House work back home

Blog Post About June 2021

While I was moving every three days in America to a different location, Doug was busy with work and construction on the house.

He hired some guys to build up a wall on our roof so that it would be the height of a door. 

That way, he could put a roof and a door on and give us a storage room.

This is the lot next to our house. It also looks through, past another empty lot, to another street.

This is where the builders put their supplies and cement bags.  As a matter of fact, today it's seven months later, and there is still a pile of dirt out there that didn't get used to make cement.

After all the supplies were delivered, they started hauling cement bags up to the roof...through our living area.

The opening on the left is where we walk up stairs to our roof. 

These guys are building up the wall, so that a door can be put in that opening.

Here is their pile of cement they are using.

The slow-down occurred when this crew got Covid. They stopped work for a while, and didn't complete it for three more months, in September. 

And if you read my newsletter, you remember the dabacle with the next crews that were hired to spackel the walls. 

The first crew asked me to feed them breakfast and then serve tea throughout the day. When we saw they weren't working and a foreman working for us finally fired them, they came back later while the second crew was there and made all kinds of threats until the police were called.

When the wall finally got spackeled, then a roof crew came, and then finally a door guy (not quickly, of course).

Around November, we were finally able to see the floor in this room, because...

All of this stuff was finally able to be moved to this new storage area.

ALSO, while the roof was being worked on, Doug hired a guy to put screens on our windows and door (You would have to look many hours to find a screen on a window in this country - the rare).

If you remember our first house where we lived by a chicken butcher, you remember the number of flies we dealt with. Feel free to click on the link to be grossed out.

Now we have screens!!

ALSO, Doug had to order another water truck to come to the house. This was about the time one of the neighbors realized the pipes weren't bringing water to the neighborhood. 

A neighbor contacted the government, and the government arranged for the problem to be fixed. While the street was dug up and pipes replaced, Doug sat outside with all of the men on the street while they watched and ate ice cream :)

Water is a precious gift.

Living Next to a Butcher

If you just ate, you might consider pausing before you read this.

We had the ingenious idea to "fix" the fly situation outside our front door.

We bought these bags that you add water to, and then the smell of whatever's in the included pouch draws the flies into the water and they can't get out.

One drawback.

No, make that two.

The first draw back is the awful smell the pouch puts off.  It smells just like rotting food that flies are attracted to (or the dirty chickens next door).

The second drawback is the smell of dead flies or maggots after they are caught in the bag and sit for a while.

I'm not talking a long while.

If you will scroll down, you will see the before and after pictures, and the "AFTER" is taken only SIX days after.

Gross, right?

So we tried it again, and within four days the bag was full and smelly.

Then Doug had the brilliant idea to stop.

That's right.  Stop trapping flies.

Our traps were drawing all the flies from our front door AND the chicken butchery.  We were basically ridding them of a fly problem and creating more work for us.

We stopped four days ago, and now the smell we get in our nose isn't nasty fly bait, it's nasty chickens.

And the flies have found their way back over to the chickens, because we only have about 5-6 hanging around our door at any given time.

I bought a fly swatter and we are considering an electric fly zapper for outside when our block has power.

It's a work in progress, so I'll let you know how it all plays out in these hot summer months with nasty, hot chickens next door.