Week Four

Day One

Week Four got started with a bang.

I got into a heated shouting match with Roberta, my next door neighbor.

I have a crawlspace under the house. There are three vents in the crawlspace. I normally keep them blocked off, as I've seen cats using the space before. When the demo guys busted out the driveway, though, they pulled the screen away from the vent. I've been propping it back into position ever since, but it never seems to stay. On Saturday, I saw a cat run under there as we drove up. I went inside and stomped on the floor until he ran out. I thought it was the only cat under there, but apparently I was wrong. Oh, well. I blocked the vent with the screen and a big piece of concrete.

I do not want cats chillin' like villains in the crawlspace. I do not want them using my crawlspace as a litterbox. I want them out. And I proceeded to express this opinion to Roberta at elevated decibel levels.

Fig. 1. Crawlspace vent, blocked with screen, Week One.

When I showed up to the house this afternoon, I saw five cats run into the crawlspace opening. The concrete was pushed aside, and the board that covered the opening lay nine feet away. I strode quickly toward the opening, but my progress was blocked by Roberta, who came storming from her house yelling, "you leave those cats alone!" What follows is a heavily-edited synopsis of a very heated discussion. Although this probably isn't exactly how it played out, I think I've touched on most of the major issues we discussed. I've probably written this down so that if Roberta or I repeated a sentence, say five times, I've only put it in here once or twice. And in the interests of good writing, although we were shouting at each other, I'm not using an exclamation point to conclude each sentence.

R: Don't you do anything to those cats. You trapped them in there the other day.

D: What are they doing under my house?

R: You blocked cats in there the other day. I've got a $300 vet bill because one of the cats hurt himself trying to get out.

D: The cats don't belong under the house. They don't belong on my property. Frankly, I'm to the point where I'm singing off the same page as Marilyn over there. [Gesture across the alley] The cats are a nuisance. [Backstory. The neighbor across the alley, Marilyn, was annoyed by these two horrible tomcats that yowled and fought all night long. She apparently trapped them, then told Roberta after the fact that they were annoying and if Roberta didn't do something about her cats, I believe "control them" was the phrase used, Marilyn was going to do something. What she didn't tell Roberta was that she already had. She trapped them and got rid of them before she even called Roberta, who told me this several months ago, and was almost in tears as she told me.]

Continuing

D: I'm tired of stepping in cat crap every time I walk through the yard. I'm tired of smelling it.

R: I step in cat crap, too.

D: So that makes it okay that I do? Maybe you could start coming over and cleaning it up out of my yard so I don't have to step in it anymore. And another thing, the cat pen in the backyard has a stench that's so overpowering, I can't even sit out back in the evening. What's to be done about that?

R: I wasn't aware of that. I never smell anything. I'm in there every day.

D: Of course you don't smell it. Your nose doesn't smell anything anymore. And it happens in the evening, when there's no breeze. It reeks. When Brian was out here this spring, he couldn't even sit out on the patio to work in the evenings. The smell would drive us into the house.
You need to start getting rid of some of these cats. The lady down the alley breeds them, then you feed them and here they are, crapping in my yard.

R: I just have a soft touch for the stray cats.

D: A soft touch is one thing, but there are thirty cats here. How many cats does one person need?

R: I know how many cats there are, I pay for the cat food. I have them spayed and neutered. I've spent thousands of dollars on vet bills. And it always seems like after I pay to have one fixed, it disappears somewhere.

D: Why can't we take them to the no-kill shelter? Let's start getting rid of some of them.

R: They're feral cats. You can't take them to the shelter. They won't take them.

D: Well how about when they're kittens? I see kittens in the alley all the time. Trap them and take them in. Don't feed them.

R: The lady on the other side feeds them, too.

D: Doesn't make any difference. They shouldn't be here. They shouldn't be under the house. [Emphasize every word in this next sentence] I don't want my house smelling like your cat pen.

R: But you don't want the smell of a dead cat under there, either.

D: The cats shouldn't be under there. Charlie told me when I was doing my walk-through on this place, "oh, I hope you like cats." [ed note. This last sentence should be spoken in a really disgusted voice, such as "I've put up with these mangy beasts for six years, now it's your turn." Roberta once told me that Charlie accused one of the cats of spraying into the swamp cooler pad, once. Imagine what the house smelled like, and for how long.]

R: [Doesn't know exactly how to respond to the Charlie comment. She shrugs. "Who cares," is the subtext of her shrug.]

We went back and forth like this in a heated tone for several minutes. She then suggested I get into my crawlspace and shoo the cats out. I asked why should I be responsible for getting them out if I didn't put them in there? Aside from a trap door in the closet floor, which is covered with junk, I don't have any way into the crawl space to get them out. Then she suggested that we ask the guy across the street to have his two little kids crawl into the vent and get the cats out. There's roughly a foot of space between the ground and the floor above in the crawlspace. Like I want to assume the liability for that if the kids get hurt. Or have my floor torn up by firefighters if they get stuck. Roberta kept telling me she's the kind of person that just can't turn a cat away, yadda yadda. She said these are feral cats, and that the Humane Society won't take them. The only thing she can do is feed them. She also told me that she didn't know how the vent cover ended up nine feet from the vent, other than "maybe a dog came and dragged it there," or that a cat got hung up on it as it was exiting the hole. She told me that several times. Yeah, right. She was pissed at me and threw it over there, and left it there for emphasis. Yadda yadda yadda.

We left it with me grudgingly apologizing for shouting, and Roberta apologizing for the cats being a nuisance. She didn't say she'd do anything about them, though, which means I'm going to have to. Read into that what you will. I've created a separate "Cats" page so you can monitor my progress in dealing with the filthy infestation.

And just in case anyone cares about the injured cat, I didn't offer to pay the vet bill for it, just like Roberta hasn't offered to pay for the scratches in Leisa's car where the cats walk all over it. Or the many car washes that have been screwed up by teeny sets of muddy cat prints everywhere. Or the winter lawns I've put down, only to have cats tear them up, little by little, to cover their mess.

Cats are nothing but hairballs, surrounded by a complete waste of space.

And then, And THEN, AND THEN, I came by Leisa's house to make this contemporaneous entry onto the website, when who do I see, but my favorite young scholar, Justin, walking down the street at 2:45pm. He gets out of school at 3:15. I pulled up and asked what he was doing at home. He told me that since he's failing History anyway, he didn't feel like going, and that he just got home about fifteen minutes earlier. He told me he only skipped sixth period. I pay for his cell phone, and I took it away from him even before I went inside. He has use of the cell provided he attends school. No attendee, no talkee. He alleged he's only skipped his last class, yet as I'm walking into the house, I noticed a roach lying on the planter. I could smell the aroma of freshly-smoked weed inside the house. The little delinquent has been ditching school all day, hanging out smoking weed. Justin and I had a discussion two weeks ago about not smoking in the house since we're getting it ready to sell. He assured me he wouldn't do it again. It wasn't nice of me, but I took out my anger towards Roberta and the cats on Justin. Not a good day to be Justin. I also took away my cd walkman which he's been using. I'm now answering his phone when it rings, and informing the callers that Justin was naughty and got his phone repossessed. I looked through the caller id at the calls he's received and made today. Most of them are between 10am and 11am. He's been making and receiving calls all morning. I also noticed that the TV in his room was on, as well as a connection to the internet. He was home for "15 minutes," yet he had time to smoke a blunt, watch TV, and surf the net. So much for "I only skipped sixth period. " Liar.

It's now 1am Tuesday morning and he's still not home. He called earlier for a ride and Leisa told him no; that he got where he was by himself, he could get back home by himself. I think he knows he's in trouble and just plain doesn't want to come home. As dumb as he is, he's a smart kid.

Oh, and in case you're looking for pictures of the really big hole, nothing happened on the house today.

Day 2

Excavation began in earnest today. The excavation contractor brought in a machine that could reach the full depth, as well as navigate past the worthless shed that Leisa so despises.

The pile of dirt was nearly as big as Georgia's garage/guest house. They also had a backhoe, with which they were loading dirt into a dump truck. The dirt was being hauled away to I know not where. This is the pile of dirt that accumulated between dump truck runs.

Here are a few action photos of the excavation in progress. The basement ceiling is going to be about nine feet high, which are the same height as the ceilings in the house. We won't have that claustrophobic seven foot ceiling that my finished basement had when I was a child growing up in Denver. The hole is about nine feet deep, and is about eleven feet below the floor level in the existing structure.

You've seen action shots of the backhoe, now here are a couple of action shots of the beam, doing its work.

After the excavation began, Mark called Leisa at work and left a message on her machine. In a serious voice, he told her that there were some "problems" at the site. The beam had "just snapped" while they were digging, and the house fell in the hole. Leisa's insides suddenly felt as empty as the hole. Then she heard Mark laughing. She promptly called me and accused me of putting Mark up to the joke. I hadn't, but was very pleased with Mark for doing it!

A while later, I called her and told her Jim and I had been at the site, and that there were more "problems." The excavator had uncovered an old septic system that would have to be dealt with. Leisa immediately accused me of making that up. I denied it, and handed the phone to Jim, who was the one that suggested the idea of the "septic system" in the first place. Jim gave a very convincing account of old septic tanks, and what was involved in removing them. He gave the phone back to me. Leisa was nearly beside herself when I told her it would probably only be about $1,400 or $1,500 to remove and dispose of the tank. We'd be on the hook for that, since the contractor had no way of knowing that the septic tank was buried in the yard when the job was bid. Then I started laughing, and Leisa said mean things to me.

Three weeks ago, this door opened into my spare bedroom.

Fig. 2. Crawlspace vent after Roberta "put it back in place."

Cat update:

Roberta wasn't home while I was there, so I didn't have to deal with her. I did notice, though, that she hadn't covered the vent back up like she told me she would the day before.

I'm thinking about putting a cat trap in my crawlspace. Residents in the Arcadia area of Phoenix are having problems with Norwegian Roof Rats. I'm having problems with cats. Cats chase rats. (All I need to know I learned in kindergarten. Example: The Farmer in the Dell--"The cat takes the rat, the cat takes the rat, Hi Ho the dairy oh, the cat takes the rat.") I could catch the cats, then release them in Arcadia, where they would thrive on the rats. After the rats are all gone, some old lady over there who has a soft spot for the beasts will probably start feeding the cats. I think it's a win-win situation. And if they make their way back, it'll be one of these cool Incredible Journey moments, and I can probably write a book and sell it to Disney (for a hefty sum as well as points on both box office and video) and I'll be fabulously wealthy. Kevin Spacey was good in Swimming with Sharks, and could play me in the movie, and although she's a little young for the part, maybe Katharine Hepburn could play Roberta. If cats made it back, I'd have to trap and remove again, and that means a sequel.

Day three update: Justin didn't go to history today, either. Leisa received the call that said "Your child missed one or more classes today." Every day he skips history is another day he doesn't get the phone or the internet back. Nothing happened on the hole. They're getting ready to pour the concrete foundation and slab, probably on Friday.

Days Four and Five

Not much happened at the end of the week. They finished the excavation and began laying out for the foundation, as well as the sewer line that'll run under the slab to the pumping station. Mark and I had a discussion about the sewer line and pumping station.

Since Roberta apparently has no objection to feral feces, we figured she'd be down with people poop, too. Rather than re-routing the sewer line from the west side of the property to the east, we'll just pump the human waste into Roberta's yard. She purports not to be able to smell odors, and apparently doesn't mind stepping in crap, so I'm sure she won't mind a little bit more.

As Clarice Starling once said, "quid pro quo...."

Here's the finished hole, complete with access ramp. The foundation and sewer lines were laid out on Friday.

Here's a better shot of where the footers will be. The green line is the sewer line, running from the master bath to the macerating sump pump beneath the stairs.

Here are shots of two fabulous babes and the really big hole. The chick on the left is Brittany, who has overcome her initial reticence to venture near the edge. The chick on the right is the incomparably lovely Leisa, who had her makeup airbrushed on a few minutes before this photo was taken. She wants to have someone else do her makeup on her wedding day, and had auditioned a makeup guy that afternoon. She was pleased with the results, and booked a 2pm appointment on May 17th. And what better place for a photo shoot that a nine foot deep hole in the backyard?

We also got a Christmas tree last weekend. It's a live tree, and we'll plant it somewhere on the grounds as part of the landscaping project. Check out the cute Barney Gumbel ornament, too.

It looks almost like Charlie Brown's tree.