instead of us having to move a ton of stuff and Dri-Loc the basement wall—
Jane discovered a tiny leak in a ‘winter shutoff valve’ that has a tiny drain-tap in the overhead near the wall in question.
Jane has applied plumber’s tape to the threads and screwed it back on…and we are hoping that solves our problem.
Keeping fingers crossed that Jane has nipped the problem in the bud. . .
Oh, and, yes, those were termites. When I pulled back the curtain to take out the garbage (out the sliding glass door in my bedroom which serves as the back door) there were mud tubes on the door jam. The termite guy has been out and I now have official confirmation. He’s going to be getting with my landlady to talk options.
For your edification and amusement, on life with cats and life online:
So, as transportation is sometimes an issue, and as my cell phone was out due to a glitch while changing carriers, I ordered cat supplies online from Petco for delivery to my new apartment door.
You can see already there’s going to be trouble, right?
I’d already received my order of dry and moist cat food, so we were good there. But hey, cat litter is the other main need, and with two cats and now only one litter box for the apartment…. Yeah, running out could be a matter of some urgent distress. (The cats had two litter boxes at my former home.) I’m still adjusting to the frequency.
So I ordered cat litter and a few other supplies before I was going to run out this week.
Today, I checked the shipping status. 4? 4 what? Yes, 4 big pails of cat litter, 16 lbs. each. I believe this is the size I usually get in the store, but I ordered 2.
But no. I must have clicked twice and it took both, therefore 4, and I didn’t catch it when reviewing the order. Now, it was a cheaper brand than I usually get in-store. Much cheaper. So I’m not out a lot of money for it. It will certainly get used. I estimate 6 to 8, maybe 9 weeks. But I’ll want to see how that plays out in reality.
So ahem, I can expect 4 big pails of cat litter to arrive at my door (or worse, at the apt. mgr’s. office!) along with a small box of other cat supplies. (The scoop didn’t make it in the move. Other necessary items I am or will soon be out of.)
I emailed the new friends who’d bought the former house to renovate and flip, and after relating this, said it might have other uses: brick mortar, or quick-set concrete perhaps! :rofl: — At least one of them should understand, as he has one or more dogs.
It should arrive Wednesday. I really hope I don’t have to go by the apartment offices….
Hahahah! :headdesk: 4 pails. Oh, the felinity. (Huh, you mean auto-correct thinks that’s a word, but it can’t spell half the common words I use?)
It’s a good thing it’s a two bedroom apartment instead of one. 4 pails. Oh. My. Goodness. Hahahah. — Well, the cats should be, ah, relieved, shall we say….
Do American appartments not have something like a “bike shed” in the basement, a place to keep your bikes and trash cans and boxes of paper awaiting collection and leftover paint tins and cat litter pails and such stuff, that you don’t want cluttering up your appartment? Or at least a balcony to keep that sort of stuff on, maybe in a cheap garden cupboard or storage box if you’ve got weather?
There’s a law over here that each dwelling has to have a storage space, easily reached from the street, at least 5 meters square and 1.80 meters wide. Though I guess that rule is because of the ubiquitous bikes, which Americans don’t always have – though I’d expect everybody has stuff they don’t want to keep in the house.
That triggered another idea: I read somewhere that appartment builders in the USA (usually) have to provide parking spaces to their residents (which raises the costs of an appartment). As you don’t have a car to use your space, could you sub-let your parking spot? A friend’s daughter lives in Amsterdam, where parking spots are hard to find, and she sublets her space (in the underground garage at her appartment) to someone living in the appartment building across the road (that family has two cars but only one space is provided per appartment). She gets a nice bit of extra income that way, and just handing on the permit to stick on your car window to someone else is not against the rules. (Or registering someone else’s number plate as yours-for-the-purpose-of-parking with appartment management, if they check for misuse but don’t hand out permit stickers each year).
The apartments I’ve lived in have assigned parking spaces. My sister has a space, even though she doesn’t have a car, so it’s used by my brother and his wife, or by me, when we’re visiting. (Technically, I think we’re supposed to get a pass from the management.)
Usually there’s just a long canopied car park, with a flimsy steel canopy that in Spokane has to be cleared of winter snow—every year there’s a news story about some apartment parking canopy collapse. You’re real lucky if you have an apartment with storage, which is usually in a basement or separate locked building. Or as a closet on your balcony if you’re lucky enough to have one of those.
Oh my, what a lot of differences there are in US and Holland apartments! (And Houston likely differs from New England cities, at least somewhat.)
Houston typically has no basements, due to water seepage or flooding. There is an underground tunnel system (not a subway, for offices, etc.) in the downtown area. But that, you guessed it, flooded (severely) during Allison, Rita, and Ike. (Tropical Storm and 2 Hurricanes.) For skyscrapers, a hole is dug for the foundation, of course.
Parking spaces at many apartment complexes here are car ports; that is, open spaces with a roof, not designated, so whoever gets a space fills it, first come, first served.
My apartment complex is good, pretty safe and family-friendly, lots of younger families with kids, and singles. But even so, there is a difference in assumptions about safety and crime and personal space. Each apartment has a balcony space or little porch/patio if on the ground floor. These have a half-height thin picket fence and gate, to give residents a little personal space. (I looked at that and thought, “token picket fence for token American dream.” Haha.) People keep plants or small patio furniture, as it’s a small space. Most people would *not* keep a small storage box / locker, even locked, outside, out of concerns it might be carried off or broken into. Now, where I live, that seems very unlikely. Yet the mgmt. office goes around and any parcels (mail) left too long is either brought to the office or delivered there in the first place. See, there is an assumption there about expectations of personal and property and mail safety against crime. Whereas in Holland, apparently it’s assumed people and property should be safe from theft, here in the US, that’s not a given; I guess we assume each person is responsible for his/her safety and that crime may be almost anywhere. (It’s a subtle thing. If you’re in a good neighborhood, you assume you’re fine. If you’re in a bad neighborhood, you watch everything. I don’t think in terms of, everywhere and everyone ought to be safe here. I think in terms of, be alert away from home, wherever you go, and know who and what is around you.) From what I’ve heard and seen, the mindset is even more markedly different in Japan versus the US. The Netherlands sounds much better, safer, in this. Is this from America’s Wilde frontier days? Partly, but why it is so, I don’t know really. And I’m not sure how the UK mindset differs from the US, about this.
LOL, the extra cat litter should fit in my bathroom by the toilet, or in a closet, but yes, I wish there were more storage space overall. — I am still not used to how my pots and pans and dishes and pantry supplies, such as spices, fit in my kitchen. The space is smaller but adequate. It’s just a fitting problem and goes against my habits. (Once I have a china cabinet or hutch again, that will help a good deal.)
I really, really wish we had a rule like that about an allotted storage space, accessible from the street / parking lot, for each dwelling. — Yes, bikes are not as common here. Nearly everyone “has to have” a car, because everything is so spread out in a city or town. (es, bikes or scooters would make better sense.) In my case, I never learned how to ride a bike; I’m very rare in this and it’s because of my overprotective parents versus my eyesight. Right now, until/unless my vision can return to what it was, after cataract surgery, it’s not a good idea for me to be biking anyway. But after, I might be able to around a park, say. I would *not* try that on the streets with motor traffic. And Houston is particularly bad among US cities in not having sidewalks and bike paths or bike lanes on streets, unlike some other major US cities and most international cities. Why Houston still doesn’t do this, and votes it down as costing too much…is indefensible, imho.
Maybe this sounds like an appalling state of affairs for Europeans or other international folks. it’s odd: Americans are used to it and don’t think much about it being a set of ways of doing things that ought to be changed, even to the mindset going on. And many places are just fine, safe, friendly enough. But it does come with a slight (or larger) difference in expectations. And yeah, life in a bd neighborhood, like an apartment complex in a bad part of town? I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that. It’s awful for the people who live there. My new place is pretty good, and I’m mostly happy with it still, with a couple of reservations where I’m getting used to dealing with the problems of apartment living, being a tenant / lessee and dealing with mgmt. for repairs or minor problems, say. Still, these apartments are nice and the people, though I still hardly know anyone, seem nice. There are two pools for the complex and sidewalks and hedges (landscaped shrubbery) and plants, so it looks inviting. It’s mostly well maintained.
Ah, about trash collection and disposal: This was a major surprise for me, coming from owning a home. At my former home, I had a large bin (lidded container) for trash and another for recyclables. But the city only picks up recyclables every other week, and unlike most other major cities now, does not have people separate into containers for paper goods, plastics, metals, glass. It’s all together, and they’d stopped (unfortunately) collecting glass. So I carefully, proudly, rinsed out most things and put them into recycling, and could easily have had enough for weekly pickup. I felt, hey, I was really doing my bit to recycle and improve the situation. However, for the apartment complex, this was shocking to me. There are two areas for garbage pickup. Each has two or three mid-sized dumpsters. You carry your garbage bags, boxes, etc. from your apartment to the dumpster as needed. The dumpsters are emptied by trucks twice a week. They fill to nearly overflowing on weekends. There is no separation for recycling. It’s all thrown together, and I have no idea if or how they sort through it. (I’ve seen awful documentaries of trash pickers in other countries, and I really pray it’s not done that way here, but it probably is. I personally find that an uncalled-for burden on people’s souls. Awful.) So, in one week, I could see that a year’s worth of my careful efforts at recycling at my home were far outweighed by what happens here at a typical, and moderate, apartment complex. And I was appalled that there’s no sorting, no separate, designated dumpster for recycling, say, versus trash. I don’t understand that, and it seems horribly irresponsible to me. (I’m not trying to be too political or anything else, but when I, as a citizen, see something like that in my country, and see it should not be so, I think it’s fair to call it out and say it’s wrong and ought to be fixed. I think people here would agree on that as being fair to say, though people may disagree on how to solve things, of course.)
And…I am curious how things are in the UK and in Australia, NZ, etc. Also in Holland and elsewhere in Europe. The US, UK, AU/NZ, and the Netherlands and Germany have enough in common in ancestry and culture, that it’s very curious how our national cultures, our ways of thinking and doing, differ. And I’d say the US ought to take notice and learn from its cousins and shape up right. It’s one of the American ideals to improve our way of life, to make progress for everyone. So why is it that we have lagged behind in some things, for no discernible reason, either for poor judgment of economies, or poor personal lifestyle choices, like these assumptions and ways of doing things show. I love my country. The people here are usually pretty good (though some of the group-think lately and group actions are not smart or egalitarian or progressive). So I want my country to be better, to show it can change and solve problems in the areas it clearly needs to. And how other people in other countries do it, I think bears study and emulation. If we do something better, export those ways. If others do something better, import those ways, make them our own. That’s a commerce of ideas, and it’s how people have improved their lives for generations. We’re a connected world, so why not copy or borrow and incorporate what works better elsewhere for other people, and do that here? And vice versa. That’s what’s driven local and international progress always; the need to find something better to improve how we do things.
Oh my, where did that soapbox come from? Hahaha, please excuse me. I do believe that starry-eyed idealist romantic college boy I used to be just made an appearance again. Hah. I still like some aspects of him, but boy, was he naive and inexperienced! 🙂
Cheers, all. — And this illustrates one of the things I love about this blog and about what’s best on the web. We get to discuss things with open minds, fairly, even disagree, yet share things in common, trade ideas, and learn from all sorts of different people around the world.
I think those ancient Greeks and Romans would have liked this approach to the open forums and agorae. — Hmm, and I guess their graffiti would match the propensity for crud on the more awful social media comments. Heh. Plus ça change, plus chest la même chose. (The more things change, the more they stay the same.)
Maybe you can stack the excess boxes of kitty litter on your back lanai, especially if they are the waterproof ‘tubs’. I doubt any burglar is going to make off with them.
@BCS, Dutch people do lock their bike sheds and garden storage chests or toolcupboards (especially if such a storage chest is on an allotment, where it’s out of sight). It’s not paradise over here, though in my suburb it’s safe enough I’ve occasionally forgotten to lock my car or my front door without trouble from thieves (not often though, as it generally reminds me to be more alert for a while).
Your description of the tiny groundfloor gardens, and balconies for the higher level appartments sounds quite similar to how some appartments here would look.
Garbage collection is organised by the town; all towns do some recycling, but how much and exactly how can differ. Houses tend to have two wheelie-bins, one for compostable green waste and one for the rest; these are generally collected once every two weeks (one each week, turn and turn about).
For appartments which don’t have storage space for two weeks of garbage, and where two weeks of compostable garbage would become too smelly indoors, green and gray are combined in one dumpster that is hauled away each week.
Glass, paper and plastic are recycled as well, sometimes by collecting garbage bags of plastic along the streets once a month, but almost always by bringing it to collection dumpsters at all the local supermarkets and at several collection points in each neighborhood. Those collection points always have a dumpster for glass collection too (sometimes separated into white/clear, green and brown). People always bring their glass for recycling when they go to the supermarket, as a lot of bottles get handed in at the supermarket for return to the factory they came from for a small deposit-return (10 cent per bottle); the rest gets put in the glass dumpster.
Paper is generally collected once a month by volunteers from church or sports organisations (there’s an organised schedule for which club collects from which neighborhood on which days) – they get facilitated by the town council as a way for these clubs to earn some money from reselling the paper to paper-factories.
There are collection points in shops for recycling batteries and incandescent lightbulbs.
A few towns had separate collection-dumpsters for metals in the neighborhoods as well, but because the garbage incinerators can separate that out easily it’s not common to separate it out at the start.
You can also bring all this stuff to the town garbage collection “wharf”, where they have even more categories of separation (appliances, packing materials, small chemical detritus, etc.) – this is free for town inhabitants.
For ‘large garbage disposal’ (if you’ve taken down a tree, or are doing stuff to your house, or bought a new couch or fridge or something like that) you call the council, they’ll tell you on which day to put it at the curb, and they’ll pick it up at no cost. There’s a recycling shop who picks up the used furniture and looks if they can restore and resell it; what they can’t recycle they take in to the town garbage ‘wharf’.
General garbage here is mostly burned nowadays, not dumped in landfills.
The big garbage incinerator factory in the largest town nearby has a lot of filters to separate out the bad stuff from the smoke, and the useful stuff from the ashes; and the heat it generates is used for heating several neighborhoods, and they are now laying pipes along the border of my neighborhood to get the heat to the large area of greenhouses to the north. That same factory has a large composting area for the green waste, which is bagged and sold back to local gardeners when it’s done.
I never thought about this before, I just expected this to be similar in all first-world countries.
We are on the ‘three can plan’: blue for recyclables, green for green waste, and brown for anything that doesn’t go into #1 or #2. The blue is a little problematic, because what actually gets recycled depends on prices to separate, bundle and ship it to a recycling facility, which we don’t have locally. We have recycling fees on bottles (both plastic and some glass) and cans, but glass doesn’t go into the general recycling bin. I have a small compost pile, and it usually takes me 2-3 weeks to fill the brown trash bin, although sometimes I put it out half full if something particularly nasty is in there.
I have a huge pile of branches from the plumerias I cut back waiting to be put into the green waste bin. Once I get rid of those, I have more trees and shrubs that need trimming. Hopefully, I won’t need to do a massive haircut like this more than every 3-4 years, because that seems to be how long it takes to clean up after one of these jobs.
The biggest problem is furniture and appliances. We have an e-cycling center, which takes anything electronic twice a week, but you have to get it there during open hours. In the case of our old huge heavy Sony Trinitron TV, I put it on Craigslist for nearly a month because it was still working and eventually someone took it. Furniture we use until it breaks or we need the room for something else; we’ve had good luck putting out things we can’t donate or sell on the curb with a ‘free’ sign on it, but again, I foresee problems with the bigger pieces, like our sectional couch. Appliances usually get hauled away by the store when we buy a new one, otherwise you have to arrange pickup by the county, which can take weeks.
My parents have three cans (wheelie bins) too; their blue one is for paper, and then there’s a plastic bag for plastic trash as well, so it’s really a system of four different pick-up rounds. In my town you set out your old paper in any old boxes or bags you happen to have that month; if you set it out in a neat plastic crate the collectors will empty the crate and leave it for you to collect.
The towns which were wise enough to hang on to their stock in the garbage incinerator factories when those were privatised maybe 15 years ago (they used to be co-owned by all the towns they served, until it was made allowed to sell the stock) are seeing all the recycling possibilities bringing in money. The towns pay to get their garbage disposed of, then private households pay to use the warmth generated or the heat is used to generate electricity which is sold to the grid, and then the useful recycled materials that can be filtered out are resold (filtering metals or things like mercury or manganese out of the smoke or ashes can be worth investing in the filters, not just for public health’s sake but also financially); and the remaining slag (I think that’s the word? Or maybe it’s clinckers?) is useful for the stabilizing layer under new highways. All together, it’s making the garbage disposal not just a public money expenditure but also puts something back in the town coffers, for most towns.
How do I know this? Because we’ve twice had a town council who, at the end of their term of office, decided to thank all their employees by giving them a day to show their colleagues something interesting related to their work, if they wanted, or to take part in one of these groups who were shown around by an enthousiastic colleague. So I’ve had a tour of the garbage facility several years back, from a very enthousiastic worker who was very proud of a newly installed reclaiming installation. The details have become a bit hazy (was it mercury or manganese or something else?), but the overal picture remains.
And a tour of the public cemetary, the showpiece and proving ground of the council’s public parks department; and a tour of the oldest and newest parts of the town conducted and explained by one of the town planners.
Giving all the civil servants a day off (once in 8 years) sounds like a costly thank-you for all our hard work, but it does greatly help to create enthousiasm and a sense of working together for the common goal, instead of growing interdepartmental rivalries.
To me, slag would describe a large, flat, initially molten layer like a cake batter in a pan, which then cools to a solid mass. Clnkers would describe metal (or composite) bits, pieces, or perhaps shavings. That is, nuggets that “clink” as they bounce. 🙂 How the two are used technically in the materials reclamation industry, I don’t know, but I’d guess it’s almost that. And yes, you’ve used those words right. (Your English is better than some native speakers, high school or adults.)
Coming from coal country, ‘clinkers’ are what are left in the grate after you burn the coal; ‘coke’ is coal that has been processed to be useful in a blast furnace. ‘Slag’ is the impurities that float to the top of a crucible when you are processing metal ore. It usually comes off in a sheet as BCS said, and breaks up into chunks.
Thank you Chondrite, then clinckers is the word I needed here.
There’s one other by-product of (generally coal) combustion that is worth recycling in large operations, “fly ash”. It’s the fine mineral particulate matter that goes up the smokesack with the flue gasses. That gives it an electrostatic charge which has to be neutralized by “electrostatic precipitators” to collect it. It can be a health hazard, but also useful in, for example, making concrete.
For the details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_ash
Today I’m home; postponed an appt. due to (whew) how the antibiotic and painkillers for my teeth are doing. I’m washed out and slightly wobbly and fuzzy-headed, but here. (It’s Amoxicillin and over-the-counter Motrin, 1 pill every 8 hours. I’m halfway through the course of the antibiotic, seven days in all.) When I called to postpone, I expected she’d not understand, but after explaining why, she was more than understanding, for which I was grateful. So my day-long assessment for mobility, vocational rehab, etc., will be sometime after at least the most urgent action for the 2+ teeth now really bothering me. Hoping though that will be soon, the assessment and the dental care. — I have a consult appt. on Thursday with an oral surgeon, then a follow-up with my dentist next week. I may get a 2nd opinion on this, and meanwhile, friends are looking about insurance coverage, because the cost is so high without. — Our health care and insurance costs here are out of control. The health care is top notch, if one can pay for it, but most middle class and working class folks cannot, without insurance, if they can afford insurance. It’s another area where we Americans *really* have to improve, urgently, and our elected officials just really need to blow less hot air, start compromising and finding workable solutions, and do it, instead of…oh, nuts, that just burns me up, so I’m going to hush about that. The Brits have a much better way of handling national health care. At least they have a workable system, though it’s not perfect. It sounds better than what we Americans have currently. I wish it would get fixed, and soon, but alas, it looks like that’s going to take, ah, here the expression, to take an act of Congress, is too ironically apt yet not apt. So…I’m a-gonna hush. Hmpf.
Way off topic but knowing the linguistic bent of the toss up of salads often gathered here, there’s this:
http://mewo2.com/notes/naming-language/
which is an adjunct to a map making Twitter bot program this guy wrote here: https://twitter.com/unchartedatlas
Thought this was pretty cool.
The great cat supply order, Part 2:
Today, finally, the order did arrive. Hurray! The UPS driver said at first I had some heavy stuff, then while getting it out of the truck, said I had some heavy ****. Hah, well, he was close. I explained about clicking twice and getting four pails of cat litter. We laughed.
Yes, it’s indeed four. But it’s in jugs, not the big pails. So I’m OK on storing it in the bathroom, but hmm, I’m going to run through that in maybe 6 weeks or less, rather than a couple of months. Cat litter weighs more than I thought! So, well, it evens out. This also means it was still cheaper than I’ve been getting, but not by such a large factor. I should have clued in, but didn’t. Next time, hopefully I’ll get by the local store instead of needing to order it delivered.
The other items arrived with it, so I once again have 2 litter scoops and enough cat bowls, and mercifully, the cats will have a scratching post again (the cheaper simple post) as soon as I put it together. I intend to get a “cat tree” or “tower” later. Mr. Assertive is over 6 now and since he’s so small and doesn’t know when to stop eating, he’s an active little beach ball. Well, not quite, but close enough. Mr. Non-Assertive remains long and lean as ever, at nearly 11 now.
Their moist and dry food arrived last week, so we’re good for a while now, though the dry food brand has gone to 12 lb. bags only, no longer the really big bags, 15 lb. or more. So I’ll be ordering dry sooner. My local store has been spotty about stocking it, so I may continue ordering that online for delivery. It’s a 30 minute trip one way, to the nearest of their stores.
Goober had his very first accidental, oops, hey, I went outside, let me back in, quick! moment this morning. I am hoping the surprise of that will stay with him for a good while before the urge to zip out strikes again.
So all is well in the feline portion of the household. It will likely be this weekend when I put together the scratching post. They may be excited. Or, being cats, they may be entirely blasé until no one’s looking. 😉