Pest Patrol

Home ownership means guarding against pests. Not just mice, as previously posted. But all kinds of insects. I am regularly knocking down wasp nests from all around the house, and ants love to find ways into the house during their swarming periods.

This fall our front porch was invaded by these  little worms with antenna. They kinda looked like millipedes but they were so tiny it was difficult to tell whether or not they had legs.

We had one unexpected day when the temperature hit 80 and hundreds of these appeared. I think they came from the pumpkins we recently set on our front porch, but my wife believes they came out of the garden.

I emptied a can or RAID on the front porch and that was the end of the worms.

Pulling the Flowers

When owning a house, one has to decide: do I watch the game this afternoon? Or do I pull the flowers out of the flower bed as part of winterizing the house?

Of course the answer is: clean the flower beds! I don't think I have watched an entire football game all season because there is always something to do!

Many flower beds means a lot of pulling. Pull the flowers, toss them in a wheel barrel, dump them in the woods. All the care of a season of planting, feeding, and watering is destroyed in just a couple of hours. But now the flower beds are ready to be winterized! That means: take are of the soaker hoses and plant bulbs for spring flowers.

Can't go out? Go up!

There is an old saying when accumulating possessions: can't grow out? Then grow up! What that means is it is time to build some storage shelves.

As part of the long term Basement make over, I completed these shelves. They are 8 feet long, one foot wide, and 7 feet tall.

Winterizing the AC

Every fall my todo list turns toward winterizing the house. We don't need the air conditioner in the winter, so, it needs some attention.

First, we need to kill the power. There is an electrical box located behind the AC unit. I open that and flip the breaker. Done.

Next, I cover the Air Conditioner to protect it from the harsh New York winter. I use a plastic air conditioner cover that I additionally wrap with bungle cords to keep from blowing off.

With this yearly exercise complete, I can be  assured my air conditioner will be in relatively good condition next summer.

Plastic Windows

Allow me to introduce you to a dirty word: Builder Grade. Builder Grade is code for "high price, cheap quality". It is often crap that suppliers can't get rid of through any other means than to sell them in bulk to building co tractors who can turn around and charge full price to home owners.

My house was built in 2003 and if filled with builder Grade quality items. This includes the windows.

Each winter I need to put plastic on the westward facing windows.

It involves putting double faced tape around the window.

Attach plastic. Then trim it off. I hate putting plastic on windows because I should t have to. But this is cheaper than replacing the windows. And if I don't do this, we freeze during the winter.

Caulk the Roof

Joys of home ownership include standing on a ladder in 40 degree winds caulking the roof!

The corner of the garage has a leak.

To fix it, I needed to use silicon caulk on all the edges and the back of the gutter.

Hopefully that fixes it!

Revisiting the Deck

If you have read many posts you will recall that the summer of 2013 I tried something new with my deck. I was upset that the 5 year Olympic sealer never lasted more than a year.

I complained to the hardware store and they told me I needed to clean the deck with their cleaner, which was basically like a bleach.

I did. And the deck looked good. But it didn't last. By Spring, the deck looked all dried out and the stain was mostly gone!

In late August I sealed the deck again. This time I didn't clean it with their chemical. 

My hope is the sealant will stick better this year than it did last year.