Shortly after moving into this house we noticed a problem with creepy crawlies. Now I'm not terrified of insects but I would prefer them to not be in our house. Some of these insects were to be expected given the location and design of the house. What we really learned is insects can be a very good indicator of other problems such as moisture. If you eliminate the causation then you eliminate the insects. We also learned that even though you eliminate the cause it can sometimes take a couple of weeks to notice any change in the number of insects. At times especially if the insect problem is caused from infiltration though cracks and crevices it is quite possible to seal these effectively sealing the insects in the house. In this case it may take manual removal as well a natural die off to eliminate those insects inadvertently trapped in the house.
Creepy Crawlies
We identified a few problem insects like the huge diving spiders (top left) and large black funnel spiders (top right). The boxwoods edging the lower patio were laiden with funnel spiders giving them easy access to indoors. Originally we thought the multitude of house centipedes (bottom left) were normal but after considerable research we found they were actually beneficial insects and indicators of other insect infestations combined with moisture. Earwigs (bottom right) were quite common around the foundation and occasionally a few found their way indoors. Other insects not pictured that enjoyed our indoors during our first year were pill bugs, millipedes, carpenter ants and a small fuzzy brown beetle with yellow markings.
End of Day
In August of 2009 we discovered the reason for some of our major plumbing problems that caused flooding in the furnace room. The portion of the drainage pipes were dug up from the house to the side of the patio leaving us with a lovely hole resembling a grave for a couple of weeks while the plumber did a lot of troubleshooting to discover the actual problem. Having dealt with having the front yard dug up the year before due to plumbing problems we knew it would likely be a huge mess. This solution resulted in running new drainage lines tearing up a good portion of our backyard. Pictured is the backyard after the new lines were run.
©2006-2010
0 comments:
Post a Comment