sweasel.com

A good sound sample is here. We have five or six of these fuckers going in different parts of the house right now.

Think chlorinated hydrocarbons. Capable of killing any life form on the planet. And with a half-life of something like 35 years, so one application should hold you for a good, long while. Of course, they’re undoubtedly banned there, as the best ones are in the US. But if you’re in touch with the shady underworld of black market insecticides, go for it.

Oh – don’t get any on you. Mammals are a hell of a lot easier to poison than insects.

Clickity lovesongs. Castanets? Dig in there and there’s probably a fiesta in progress.

And Jolly Olde thought drowning the Armada was the end of things…

Tricksy, them spaniards.

The irony is, Gnus, when and where Badger House was built, the principle was, more or less: 1/ decide to build a house. 2/ Wait for ship to sink. 3/ Salvage wood.

Could well have been one of Don Halfwit’s boats.

Or a French vessel. That would have been good. Maybe even better.

Merdre!

Ewwwwwwwwww! I can think of nothing else to say. Just ewwwwww! Moving back to the US would certainly cross my mind. Ewwwwwwwwww!

Yuck. Nothing like the joys of having to tent your house for 24 hours while caustic fumes are pumped into the place to kill everything that ever exhibited any sign of life.

Good luck with that. 🙁

Witches of Eastwick

“Moving back to the US would certainly cross my mind.”

What, back to the termites and powderpost beetles? 😉

P&B. I think you mean “Practical Magic” with Sandra Bullock.

I’m a great fan of Timbor. It’s mostly borate and pretty innocuous for us vertebrates, but not for bugs. I treated all the floor joists in my house (after an expensive, bug-caused replacement) and I chortled thinking of the next bug that took a bite of that wood and keeled over. Hey, I provide them with *plenty* of scrap wood to gnaw on. I draw the line at my HOUSE.

What happened to IRB over there? He looks like Sloth from the Goonies!

Oops, you are correct scuba! Got my witches mixed up.

Sorry to hear that, Weas. Hope you guys can kill ’em dead.

*points to the left sidebar* Did everyone notice the new graphic? I think I’m going to have nightmares now.

Nuke them from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

or we’ll go howling psychotic

Go?

Airdale – Don’t forget the high platau where the ship they came in is located. Gotta get the source too… 😉

My best friend as a kid used to live in a listed building and I always wondered what those little, (seemingly) perfectly circular holes in the beams were.

Is there nothing to be done? That’d keep me awake at night.

It seems opinions differ, Gibby. The fact that the place is listed means any treatment will have to be pretty conservative (naturally!). I’ve booked a surveyor to come at the end of April. No one seems to think the house will fall down before then.

Mind you, the ticking might drive us crazy.

Sounds like a good Hitchcock movie in their somewhere! Tick, tick, tick (pan to psycho with a knife…)

Play Yoko Ono CD’s all day and night. I know bugs and bugs can’t stand the howling and the inanity and the howling or the
inane howling.

Sure, you’ll have to pull you own heads off because of the stupid bint wailing but it’s the principle of the thing.

Ender Wiggin would know what to do.

Seems kinda limited, living in an historical monument. Or is it hysterical? Hard to keep ’em straight.

You think the castanets are bad, Uncle B, wait until they start the flamenco. Ole!

Would I be ridiculous for asking why they don’t just fumigate the wood when it is fresh and stop the problem before it starts?

I must say, the discussion of worms eating wood is much more palatable than the discussion of worms eating people over at Steamboat McGoo’s. Hadn’t thought it possible to send me screaming out of a blog. Doing a hell of a job over there. 🙂

Long time no catch-up, hope you’re doing well, Weas. Great post-pic of MichellObama hugging da Queen Mum.

Long time no catch-up, hope you’re doing well, Weas. Great post-pic of MichellObama hugging da Queen Mum.

Now that I would like to see. The Queen Mum has been dead for seven years.

As for the wood, those beams are several hundred years old. I’m not sure what wood-fumigating techniques, if any, existed back then.

Mrs. Peel — Mister Hill and I noticed it too, last night — made me shudder! But when did it appear? (We’re either observant or slow on the uptake — heh!)

Could well have been one of Don Halfwit’s boats.

What would he need a boat for? There’s no windmills on the ocean… Maybe he’s going after lighthouses now.

What happened to IRB over there? He looks like Sloth from the Goonies!

“Why you talk so mean ’bout SLOOOOOOTH??”

Ender Wiggin would know what to do.

That’s cause he ALWAYS knows what to do.

Oops. I’m too old when I go on autopilot and open the bullshit floodgates like that. LIZ. Ooops. Hope I didn’t offend.

What I had read was in the original post

Usually, they come in to the house on fresh oak planks when they are still moist, and spend a few hundred years chewing neat holes and lazy channels in the structural members.

I was thinking that people were adding on and getting newer problems.

I really picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

I really picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

Maybe you’ve got worms?

*snickers*

High five to Uncle Badger for leaving the toilet seat up. We can’t let the chicks push us around on this issue.

Well, it could be worse, I suppose….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk97Oil2qnc

😉

Oh, so that was why the house was falling down around her ears …

[…] we had a surveyor in to look at our deathwatch beetles. We got his name from a local real estate agent who deals in ancient buildings. It’s no good […]