Little Bastards.
No, I'm not referring to the kids down the street, I'm talking about these assholes:
Don't let their cute appearance fool you, these little shit disturbers are pure evil. Let me tell you a story...
In the summer of 2004, my parents noticed these cute guys hanging around our house. They were a cute little diversion, and add to the wildlife we see around here, including a few deer, and lots of birds. Well, after a while, my folks starting here some funny sounds coming from above the garage, and "in" the front wall of the house. After some investigation, they found that there was an entire family of racoons living in the soffit at the front of our house! Not so cute anymore. They ended up having to hire a pest control guy to come and remove the mother and babies. Except, they weren't able to catch all of the babies, so they had to come back at least once to pick up the orphans. Oh, and just so you know, they didn't kill the little buggers, just released them into the wild, away from our house. The family hasn't come back since, and all is well...
OK, fast forward to Decemeber 2005. There is a bathroom in the front of the house, on the upper floor. On a particularily cold day, I noticed that the water wasn't flowing, and the floor was very cold. We put a heater in there, and things got flowing safely within a few hours. Fast forward to January 2006, and the same thing happened again! Well, thinking it was due to the racoons who had been living in the soffit directly in front of the bathroom, I decided to climb up there and check it out. Well, it turns out the racoons has decided to pull out fibreglass insulation to use as material for a nest. There was a 4'x4' square of outer wall with NO insulation! After the weather warmed up, I did my best to patch it up with some new insulation, and thick tarp, to cut down on the wind. And we had made plans to get a pro up there to perfect my shabby job (Skelhorne knows all about my excellent handy work).
ANYWAY (holy crud this is long), before anything was done, we had another cold snap, and this time, we were not so lucky. A pipe froze, and then burst. Unfortunately, it happened during the day, when no one was home.
The water was flowing down from the upper floor for 2 hours, at full force. It managed to soak my dad's office (luckily, no computer), and then down into the basement, and totally ruin the entire downstairs. Every shred of carpet was soaked, some walls were ruined and lots of things we had stored down there was soaked as well. Thank goodness for insurance, as the repair costs were about $20,000! Here is a shot of the basement after tearing up all of the carpet and sub-flooring, and with some serious dehumidifiers running.
Just this past week was when things were finally moved back after the carpet was replaced. All told, the whole event took 2 months from accident to resolution.
Like I said, those assholes are pure evil, and if I ever see them again, I'm going to punch them in the face.
Don't let their cute appearance fool you, these little shit disturbers are pure evil. Let me tell you a story...
In the summer of 2004, my parents noticed these cute guys hanging around our house. They were a cute little diversion, and add to the wildlife we see around here, including a few deer, and lots of birds. Well, after a while, my folks starting here some funny sounds coming from above the garage, and "in" the front wall of the house. After some investigation, they found that there was an entire family of racoons living in the soffit at the front of our house! Not so cute anymore. They ended up having to hire a pest control guy to come and remove the mother and babies. Except, they weren't able to catch all of the babies, so they had to come back at least once to pick up the orphans. Oh, and just so you know, they didn't kill the little buggers, just released them into the wild, away from our house. The family hasn't come back since, and all is well...
OK, fast forward to Decemeber 2005. There is a bathroom in the front of the house, on the upper floor. On a particularily cold day, I noticed that the water wasn't flowing, and the floor was very cold. We put a heater in there, and things got flowing safely within a few hours. Fast forward to January 2006, and the same thing happened again! Well, thinking it was due to the racoons who had been living in the soffit directly in front of the bathroom, I decided to climb up there and check it out. Well, it turns out the racoons has decided to pull out fibreglass insulation to use as material for a nest. There was a 4'x4' square of outer wall with NO insulation! After the weather warmed up, I did my best to patch it up with some new insulation, and thick tarp, to cut down on the wind. And we had made plans to get a pro up there to perfect my shabby job (Skelhorne knows all about my excellent handy work).
ANYWAY (holy crud this is long), before anything was done, we had another cold snap, and this time, we were not so lucky. A pipe froze, and then burst. Unfortunately, it happened during the day, when no one was home.
The water was flowing down from the upper floor for 2 hours, at full force. It managed to soak my dad's office (luckily, no computer), and then down into the basement, and totally ruin the entire downstairs. Every shred of carpet was soaked, some walls were ruined and lots of things we had stored down there was soaked as well. Thank goodness for insurance, as the repair costs were about $20,000! Here is a shot of the basement after tearing up all of the carpet and sub-flooring, and with some serious dehumidifiers running.
Just this past week was when things were finally moved back after the carpet was replaced. All told, the whole event took 2 months from accident to resolution.
Like I said, those assholes are pure evil, and if I ever see them again, I'm going to punch them in the face.
posted by CMac at 5:54 PM
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