Holes every six inches

I've almost written this post three times. But those earlier posts would be have angrier. Why do I get so worked up about unchangeable things? We have termites. It costs a lot of money to deal with them. The exterminators ( I like to call them terminators) are making messes. But there is nothing I can do about this so. It's happened. It must be dealt with. Handle this gracefully, Laura. And sometimes I did--but only after a short freak out where I often call Amanda and cried or yelled (thanks friend).

So the termites have lived here longer than we have. And I've seen them many times. Turns out those little white ants that are under the wood stepping stones in my garden, those aren't the larva stage of some unknown bugs, those are worker termites. I tried to take a picture for you, because they are still there, eating away in my garden, but my camera won't focus on such a close up. Lucky you.

Tom was gone all week again--at a math conference in Muskegon. The girls and I were going to go with him, but we needed the money to fight the termites. So Tom was home for about 24 hours between trips, and I got to greet the terminator technician Tuesday morning. Note that they didn't send me the real licensed terminator yet, just the technician. His first task? (I didn't realize when this started, even though they tried to explain it, that there were four steps in this process). Task one was to cut a hole in the foundation to access the inaccessible part of the foundation. This was the hold my breath and drink 7up to keep my stomach calm moment for Tom and me because it would reveal more clearly how much damage there was.



So here's the hole. It's in the storage closet in the back of the basement so it's presence won't be noticed much. But look at the floor. Here's a close-up. That's termite food the terminator technician pulled out the crawl space. AKA a rotting cedar porch that some previous owner didn't remove. Apparently, before the addition was built, there was a large cedar porch outside. Then someone wanted a cement porch instead and placed concrete blocks around the cedar porch and poured the concrete slab there. They never removed the wood. And it's been rotting, for years. Then, some other brilliant owner, wanted an addition instead of a concrete slab, To save money, the addition was built on top of the block supported concrete slab. At some point, vents were added to this inaccessible crawl space, but they haven't been opened for years. Between the rain and snow here in Michigan that small space would get wet, and without ventilation the wood would start to rot, and rot , and rot and before long a colony of termites noticed.

So the terminator technician, he removed all that rot for us. But before he left for the day, he showed me the sill plate. If you are ignorant like me in all things construction, the sill plate is the horizontal board which all vertical boards are attached in the framing of your house. And guess what? It crumbled to the touch. Crumbled. Then he told me that the pile of leftover wood from the charming treehouse was infested with termites too. Oh gosh. I had to tell Tom, because he would ask. And he wouldn't be able to sleep with such info in his head.

He didn't sleep. He drove home. He had to investigate for himself. Now Tom and Hadley are the worriers in the family. With Tom not here to analyze every possible disastrous scenario and to find solutions for them all, I took over the job of worrying(especially since Hadley did not yet know there was something to worry about). What about the treehouse? How far up the house had the termites eaten? What now? And money--well I didn't let myself go there. With Tom back in the house---using flashlights, calling people for advice, drilling through wood to check for rot--I could calm down again. And woo, am I glad the task of worrying is usually his ( at least in all things house related). Tom devised a plan for fixing the sill plate. Then drove back to Muskegon and everyone slept well. Oh, in case you were worried, the treehouse is built on treated wood and termites don't eat treated wood, but the garage...well you could worry about our garage.

Day two with the terminator technician, he finishes cleaning out the rot.
Day three started step two : hole drilling. Now I knew they had to drill holes in the foundation. I didn't realize how frequent they would be. And I didn't realize he drilled from the inside. Terminator technician would emerge from the basement periodically saying he needed to escape the dust. Too trusting, I didn't put the puzzle pieces together. When he left for the day, I went downstairs. First I noticed the holes:
I hope you can see them, click on the picture to make it larger if you need to. Little quarter inch holes every three inches or so...all around every wall of the foundation. Is this what we signed up for? A quick call to Tom (thank goodness he wasn't in the unreachable wilderness this week) assured me the holes were part of the system. But dear I complained, why didn't he warn me. There was thick, coating concrete dust on everything. He didn't cover the carpet, the couches or even the TV. And he didn't clean up.

Oh wow. I'm tired. I promise to finish the story later...Don't worry, the worst part is yet to come.