I hate mothballs....

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

I hate mothballs....

Ok so this is the part two of yesterdays post. I show up to the scene of the crime. No one is outside selling tickets so thats a good sign so far. I enter the building expecting the worst though. Hey, theres work to be done.

Anywho, he lets me in and proceeds to immediately tell me to go out back and get one of the milk crates that they use for recycling. Yeah riiiight. Im sure that there is something also using it for a home.

I go out the laundry room door and up the back stairs to the back door. Mind you that this is only a half a flight so nothing bad there. Just a washing machine, a dryer, a couple of furnaces and a couple of hot water tanks. Nothing major.

Once outside, I locate the milk crate that he wants and proceed to pick it up. Nothing living on it. I dump out the two cans that are in it into another bin and look inside. Nothing living in it either. So far so good. I carry it back to the door and thats when I see Cam poking her head out.

Shes half way up the stairs and I hand the crate in to her. She takes it and I tell her that there are bugs all over it. Im sure that if anyone in the building was asleep, they arent anymore. She screams and drops the crate and it goes bouncing down the stairs and rebounds off the furnace. That was entertaining. I couldnt stop laughing. Boy was she pissed. Then again, so was my father.

Now upon reentering the apartment, he demands the blue tape. What the hell does he want blue tape for? Im soon to find out when I hand it to him. Needless to say that he now wants me to open the package because he very well cant pick out the starting point of the tape because there is a wrapper on it. Didnt stop him from trying for a while though. I go into the kitchen for a small knife and pop the seal and throw away the wrapper.

I hand him the roll and he proceeds to place a strip of about 3 feet along the wall just under the part thats going to need puttying. Yep. Just tape on the wall. Im thinking hes crazy for doing this but its his project. Not that I can tell him anything different. You know like, how about putting up the plastic sheeting before you tape it? Nah...

He then takes out said plastic sheeting and gets all sorts of pissed because its all folded and he just cant seem to get it to open up for him. After a few moments and cursing, he finally gets most of it open and then wants me to hand him a little tab of the blue tape. Now he puts the plastic up to the tape thats already there and puts a tab on it. Ya know, to hold it in place while he tapes the rest of it up over the tape thats already there. Yeah, Im silently questioning this step too but what can I say.

With that done he places the plastic out over the floor and puts the crate on it. Gathering up all the tools that he left out on his table for me, I place them on the floor next to the crate and gather myself to start the task. Nope. He puts himself in front of the crate and says that he hopes it will hold his ass. If not then Im sure there will be yet another spot that will need to be patched.

He sits down and grabs a flat head screw driver. Im so glad that Im not the one doing this now because that wasnt my tool of choice. Anywho, he proceeds to scrape away the paint that is obviously affected by the damage the termites caused. A nice perfect trail emerges but there is no actual hole. Just a flat area where the bugs were. Or still are in the sheet rock. I dont know. I cant see the little buggers and Im not going to put my nose up to the wall to try to either.

There are a couple of spots like this. Nothing big but maybe about a foot in lenght. But still no hole. Now what to do? I didnt even have a chance to think when I see him take the screw driver and ram it into the wall. Yep you guessed it. Theres a hole there now. Im thinking to myself, what the hell is he doing?

Oh Im sure to soon find out when he tells me to go in the kitchen and grab a box of mothballs. Now mind you that Im allergic to these things. Not by touch but by means of my sinuses. I cant tolerate the smell of mothballs. I know why moths dont either. Probably gives them a headache too. With my eyes crossed, I hand him the box.

Well that wasnt good enough because he hands it right back to me and tells me that he wants it opened. Oh geez... You have to be kidding. So yeah I go out to the kitchen and try to pull the tab. A little piece comes off. I pull more and more and it comes off piece by piece. Well if this dont suck. Im barely breathing and my eyes are running. The swelling behind them is killing whats left of my sinuses and Im about to grab that screw driver. Off comes the top and I hand the box back to him.

Thats still not good enough because now he wants me to get him one of the the little white balls that are inside. WTF is wrong with this picture? Put the frelling box down in front of you and take one out yourself. Nope he cant do that because the plactic that is taped to the wall is pretty much a slope.

Ok ok, I pull one out of the box and hand it to him. He puts it up to the wall and its not going to fit in the hole that he made. He then drops the stupid thing and off it rolls. Where it went, I have no idea and Im not about to look for it.

Slam goes the screw driver again and he makes the hole bigger. Now he wants another ball from the box that dummy me is still holding. I hand him another one and that too doesnt fit the hole. He hands the ball back to me and makes the hole a little bigger.

I give him back the ball and he pops it in the hole this time. A perfect fit. By this time my eyes are rolling to the back of my head and every nerve in my sinuses is screaming in pain. What do you think he tells me to do next? Yep. One by one I hand him the balls from the box. After about twenty of these things he tells me to stop. What? Stop? You're kidding me. Has my torture session truely ended?

Imagine that. Now he wants to put yet another hole on the other side of the stud in the wall. Oh hell no. I will not be a part of this. I take the box and go back to the kitchen and put the entire box inside a plastic bag and seal it up. My head is spinning. Oh look at the pretty colors. The light is flashing in my eyes and I have a full blown migraine.

He then grabs for the little tub of putty. Whew. The hard part is over. He puttys up the trails and and then attempts to fill the hole. Its not a huge hole but this is going to be fun. He does a very nice job of it though. After he smooths it all out he puts the top on and hands me the putty knives. Im in the kitchen cleaning them off while he gets up off the crate. That wasnt something I wanted to watch anyways.

That task completed he tells me that I need to come back tomorrow to sand off the wall and redo the hole again. Not a big deal. Easy enough. At least he left the plastic in place on the wall. The crate gets moved out of the way and the plastic on the floor folded and the job is done for the day.

Hardly. He now shows me all through the apartment where there are tiny spots that are evidently potential locations for termites. Oh goodie. Thats my job for tomorrow is to putty them up too. Nothing bad but Im sure he will make another project by putting more holes in the walls for more moth balls to go in.

Im looking for some fresh air to breathe when he suggests that we go out to lunch. Fine by me and off we go. After that we stop in to Kmart and pick up some school supplies for the brat. Yeah she was very good and sat very patiently through all that back at the house. She was rewarded with a treat and we then went home.

My head is still pounding and I just cant seem to get that smell of moth balls out of my sinuses. Im thinking that I need to stick my head in the freezer for a little while. I dont know if that will help but its hotter than hell out today. Oh wait... I have some freezy pops in there. Im thinking a nice sugar rush will do the trick.