kitchen the whole time the oven is on, so I can be ready to smack the probe periodically. The bright side is that I'm more likely to keep up with dishes while I'm cooking instead of waiting until after dinner, since I'm stuck in the kitchen anyway! 

Laundry room floor

The latest installment in the home improvement saga was completed over the weekend: we have a new laundry room floor. The old floor was an uneven mashup of three different sizes and styles of tiles, and since we keep the cats' litter boxes in the laundry room, the cracks and spaces in the mismatched tiles were always filling up with litter particles.

Laundry room floor, before and after

We chose a plain vinyl tile for the laundry room, because ceramic tiles didn't seem worth the expense. It's hard to see from my photo, but the new tiles are white with some small grey and blue flecks. This will be so much easier to keep clean, and it looks much less chaotic now. I'm delighted with how it looks. The tile guy spread some goo down (I didn't ask what it was) to even out the floor's surface so he could put the new tile over the old stuff. Because of how many layers of tiles were in there, and the extra expense involved in pulling everything up, we just decided to add a layer, so I guess some future owner will get a fun surprise if they ever pull up this new floor! The edges still need shoe molding put in, but this guy wasn't told about that, so he had none with him. When we asked the boss guy about it on the phone, he said no worries, the carpet guy would take care of that later. I have a feeling the carpet guy will have as little clue about it as the tile guy did, but we'll see.

But you know that's not the end of the story. No home improvement goes unpunished in this house. And I'm not even talking about Horton walking through the goo and getting his paws absolutely covered in it, although that was fun to fix. A soapy wet washcloth worked well to get it off, but without Dave handy to pin him, I never would have managed! Angry cats are squirmy!

After the tile guy finished up and moved our washer and dryer back in, he discovered that the dryer vent duct wouldn't fit onto the connector on the back of the dryer, because the extra height to the new floor raised the dryer up a teeny fraction of an inch. Why the dryer was attached to a rigid vent line, I have no idea, but it means that it has to be exactly the right length, not too long or too short, or it won't connect to the dryer. Tile guy shrugged and basically said it wasn't his job to figure it out, which left it to us, the handy homeowners. Since cutting it to the new precise height seemed a risky and unnecessarily complex task, I just forked out $20 at Home Depot for a twenty-foot flexible dryer vent tube so we could have a little leeway.

Dave cut the rigid vent about three feet from the dryer with a pair of snips, and then attached a length of flexible stuff to the end, taping it in place. Which you would think means I could do laundry now, right? But when I ran a load of laundry the other night and went to transfer it to the dryer, the clothes in the washer were steaming hot! I always wash and rinse in cold water, so this means that the tile guy hooked it back up backwards.  I never even thought to check that, although I did take a second and make sure nothing was leaking when I first started the washer. I'm really hoping that I didn't just shrink all of our clothes. Dave's favorite shorts and my "Stand back, I'm going to try Science" T-shirt were in that batch.

New floors and a new look for the house!

When we first visited this house, we had to use a little imagination to see past the surface into its potential. We noted the ugly paint, chaotic landscaping, gaudy drapes, and worn carpet, but we didn't become those people on the "House Hunters" shows, turning down a good home just because the bathtub is green. We decided it was more of a Charlie Brown Christmas situation, where it just needs a little love and a little work to make it look wonderful.

And we're getting there, bit by bit. Home improvements are not cheap, and saving money by deciding to do it ourselves comes with its own problems, like steep learning curves, spending weekends painting and ripping down wallpaper, and billions of trips to Home Depot. But our home is finally looking like we've wanted it to from the start, and I'm very happy about the progress we've made.

It took us two years to do it, but we finally have new floors. The old carpet in the living and dining rooms was thin, worn, and stained. And blue. Dirty blue. From the beginning, we wanted to replace it with clean hardwood floors, to open up the space. And today, the floors are finished.

Dining room, before and after.

As with most other projects in this house, the floors took a lot longer than I expected. Part of this is the sales guy's fault. He kept saying "three days", so I thought I'd walk in after a long weekend's worth of contractors in and out of my house and find my shiny new floors. It did not work that way. Note to self: stop trusting sales guys when they tell you how long something will take.

There was already some hardwood floor under the carpet, and at first we thought we'd be able to use it and save a little money - just have the guys sand it down and re-stain it to the color we wanted. But once the carpet came up, we encountered a problem. First of all, the hardwood didn't extend the whole way through the rooms. The last four feet or so of each room was just naked particleboard, and the interface between it and the hardwood was covered in a thick layer of glue.

We decided to go ahead and tear out the old stuff, because even though the glue could be removed, the old floor was very uneven. It may have been old water damage, we're not sure, but if I ran my hand over it, I could feel that it was bumpy and wavy, and I knew it would bother me if we left it like that. I guess I could have thrown a rug over the weird spots, but then what's the point of the new floor? The wavy floor problem caused a delay, because the boss had to come by and look at it, and then they had to go out and buy more wood for us, because the verdict was that not much could be done to rescue the old floor. We were given the option of pre-finished floors or unfinished ones that would be sanded in place and then stained, and we decided on the unfinished ones for a tighter look. The pre-finished ones tend to have teeny gaps between the slats, which we didn't like. Also, since we weren't replacing the wood stairs or the undamaged upstairs hallway, they would be sanding and staining those, and matching that stain to the pre-finished stuff would be harder. Instead, we opted to get naked oak floors, and have them sand and stain everything to match. Messier, but worth it.

Then the demolition began, and we discovered that the sub-floor was extremely thin, and not to current building codes. Only 3/8" thick, when code is 5/8". It bounced when we walked on it, so the floor guys drew lines to show us where the joists were so we wouldn't end up with a leg in the crawlspace beneath the floor.

There was another delay, as they went and bought new plywood to put down over the old stuff to solidify our floor. I'm glad they did, of course, but it was another week and a few hundred more dollars of materials to get it done. They laid the new oak floors down, and were almost completely done before I noticed a bump in the floor. The boards that met over the bump seemed to be sticking up a little, and I was nervous about the long-term durability of that area - would the boards warp and pop up? Once again, we called the boss in for a look, and he explained that the bump was from the old foundation, before the addition was put on the house. The floor joists go in one direction until that wall underneath, then the addition had the joists going the other way. We have no idea why they did it that way, but the remaining foundation wall is raised up just enough to cause a bump. We had a choice: live with the bump, or have them pull everything back up and completely rebuild the floor. With reassurances from the boss that the floor would not pop up in that spot, and they would come back and fix it free of charge if it did (although I have my doubts on that), we decided not to spend tens of thousands of dollars on rebuilding a whole floor. 

If you ever come over and see a rug in front of the living room fireplace, you'll know why!

Once the floor was in, the finishing crew came to sand and stain it all. That, too, took longer than usual, because the guys kept showing up late (past 10:30, despite telling us they'd be here at 8:30), and when they first came they seemed unclear on what their work order included, so we once again had to get the boss involved. And they were grumpy that we hadn't moved our furniture from the rooms - but nobody told us to! The sanding took a whole day, and required some really loud equipment with a vacuum attached to cut down on sawdust getting everywhere. Sawdust still got everywhere. The vacuum bag got most of the bigger stuff, but the fine powder got through and settled on every surface it could find! On the second day, they stained the floors with "gunstock" stain, and put on a coating of quick-drying water-based polyurethane, but they ran out of time for the next two coats and had to come back a few days later to finish up.

It was worth the hassle and the delays, because our house is now completely blue-carpet-free! The color turned out exactly how we wanted it, and it's shiny and slick and makes the place look a lot nicer. It's also tons of fun to watch the cats run on it, trying, and failing, to get traction for their high-speed turns.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a lot of dusting to do!

Animal, Defender of the Home, Killer of Mice

"Hey, um, can I ask you a question?"

When that's the first thing I hear when I get home, I know something interesting has happened.

"Do we have a really, really realistic mouse toy?"

Eep!

Apparently, despite the fangs the vet had to remove from his mouth, our Animal is a mouser. It looks like eleven years of training and hundreds of determined butt-wiggle-and-pounce attacks on the purple catnip mouse finally paid off. At some point last night, Animal found and killed a real made-of-meat-and-fur mouse, and delighted in batting it around the computer room to show off in front of Dave.

And of course, Dave saved it to show me.

For those of you wondering how long you can store a dead mouse in a Gladware container before it smells absolutely rank... most definitely under twelve hours. Probably much, much closer to no hours at all. Just... yeah, don't keep dead mice. Or if you do, and your spouse really wants to see it because they're weird like that, I cannot stress enough the importance of not opening the container you have stored it in.

I have no idea where this mouse came from. We found a few in the garage when we first moved in, and the problem seemed to disappear when we cleaned up their nest area and laid down some traps. There's no evidence of more mice anywhere in the house, so this guy likely ran in unnoticed while we were coming in from the garage. Just one mouse, not a big deal.

No big deal, because I'm not afraid of mice, and it's clear we don't have an infestation, but with the recent study linking toxoplasmosis to suicide and self-harm in women, I'm a little uncomfortable about it. You see, the Toxoplasma gondii parasite is carried in mice (and birds), but requires a trip through a cat's digestive tract in order to reproduce. It manages to do this by messing with a mouse's neurotransmitters and making it attracted to the scent of cats*. Mice walk up to their new feline BFFs, and suddenly find themselves dead and eaten. People can become infected when they come into contact with cat feces, which is why everyone knows pregnant women aren't supposed to scoop the litter box - Toxoplasma is particularly dangerous to a developing fetus and can seriously mess with brain development. And since recent studies seem to link Toxoplasma infection with schizophrenia, depression, and self-harm, the non-gravid among us get to be paranoid too, hooray!

But, as all these news articles are happy to report, if you have exclusively indoor cats, they're not out eating Toxoplasma-infested rodents, so your home's litter box is not a danger zone. That meant my home was free of Toxo-related worries... until the mouse incident. Is it possible that the mouse walked right up to Animal and offered himself up as a sacrifice to the Toxoplasma parasites running his foggy little brain? I hope not, because I don't want to think of Animal, or us, getting sick. I need to stop watching medical dramas and those "OMG Scary Diagnosis" shows on Discovery Health.

I'll just keep washing my hands really well after dealing with the litter and try not to have nightmares about parasites in my brain. And I'll buy some special treats for Animal, Defender of the Home, Killer of Mice.

*It needs to get into a cat, so it controls mouse brains to get it there. Science is awesome. Also scary.

Taking back the yard

Our backyard has a slight overgrowth problem. Much progress was made last summer on one side of the yard, removing vines and replacing broken sections of fence, but with the subsequent discovery of my husband's terrible reaction to poison ivy, we had to back off from that sort of work.

Years of neglect by the previous owners resulted in a curtain of ivy over two feet thick covering the fence. We weren't even sure what shape the fence was in underneath, because we could barely get to it. The neighbor on that side is content to let that side of his yard resemble a rainforest, so it's not likely that we can ever stop the vines completely, but I wanted our yard back. I'd prefer to look at grass and a fence, and I'd like to give wasps fewer places to hang out.

But ivy is very hard to kill. My husband tried slashing the vines along the whole length of the fence and then spraying the leaves with a herbicide that had "ivy" listed as a usual victim, but the leaves barely even faded. We considered hiring a landscaping crew - we keep getting bright advertising flyers stuffed into our mailbox, so there's no lack of companies to choose from - but those guys are expensive. So, we decided to be reckless and put a "help wanted" ad on Craigslist. Within a few hours, we'd gotten several replies, most of them intelligible. We called back one guy who said he'd bring his girlfriend to help, we set up a time, and then hoped they'd show up and do a decent job.

Here's what the fence looked like once they were finished their 4 hour day. The line where the grass stops is where the ivy ended!

They filled twenty-one huge trash bags with ivy, twigs, and weeds. And the best part? They came back for more. They've done two days now and the yard is almost unrecognizable! There's still more to be done, and they seem willing to finish the job completely, at a price well below what we'd be paying landscapers (which is also cheaper than the medical treatment my husband would need if he hit poison ivy again).

As with all projects we undertake here, it's led to a new project: it seems that the ivy was a supporting frame for the fence. Some sections, not shown in my photo, have fallen completely, and the ones that are still upright aren't very solid. Most of the fencing on that side of the house will need to be replaced, and with the neighbor's short chain-link fence about a foot behind ours, spanning a small section of Maryland rainforest, navigation will be difficult.

The other fun bit is the rocks. There are so many rocks in our yard. They must have had a rock garden set up along the fence and along some sides of the house, along with a gravel area near the pool. I have no idea what we're supposed to do with these rocks. Maybe I can get a rock tumbler and an acid etching kit and start making smooth rocks with "peace" and "family" and baby names on them so I can sell them on Etsy for two bucks each plus shipping.

Project update: living and dining room

Finally, I get to report back about the walls in the living and dining rooms, from which we tore wallpaper many, many months ago. To refresh your memory, here's my original post about removing the wallpaper. The date? April 2011. Almost a year ago. I blame other projects getting in the way, not enough weekends in a year, and a bad case of procrastination. I love how at the end of that post, I say I'll have an update in a couple of weeks. Optimistic!

Here's the "before" picture again, but be careful - looking at it may cause side effects such as nausea and cross-eyes.

Baby blue with Barbie pink, and a dingy grey trim. Not exactly visually appealing, to say the least. The pink part was originally covered in a silvery blue wallpaper:

I guess it was less offensive with the wallpaper hiding the pink stuff, but we're not really the wallpaper type, and it was old, dirty, and full of nicks and tears.

It took us a while to find the right colors for these rooms. The main consideration was for them not to be blue. Or pink. And especially not both (so purple was right out). For a while I toyed with the idea of using white beadboard for the bottom half of the room, but it would have been a lot of work to cut it for all the outlets and baseboard heaters, so we stuck with paint. Here's how it looks now:

Don't worry, Donald approves. He just hates having his picture taken.

We chose to do the trim in bright white, both because it looks nice, and because it's going to be easier to deal with the trim in the house if we do everything in white. With baseboard heaters and crown molding in most rooms, and a chair rail, bay window, and built-in shelves in the living room and dining room, we have a lot of trim, so this way we always just need to buy plain white paint to touch up damaged areas, instead of figuring out which almost-white color we used for which room.

The top half is called "Churchill Hotel Ecru", and in reality it's not quite as pinkish as the Donald photo makes it out to be. The picture of the built-in shelves is more accurate. The bottom half is "Churchill Hotel Maple", and the fact that they're both from the same historic building reassures me that they go well together. They're both from Valspar's National Trust for Historic Preservation collection. Yes, we like neutrals, and most of the house is painted in calm neutral colors, but I'm ok with that. As much as I admire the bright colors on home decorating shows, I don't think I'd be happy with them in my own home for very long. Nice to look at, but not to live in, at least for me.

Within a month or two, after we paint the family room downstairs, we'll also be checking "new floors" off our to-do list, and I'm excited to see how different and wonderful this place will look once we replace the nasty old stained carpets with fluffy new ones (and some hardwood)!

Christmas Decorations - A Little Late

I didn't have access to my own computer for a while, so I couldn't post any pictures, which means that I completely forgot to write a post about my Christmas decorations this year. I hope it's not too late to share them with you.

I decided I wanted some giant ornaments for the outside decorations this year, even though we don't have a convenient tree to put them in. I planned to hang them from the porch, along with some green garland and lights. Home Depot had a pretty sad selection by the time I got there to buy some - the glitter was missing from many of them, and some were dented. They weren't individually packaged, just all jumbled in a big cardboard box. Luckily Costco came through for me - I found a set of 6 big ornaments for about $20, and they're pretty!

I spaced them out evenly and hung them from little white cup-hooks, which will stay there for future years' decorations. Dave was kind enough to climb up with a drill and help me get those installed. I strung simple white lights along the hooks, and skipped the fake spruce garland because I was missing about 2 feet of length and I didn't feel like going out to buy more. The hydrangea bush on the right also got some white lights draped in it. None of my nighttime pictures turned out at all, so you'll have to use some imagination.

I made this wreath last year, so it went back up on the center post, since the front door has a big window in it and doesn't lend itself well to Christmas decorations. Look at the giant ornaments! Aren't they great?

Oh, and our friend Solar Duck got dressed up for Christmas too. So dapper and festive!

That's it for the outdoor decorations. I have grand hopes for the future, with more lights strung across the front of the house, and maybe "candles" for the windows, but we'll see how much work (and money) we're actually willing to put into decorating.

We got our tree up and decorated right after Thanksgiving. I bought an awesome Yoda tree topper this year, so we could stop arguing over whether an angel or a star should top the tree, but his LED lightsaber was broken, so I had to return him. I'm a little bummed about that, because I was looking forward to our new nerdy tradition. So this year, the angel won out, and while she looks headless in this picture, I assure you she isn't. The bright colored lights are bubble lights(!!!), which I bought last year and didn't use. They're a throwback to my childhood and while they're much bigger than the ones I'm used to, they still make mesmerizing bubbles. I'm not sure if it looks tacky to have them on there when the tree is already pre-lit with white LEDs, but I really wanted them this year, so we did it anyway. Go, tacky!

The cats , especially Horton, spent a lot of time under the tree impersonating presents! We didn't hang out much in that room, though, because our TV and usable fireplace are downstairs. We put up a small tree where we always spend our evenings, and we put our stockings up by the fire.

Mom gave me her wintery teddy bear collection, and I sat them along the mantel for some added cuteness.

I enjoyed having all this stuff up for a month - it helped make things feel more Christmassy even without the snow outside. I took it all down today, taking advantage of the almost-70-degree weather. In Montreal, we leave that crap up outside until April because it's too cold to contemplate wrestling with it wearing huge mittens!

It's a Wonderful Life

We knew we'd be in for a lot of work when we bought an old house. An old house whose first owners thought they were the world's best DIY home renovators and who played very funny tricks with wiring and insulation and lights, and whose most recent owners didn't care enough to maintain their beautiful yard, deck, and pool. So every project we take on, to try and make the place a little better, has ended up being much more of a challenge than we anticipated, thanks to the DIY surprises. I'll admit, being genetically predisposed to pessimism, I get discouraged pretty easily. We keep ending up with several half-finished projects because we need to stop and buy new materials, or get an expert in to help, and of course, everything costs money.

I was in a funk about the siding guys delaying and half-assing their work, and I felt like we'd never be rid of them. It was a very long week, with several people coming in to give us estimates on new floors and some drywall work, and the roofing guy pulling off the skylight to repair a leak. Mojo's "elimination" problems still weren't going away, and I felt like anyone coming into our home would smell it and think we were disgusting people with too many cats. Watching the numbers add up, seeing the wood scraps falling into my family room through the open skylight, and hearing Dave on the phone with the insurance company to try and get the contractors moving again, I was completely depressed.

And then, something happened.

I turned on the TV, with a fluffy Mojo in my lap, and found It's a Wonderful Life playing.

It was the scene where George meets Mary in their new house for the first time. I can't find a clip online to share with you, but this is a YouTube version of the whole movie, and the scene is at the 1-hour mark.



A transcript, in case you're not able to get the video going:

CLOSE SHOT –– George enters. The house is carpetless, empty –– the rain and wind cause funny noises upstairs. A huge fire is burning in the fireplace.
Near the fireplace a collection of packing boxes are heaped together in the shape of a small table and covered with a checkered oil cloth. It is set for two.
A bucket with ice and a champagne bottle sit on the table as well as a bowl of caviar. Two small chickens are impaled on a spit over the fire. A phonograph is playing on a box, and a string from the phonograph is turning the chickens on the spit.
The phonograph is playing "Song of the Islands."
Mary is standing near the fireplace looking as pretty as any bride ever looked. She is smiling at George, who has been slowly taking in the whole set-up.
Through a door he sees the end of a cheap bed, over the back of which is a pair of pajamas and a nightie. Ernie exits and closes the door.


MARY (tears in her eyes): Welcome home, Mr. Bailey.

After that scene, it's harder for me to hate our wonderful house. After all, it's home. It's got character and potential, and it's in a great spot with kind neighbors. I'm here with my husband and our cats, and it's not the end of the world if some rooms are half-painted and the carpets are dirty and worn through and the bathrooms are cold. Any kids we may have won't care about any of that, because it'll be home.

I admit, I'm not usually good at seeing the bright side of things. That's always been my biggest struggle. But I'm making up a little note for my fridge that says "Welcome home, Mr. Bailey" and I will try to let it remind me about what really counts.

Filing cabinet!

Neither of us is very good with paperwork. We get as far as opening mail, paying bills, and making haphazard piles of receipts and warranties here and there, but it's always a struggle to find something we're sure we've seen recently. Getting all my stuff in order for my green card application was a nightmare because I don't have a good system. I've got two expanding file folders, a little portable file folder, and some of those Rubbermaid bins with inserts to make them into filing drawers, but I don't have a filing system.

Craigslist recently provided us with a nice 4-drawer filing cabinet similar to this one and we've been making decent headway against the mountains of paper. The goal is to have a small accordion folder with the most current stuff handy, and to use the filing cabinet for the more long-term papers, like medical information, taxes, warranties, and old school transcripts.

Now we need to decide how to categorize everything. One drawer each, and then a joint drawer for the house and car and cat stuff? Straight-up alphabetical from the top down? Luckily all the hanging files are easy to move around, so we're starting by just filing it away for now to get it all off the counters and coffee tables, and the rest can come later. I'm excited about having one central location for all the paperwork, because it should cut down on the panic attacks I get when I can't find my social security card or marriage certificate for something important.

Unfortunately, I think we both have a tendency to keep things "just in case", which helps us accumulate much more paper. It's hard to know what I need, though. Do I need my old tax returns from Canada? I haven't filed taxes there since 2007. How many months or years worth of utility bills do we need? Should we keep any from the old address? How about my copy of the lease from my first apartment in the US? I don't know why I would need it, but it seems too important to toss. There are some sites I've found that help you figure out how much to keep, but I find myself disagreeing with them and wanting to err on the side of caution. Maybe that's a habit I need to break?

Kitchen ants

We have ants. I haven't counted them but I'm going to say we have a billion ants. They're coming out of the walls in the kitchen and they're pissing me off. Two weeks ago we had them crawling along the tops of the cabinets and making their way to the pantry, where they found some spilled vanilla and a sticky bottle of balsamic vinegar to snack on. Not my idea of a well-rounded lunch, but I'm not an ant. With much cursing, I sprayed to get rid of them and then proceeded to wash or throw out all the food that was in that section. Luckily, most of it was in jars or bottles and was salvageable, but my chocolate bars had to go because the bastards got in under the wrappers. The Caramilk that Mom brought me on her visit had to be trashed, and that is a tragedy.

A few days later, they came back, on the other side of the kitchen, sending out scouts to look for more Caramilks (you're out of luck, bastards, it was my last one) on the counters. This time, because part of their trail went along the floor, I used a bait trap and they were gone in two days.

We called Bug Guy. I don't even know what his name is, because he's Bug Guy to me, a sort of insecticidal superhero who will come and rescue me from creepy crawly things. He came yesterday to have a look at the firewood we got recently, because it was swarming with what we feared were carpenter ants, and we weren't sure if we should put any of it in the shed or near the house. We were lucky: they were only citronella ants, nothing to worry about, thank goodness. He tossed town some bait for them and then tossed more all around the house to kill all manner of critters before they can get inside, so we should have a less buggy winter.

What's great about Bug Guy is he teaches us while he's here, so we don't have to call him as often. You'd think it's a bad business strategy but I suspect he gets tons of referrals from happy clients and it all works out for him. For example, he taught Dave how to differentiate citronella ants from carpenter ants, so next time we think we may have carpenters, we can use that test to decide whether we need Bug Guy's help. And for the kitchen ants (odorous house ants), he didn't spray inside the house. He could have, and the ants would be dead, but the colonies would still be alive in the walls somewhere and they'd bust out again eventually. Bug spray is apparently one of the worst things you can use when there are ants inside the house, because you'll separate ants from their colony and they might go make a new colony and then you'll have two. There were no ants around when he came through the kitchen, but he told us to use liquid ant bait next time we saw them and put it across their tracks so they can bring it back to the reproductive ants hanging out at home (barefoot and pregnant, one assumes - do ants have kitchens?) and kill everyone.

So, irony being what it is, the ants came back out to play several hours after Bug Guy left. I followed his instructions and dripped liquid bait where I saw them congregating, and hopefully it's going to work. I'm grossed out by the idea of using this stuff in my kitchen, because I've used it before and it attracts more ants at first. So what was a dozen or so ants exploring the countertop is now a hundred or more hanging out at the bait droplets and chowing down. I realize that it's a more effective way to kill them, but it's really gross and depressing to have a mob of ants on the counter behind the coffee pot, even if you can delight in their imminent demise. The take -home lesson:

How to get rid of house ants:

1. Buy Terro liquid bait. They sell it at Home Depot, Lowes, and online, and I saw it at Target during the summer but they didn't have any this week. Terro makes all sorts of other products, including traps, but the bottle of liquid bait is the cheapest and easiest way.
2. Follow the ant track back to its source, or as close as possible. Where are they going into the wall? The bait will attract more ants, so it's best to place it close to where they're starting from so you aren't overwhelmed by the increased number of ants roaming your kitchen.
3. Put some bait across their track and the ants will stop and eat it. Check back periodically, and add more bait if they've eaten it all. Within a day or two, you should see the number of ants drop significantly, and then they'll be gone.

The bait comes with little perforated cards and the instructions say to put a drop of bait in the middle of the card and place the card on the floor where you see ants. Bug Guy says to ignore that and just make a thin line of bait along the ants' trail so they can line up at it like a trough - more ants get to eat, more ants bring poison back home. If the ants are on the wall, like mine were, you can just squeeze the bottle at the wall and let a few drops drip down.


I baited them yesterday, but I didn't put enough out, so when I came out this morning they had scouts all over the counters and cabinets, looking for more. I added more bait to the original spot, close to where I saw them going into the wall, and I squashed or vacuumed up all the strays. I'm hoping that they're gone by tomorrow.