This Old Foreclosed House - Do It Like This

There has been some "movement" on This Old Foreclosed House.


Lobsterman reported that this morning a very large dumpster was plopped down on the side of the house, and that a HUGE load of dirt was dumped in the driveway.

Then this cute little beast showed up.

Yes, that's a mini cat, which we thought would be used to fish all of the house innards out of the pool... but wait, they have something even more ingenious planned....

Hmm, look at all of this dirt... what could they possibly do with all of this dirt?

You guessed it!  They broke up the concrete AROUND the edge of the pool and tossed it into the pool, and now they are filling the debris with dirt.  As an added bonus, they also destroyed the red shed (where all of the vermin like to hang out) and threw that in the pool for good measure.


As  you may recall, the family that lived there prior to foreclosing had tried to use fill dirt to fill in the craptastic mosquito laden malaria ridden in ground pool, but were shut down because in our county its illegal to fill in an in ground pool by just dumping fill dirt into it.

Well, apparently nobody told the bank this.

This prompted a call to our friend the County Health Inspector, who I'm sure will be very interested in these developments. 

I gotta admit... their yard is a LOT bigger than I thought with all the crap covered up, but if I were you... I wouldn't try to plant any trees or anything in the yard, you may be digging up the whole back portion of the house.

P.S. They did cut down that stupid tree that kept leaning into our yard, so... whoot. 

P.P.S. They still haven't fixed the damage to our yard where the tree fell over.

P.P.P.S. They even touch our fence and someone's gonna get a size 8 duck boot placed in an uncomfortable area

A Rant **

** Because "OH MY FREAKIN GAH ARE YOU FREAKIN KIDDING ME" has probably been used already.

Ok, so this rant will be about 15 different things that are actually all connected, in a bizarre kind of way.

I know someone who was at a CVS PHARMACY buying a sitz bath and a cane and the cashier actually asked for their last name to verify that the credit card they were using was actually theirs.

1. This assumes that a credit card thief is too incredibly stupid to read the credit card owner's name off the card.
2. If someone stole my credit card and all they were buying was a sitz bath and a cane... just let them get it.  Seriously, if they were desperate enough to steal my card and use it for that... they got some problems.

Coincidentally, the guy at the next counter was buying heartburn pills and got asked for his birth date... because apparently there's a new under aged heartburn relief gang?

At 7pm Saturday night, we had a prescription for Vicodin called in... for long time readers, you'll know that it wasn't for me because I can't even get Xanax, and I'm pretty sure I qualify for that.  I think I'll start a petition drive.  Throughout all of my myriad of strange issues (broke my foot in two places using a Wii, random cysts that I've all named popping up on my wrists, thumb problems from a car wreck) the only thing I get is Ibuprofen.

Now its not like we live in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere or anything.  We live like 10 minutes from Baltimore (pronounced Balmer) and a half hour from D.C. (Warshington, as my mom calls it) so its not like we commute by Yak and use smoke signals, so you would think it would be relatively easy to find an open pharmacy at 7pm on a Saturday.  I actually think it would be easier to find an open pharmacy on that time and day because that's generally when the drunks who say "Hey, watch this" do something stupid and need a prescription... but NOOOOO.  Its literally impossible to find a pharmacy open after 6pm on the weekends.

Now, let me clarify: an open PHARMACY.  Sure, CVS PHARMACY is open, and so it Rite Aid PHARMACY, but not the PHARMACY part, just the store.

Why bother?  To me, an emergency isn't running out of bread or hair dye.  I've never run frantically to a pharmacy for some late night hair bands or lip gloss, no matter what the weather forecast.  I'm pretty sure I can live without those items for a night, or at the very least GO TO ONE OF THE GAZILLION 7-11, WA-WA, QUICKSTOPS, ROYAL FARMS, GROCERY STORES, OR GAS STATIONS that are open and have this crap in them.  To me, an emergency is needing some guy to count out 20 vicodine to keep from writhing in pain over night.

IF YOU CALL YOURSELF A PHARMACY THEN KEEP THE PHARMACY OPEN WHEN THE STORE IS OPEN!!!

Better yet, if your Web site says you are open until 9pm HOW ABOUT YOU PUT IN BIGGER PRINT THAT YOUR FREAKIN PHARMACY CLOSES AT 6 SO SOMEONE DOESN'T GO SHLEPPING OUT AT 7PM ONLY TO FIND THE PHARMACY CLOSED!

Then, at 10am when the pharmacy opens, but your pharmacist calls in sick... when the person who got burned the night before calls to make sure you are open and have the prescription called in the night before ready and waiting, how about you just tell them the ETA of the replacement pharmacist instead of making the already irate customer play 20 questions:

Me: So... when will the replacement show up.
Rite Aid Moron (RAM): He's been called and he's on the way
Me: Is he flying in from Pakistan?
RAM: ???
Me: When do you think he'll get there?
RAM: He's on the way
Me: so... will he be there today, or perhaps next week?
RAM: Oh today!
Me (banging head against wall): roughly about what time today?
RAM: Oh... maybe like 11

So... now I wish I hadn't failed miserable with my new year's resolution: Become a Crack Ho.

At least I could have whipped up something in the bathtub using common household products.

The Rat Trap

A few months ago I noticed that some sort of vermin had dug a hole under my fence. I can only imagine that its some starving rat, taking advantage of the lack of rat snakeability looking at my yard for foodstuffs from Ye Olde Foreclosed Home.

I poured Quikrete down the hole, poured in water, and thought the problem was solved... not so fast.

A few days later, right next to the cemented area was another hole. I knew that I was dealing with a very determined rat. Although determined, this rat has to be dumber than a box of rocks to dig INTO a yard with 3 Siberian Huskies wandering around. I commonly see Loki sitting patiently near the hole, waiting, waiting, waiting for it to come out. He’s very good at that. He’ll wait prey out, catching moles, mice, fledgling birds, whatever, just by sitting perfectly still and pretending to be a lawn ornament. Either that or they just eventually commit suicide and run into his mouth.

So I looked into the various and sundry types of ways to capture, kill, maim, destroy and obliterate various and sundry types of vermin.

Hav-A-Heart traps Good concept, except for one thing... WTH do you do with it once you caught it? Its not like I’m Billy the Exterminator (who I LOVE, so don’t be mocking Billy) and have thousands of miles of forest area to free trapped critters. The best I could do would be to call animal control for pick up, and the poor critter would die of old age in the trap by the time they showed up, or release it into the foreclosed home area... but all I’d be doing there is training the critter that it could come to my place for a free meal and lounge in the trap for a while, like a mini all-inclusive vacation. Of course, there’s always “disposing” of the critter but what kind of humane way is there to “dispose” of them other than drowning or shooting them (and frankly the county frowns upon firearms discharging).

Poison: errr, no way. There’s absolutely, positively no way I’d use poison on critters, not because its a horrible death (which it is) I honestly don’t have a problem with vermin dying horrible deaths, its just that I don’t want poison ANYWHERE near my dogs, I don’t want something non-targeted to get into the poison, and once the vermin die, don’t want my dogs or other non-targeted animals eating poison dead vermin. Plus the vermin usually crawl somewhere unfortunate to die and stink, so poison is right out.

Glue Traps: While handy indoors, they don’t work for crap outdoors in cold weather. I don’t have a problem using glue traps (bite me Animal Rights nut cases), I do have a problem with removing them from husky fur, as my dogs would no doubt be covered in glue traps because they were “interesting”.

Snap Traps: Once again, I’d be making vet trips with dogs that had snap traps on their noses since peanut butter is the main trap bait, and mine can’t resist peanut butter.

Call a pest control company: but what are they going to do that I can’t do? Charge me a lot of money to set a trap, that’s what.

So, using logical (for me) thinking, I’d need something non-poisonous, non-sticky (because of the cold), that would kill the vermin (so I wouldn’t have to) that the dogs couldn’t get into it. Once again... watching Billy the Exterminator pays off. I found this really cool AMERICAN company (and from what I can tell, they are family run) Do My Own Pest Control

They have the really cool professional grade rat bait stations that you can put one of their T-Rex Rat traps in. It has a hex lock, and a way to anchor it to the ground. This solves the following problems:

1.) Dogs getting snapped by traps
2.) Dogs playing hockey with the enclosed trap thing
3.) Dogs snacking on the dead critter once the critter is dead
4.) Dogs picking the lock to get at the peanut butter

PERFECT! I order a bait station and a trap online and then spend hours gleefully imagining the fun that will ensue.

Unfortunately, the weather took a turn for the worse in Georgia, which delayed my shipment. To their credit, they immediately e-mailed to let me know that not only couldn’t they get to their shop, but all of the shippers couldn’t get around on the slippery roads, and apologized profusely for the delay... which lead me to respond:

“Dear Customer Service,

I want to thank you for the e-mail in regard to the status of my rat trap order. I want to assure you that I totally understand the delay, and frankly I wouldn't be able to live with myself if one of your employees injured or killed themselves trying to mail out my rat trap. I'd have to change my name, possibly move out of the country, and that's just a hassle.

Even if I had ordered a brain eating zombie trap, it would be silly of me to be upset under the current weather circumstances, and totally irrational not to buy one locally, although when attacked by brain eating zombies, one typically doesn't think clearly.

I appreciate your update and fine customer service, and although I don't hope I have a need to buy more traps, if you do market a brain eating zombie trap, I'll be sure to get it from your fine company.

regards“

Pretty much everyone in customer service responded, and even thanked me for suggesting the brain eating zombie trap as a potential untapped resource for them.

To which I responded:

”I’m pretty sure you could make a zillion dollars with an effective brain eating zombie trap. You just never know when the zombie apocalypse will kick off, and frankly, even if it wasn't effective... I'm pretty sure you wouldn't get any complaint e-mails, as zombies can't type.“

At last check, my rat trap is in the vicinity and scheduled for delivery on Monday... I’ll let you know how it goes, but if you ever need any sort of pest control stuff... please visit Do My Own Pest Control

Fond Childhood Memory: The Bean Incident

I'm soaking some beans tonight because tomorrow I plan on cooking them and a hunk of ham (with bone) in the crockpot for some tasty bean soup... which jogged this fond childhood memory of the bean incident.

So, I have no idea how old I am when this happened, but every Saturday my dad use to cook something incredibly tasty, and since it was a snowy, cold day, he decided to cook ham and beans.

I'm sure you are aware that when beans are in the package, they're pretty small, and you have to soak them overnight before you cook them... well, Dad did that, but the amount of beans in one package didn't seem like a whole lot, so he used like... 5 packages.

By morning they had swelled to mammoth proportions and we had to keep transferring them to bigger and bigger bowls and we ended up having to use one of those HUGE canning pots to hold them all.  Mom was off somewhere most of the day, so we were all in charge of seasoning and watching the beans cooking to make sure they didn't double in size again and take over the kitchen. 

Since we had so many beans, we figured we'd make a few phone calls and invite half the neighborhood over, because, seriously, who can eat a vat of beans?

Well, mom had some stomach issues and couldn't eat pepper.  We did add some pepper to the beans, but just a normal amount, barely enough (in all of our opinions) to set off her stomach "condition", but when mom walked through the door later that night, the first thing she shrieked was that she could SMELL the pepper, and then went off on a tirade about her stomach condition and the pepper (mom was also going through the "change", which is yet another fond childhood memory I'll share later).

An argument ensued and just as the the neighborhood friends came into the front door, dad took the entire vat of ham and beans and threw it out the back door, much to the delight of Barney, our terrier-mix dog (the white dog on the left, the schnauzer is Baron... yet another fond childhood memory forthcoming).

I greeted the neighbors by saying "hey, glad you can make it... dad just threw the beans into the back yard".  Being good friends, they laughed until they cried, because good friends don't think its bizarre for us to toss a vat of beans into the back yard.

What Barney couldn't eat that night, he buried in the snow and feasted on it for days, and as far as I know, he thought there was just enough pepper in it.  We opened up some canned soup and drank heavily and had a good time.