Shimjockey

Hope you never have gone through this, and I hope I never do again……

   Way back when the scare of Y2K was abounding throughout every doomsday believers world, just after Prince prompted us to party like it was 1999, I decided to take a 30″” x 21′ swath out of our family room downstairs, and then create a storage center for all the kinds of stuff/junk we humans love to save. All neatly hidden with bifold doors, three 5′ ones and one 3′. My wife quickly got the stuff out of the garage as well as every nook and cranny we might have stuffed these treasures in, to give them all another shot at life before the ultimate trip to the Goodwill, we don’t do garage sales anymore.

After purchasing the material, doing the needed layout, I was ready to don my nail-bags (some would call me a carpenter) and ready to frame up the wall that would free us at least in mind, from our inability to throw stuff away long after it had given all it could give. With the first 2×4 I started to nail to the wall I heard the weirdest sound, I thought cinders were drifting from the top to the bottom each time I hammered a nail home. Being somewhat of a thick skulled kind of guy, I ignored it and continued to build my wall up, I had work to do!!

After completing most of the wall, I was still intrigued with that sound, I continued to go over to that wall and hammer on the stud I had nailed and listened  to that weird sound, I finally figured it out, BEES!!    YEP,I went outside and now understanding a small about trees and bees I realized they had burrowed through the siding and made themselves a very cozy home, must have been hundreds of the little guys. This isn’t even what I’m hoping to write about, it just happened along the way!

    Now having our new storage area complete and quickly filling up with  Christmas stuff, Halloween stuff and lots of just plain old stuff, we could direct ourselves to the task really at hand, Y2K! I know we are  a few months  away from it, but all the more urgent to get with it and be prepared for the possible meltdown of our societies taken for granted, Abundance. To think of possibly having to go without anything, well, i think it’s downright un-American,  right? Damn straight!

    In our humble home lives one beautiful cat named, Mooty and one fine specimen of a Boston Terrier named, Paige. There’s ample room in the Y2K storage  closet to store their needed food, just in case, you understand! We were set like flint, ready for it all?

  Our home was built in the 60’s, and being a contractor and familiar with the tales of how our  forefathers built anything like no other could think of. I’ve heard the saying,”they sure don’t build them like they used to”, I have one thing to say about that. I’m glad of it too! Whoever the knuckleheads were that built our home went stupid when it came to putting fire=blocking over the wall of the garage that separate it from the house. It’s typically solid wood blocking, mandatory in all building practices, but not ours, not in 1960- whatever, you sense my frustration?

   Having pet food sacks, cardboard containers of Chicken broth, bags of flour, basically you can name just about anything a dirty stinkin’ varmint has the ability to get into and did! I am not experienced with RATS, only mice and had no problem taking care of them, it was a short-lived inconvenience. I immediately went and got some traps, then some poison, then more traps. I was catching  them, but it seemed like they were bringing in more replacements. I then remembered something our mechanic told me, Prestone antifreeze works wonders, but first I need to nail up some solid blocking to stop these critters from getting in the house!

   The bad part of blocking in the firewall is that with the possibility of  rats in the house, you’re trapping them inside, Yep!! We heard them at night running either overhead or on the ductwork underneath us. We found droppings downstairs, everywhere near their passageway to the Y2K storage, even though it had been emptied. Did I mention that they were large? They were, and some were small, damn,they were making stinkin’ babies!!

   We had a small/short getaway planned ahead and Lord knows we needed it from trying to work and  then come back home and work again, I guess there is a reason there are Pest companies out there, duh? When we got back home, surprise!, they had found a way up through the floor where I didn’t seal up the subfloor where the dishwater sits when we remodeled, those buggers fit through small spaces too! After they had increased the hole for the plastic drain pipe that hooks to the kitchen sink drain, then they found a plastic two drawer container that we kept Paige’s hardfood in, they broke in the back side, UNBELIEVABLE!!   I had to remove the dishwasher and fill in the space, ?@!%$!!?*&!!!

   Finally things started to pay dividends, no more rats inside and the Prestone left in a couple small dishes on the top shelf of the garage, were doing the trick! I eventually had a plastic enclosed diner for them outside,no return customers with that place!

   It was Hell, but we conquered it!