Bugs

Written by Elaina R. Bergamini

Tuesday, 01 November 2005

Bugs. NH is all about the bugs. We have them! BIG and plentiful. You may recall that some time ago when we were building our house, we hired a contractor who was recommended by Yankee Barn Home and unfortunately, he was not all that they said he was. In particular, we had asked him to build out the first floor of the house prior to receiving the actual house “kit”. Anyhow, it turned out that he was not very good at math and the quote that he gave us ended up being about 1/2 what it finally ended up costing. (These types of “miscommunications” seem to happen repeatedly in our lives… I may elaborate on this later. I need to think about it some more.) In addition to this monetary misunderstanding, we also had asked him if we would be able to move our furnishings into the first floor and store them there prior to the full house showing up. He indicated that we absolutely would. Well, with much elation, we drove up to see the “finished” first floor and found that the structure was leaking like a sieve. No moving furniture for us. So after much discussion and investigation and a certified letter, we did end up paying him- long story, but he was still a “good builder”. Anyhow, once the YBH piece of the structure was complete, we washed our hands of him and said, “whew! It’s done. It’s beautiful. Let’s find someone else to help finish the interior!” And so we went merrily on our way. Now it has been one year and seven months and we’re living in our house and we’re finally adding the finishing touches- including trim. I’ve been making the plans to do all sorts of detailing this winter- finish the trim on the windows. Stain the closet doors. Put up the jams for the closet doors. Trim the skylights. How do I trim the skylights? There’s these weird holes in the header and footer of the skylights. What do I do with them? Do I seal them up? Do I run holes around the windows? I just don’t get it. This has been going on for some time now. Dan finally went and got the installation manual for the YBH kit and discovered that our builder had managed to screw up again. He was supposed to cut notches into the joists NEXT to the skylights, not into the header and footer, so essentially what we have is a channel from the soffet vents near the fascia into the living space via the hole at the bottom of the skylight and another channel from the hole at the top of the skylight to the ouside via the roof vents. –sigh- Beyond the fact that this feature is really bad for environmental control of the interior living space, there are the bugs. It used to be just common house flies, perhaps I shouldn't say “just”, I hate flies. Hate them. Hate them. Hate them. I can handle spiders. I can handle bees, although I keep my distance in case I’m still allergic to them. I like bats. They all have purposes. But flies spread disease. Flies eat rotting flesh. Flies are gross. I digress (I have trouble avoiding expounding upon the lack of a fly’s virtue. I will reiterate, “YUCK.”) Anyway, it’s no longer just flies. Now we also have lady bugs and these scary large triangular bugs that our excavator doesn’t like. Our excavator, Bob, is big and burly and if Bob doesn’t like them, then I’m certain that I don’t either. At first, I thought “well, ladybugs, that’s not so bad…They eat aphids.” But there are hundreds of them. There is a scene in the movie, Under the Tuscan Sun, where the flamboyant former actress, what’s her name, tells a story of how she was looking all day for lady bugs and she looked and she looked until she was tired and she laid down for a rest and when she woke up, she was covered with lady bugs. Nice story? Well, I’m living that. They are everywhere. Climbing on the ceilings. Climbing on my tea cup. On my arm. It is awful. I feel like I’m in some horror film and I’m going to pick up my tea cup to find it’s filled to the brim with creepy, crawly, crunchy lady bugs. Seriously, I check my tea cup before every sip. Swallowing a wiggly ladybug might ruin the tea experience for me forever. So today Ralph came over and sealed up the holes around our skylights and tomorrow we shall see what new creepy crawlies are in store for me.

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 01 November 2005 )