Emergency Surgery

One of the things I knew I had to take care of fairly early on in my renovation process was getting the house tented for termites.  I got everything set up to have them come on a Thursday and be done by Saturday.  Tuesday I was off from work and was doing some yard work at the house when I noticed something troubling.  There was a trellis overhang that attached my house to the fence on the property line.

The problem with the trellis, beside it being pointless, ugly and bug eatten, is that in order for them to put a tent over my house, it would need to come down.  With it in place, the tent would have to go over the fence which has the double problem of taking it into the neighbors yard and the fact that the fence goes all the way to the back and around the property without any breaks.

There was also the issue of the tree that had at least one branch laying on my roof.  I talked with the next door neighbor about sharing the cost of removing it, which unfortunately he said he couldn't do, but he did say I could hack it up, that he didn't care.  I may in the future just pay to have the thing cut down myself, but that would have to wait.  I just needed to get my house ready for the tent.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any of the proper tools with me on my day off, so I had to stop by after work and race the daylight to get it all taken down the night before they came.  I had my dad put together all the tools I might need, and mom brought them down to me at work.  I had a tall ladder at the house, which I was able to use for the first few feet, but the shelving unit attached to the house was too close to the fence to let me use it beyond that.

The tools.

Once I found a plug in the garage that worked, I was able to get started with the saw.  I was up on the ladder making the first few cuts, trying to figure out exactly what would be the best way to get this done quickly, when one of the neighbors from across the street yelled, "Be careful up there."  Doesn't seem too bad, right?  I mean, maybe he's just trying to be nice, show some concern for the new neighbor.  Doubtful.  I'm pretty sure he just assumed that, as a girl, I couldn't possibly have any idea what I was doing with a power tool.  And up on a ladder, too!  Certainly I would be there all night, or just until the ambulance came to bring me and my severed arm to the hospital for reattachment.  Perhaps the fact that he is friends with PO colored my opinion.  Whatever the case, I didn't have time to deal with him.  I just smiled and said, "I will," turned my back, rolled my eyes and got to work.

The whole process only took about 30 minutes.  I was concerned that it would be difficult because of the shelves on the side of the house.  They blocked my access to the top part of the trellis that connected to the house, and the trellis appeared to be fairly well built.  Fortunately, the wood was so dry and bug-eatten that I only had to cut the boards at the fence, and cut the occasional cross beam, and I could just wiggle, bend and break the wood right out of the screws on the house.

I had to use the step ladder for most of the cuts.  It was a little shorter than I would have liked, so I had to reach up and look up in order to make the cuts and I pretty much had to be right under the cut I was making.  The only big deal about that is that I was looking up and all the debris from the cuts was falling down.  Perhaps you see the problem.  Even with safety glasses, without which I would likely be blind now, the end result wasn't pretty.

My face was covered in wood dust and other fine particles that were shaken loose from the sawing and pulling down of the trellis.  I was very happy with the end result of the house, though.  I was able to clear a spot for the tent to fall.  I knew that it could be a while before I was able to dump the remains of the trellis, so I dragged them into the garage so that they would get tented too.  I didn't figure there was any point to tenting the whole house only to leave possibly termite infested wood within feet of it.

I also took down a branch that was laying on my roof.  It turned out to be a lot bigger than I thought.  Cutting through the 2 inch diameter branch near the trunk of the tree, I pulled and pulled until I wound up with this...

I think I actually heard my roof sigh in relief.  It was a pretty exciting evening.  The neighbors 3 year old daughter thought so too.  She poked her head out every so often to watch what I was doing, running from front to back and letting her parents know, "I can see Olivia from back here!"

The next day at work I got a call saying they couldn't find the key to the house.  They had asked me to hide a key so that they could get into the house, so I had done that.  Without access to the house, they could not tent.  The first call was from the guy in the office, saying his guys had told him they couldn't find the key.  He asked me if they could call me back so that I could describe my hiding spot to the people actually at the house.  A few minutes later I got a call from the guys at the house.  I told them exactly where I hid it, and they said they had checked, but hadn't found it.  I knew exactly what the problem was:  they were looking for a house key.  My house doesn't have front door hardware, so the front as well as the garage are locked with padlocks, the keys to which are much smaller than a standard front door key, only about as big as a mailbox key.  I told him again where to look and informed him of what he was looking for and he said he would try again.  His tone did not convey much expectation of discovery or faith in my competence.  Twenty minutes later he called to let me know they had found it and had started.  I told you I put the key there!

I went by after work and everything had been started.

Now it is all done and I can move on to the heavy work.  It's nice to know that the termites are gone, along with any other pest that might have been living there.  Of course, last time I visited the house, there were quite a few flys and a not so great smell coming from the attic.  It seems I may still need to deal with a few of the other pests.