Ahem. The woman in question has told me that she will move out by the end of the month. I heard through the grapevine she is going to a managed care facility, but has only been told it will be a different apartment complex. She will get to garden there, and her cat can go with her.
Her health has visibly deteriated this past couple years. She has cancer and is on tumor shrinking medicine. Recently, her back has begun to make her miserable.
Sad news, but your life will be easier!
She was destroying the corner of the bulding she lives in. She has piled her garden dirt about two feet up the side of the building, making a superhighway for the termites and what all else. I used to dig the dirt down frequently, but still she piled it ever higher, and the bosses were tolerant, which made me tolerant also (with misgivings). The last few years I gave her free reign.
So, she is gone. Her son will turn in the keys tomorrow. What a deafening aftermath. All the residents keep asking for her. In a few days, we will begin restoring the apartment. There are at least a few tons of dirt to be removed from the outside, and even some structural work. The range I bought her a few years ago looks to be about thirty years old. Hundreds of large and small plants to dig up. Mm mm mm.
Sorry, had a lot of older people die off in my family over the last 10 years. A grandmother who is not related to me, but may as well be just died last week. They're cleaning out her apt now.
We have quite a few elderly move here, beyond the time they should live alone. Been numerous deaths over 14 years. It weighs on a person's life, but I feel fortunate to have known so many wonderful people at the same time.
If I could leave any legacy it would be a garden. Even an ugly one.
They'll have all your armaments to remember you by, and won't that be so much more fitting?
Sure, that too, they can go out into the garden and blast tree rats.
I had to take the carpet, range, and a very poor couch out of her apartment today. Put some canisters of odor absorbing stuff in the return air and let the fan run. It smelled too bad to send workers in there, but tomorrow it will be painted. Smells good enough now. In front of the apartment, we have moved tons of dirt (her garden, built up over about ten years). That's a pretty good dent in it. Soon we will rebuild the patio. It's a bit iffy there. No one yet knows how much structural damage was done by the pile of dirt.
Yeh, one should always put up a flash wall if piling dirt near a house.. unless the building is on a high concrete foundation, and even if it's built of blocks, its should be waterproofed. Ugh. Is there a cripple wall holding the building up, or what?
It's typical Texas apt style work. A slab, with the landscaping too high from the original construction, with a treated 2x2 bottom plate, wooden studs, partial cedar siding, the rest brick. In the early days, I would daily move her dirt from the wall, but she finally prevailed, and, in the absense of any guidelines from the higher ups, the pile got higher and higher. I told her about five years ago, "when it gets this high (holding my hand to my neck) you have to stop."
a FRIEND OF MINE WAS CONVINCED HE HAD TERMITES, SO HE PUT SOME WOOD SHIMS UP A agains the lace where the sill plate met the ground. Within 2 weeks he could see that they were nibbling on the shims and he was right even though the exterminators told him he was loony.
He was a pioneer, a lone voice in exterminatory science.
I haven't found any live termites yet, but do expect them. There was a ring of dirt-like stuff under the edge of the carpet everywhere the dirt lay against the wall.
drive some pieces of pine into the soil and spaced just outside the building foundation . They have to tunnel outside for soil moisture and they can live deeply in the soil. If they are there, in a few weeks youll see the active bite markes and tunneling into the "sacrificial wood".
My frined soaked his wood shims in sugar and pounded them in. It really works.
Also, it helps you id where the infestation is focused. That prevents toxoc chemical buildup all around the house and maybe if you get it early, you wont have to "tent' the house like they do in Florida.
Of course, that was an error, when I said the plate was a 2x2. It's a 2x4.
The old lady flooded the area with water, sometimes two or three times a day.
All of the buildings have been treated for termites for several years. I haven't found a new tunnel in a couple of years. I'm not dumb enough to believe they aren't still there. The Houston area is one of the most infested spots in the USA. I will drive in a few such stakes in about a week, after the new landscaping is in place.
