It all started when I was painting the garage. When my paint brush went through the wall, I decided to stop and reconsider the project. I put the lid on the can, cleaned my brush, put the ladder away and made a call.
The contractor and I decided the rotten wood was due to the dampness from the hemlock trees nearby plus really clogged gutters. A six hour job at the most.
He had worked only ten minutes, taking off the bad wood that we both thought was the extent of the damage. The knock came at the back door, and when he said "You need to see this"...my stomach turned over. When I saw the carnage, my knees got weak. There under the wood that had looked perfectly normal until the paint brush incident, was a network of tunnels and brittle crumbling sawdust that was supposedly holding up the garage roof.
Numbly, I made my way into the house, deafened by the ca-ching, ca-ching sound in my head as the tab for this small job got bigger with each piece of wood pried away. Another call, this time to my exterminator. Some women my age "have" an accountant, a decorator, a manicurist. I "have" an exterminator. We go back a long way, my exterminator and I. He saved us from a false alarm at our previous home over termites that a big company who shall remain nameless said we had. He rescued us the week after we moved into this home when we discovered four legged critters had taken up residence under the subfloor months before. He has ben a periodic hero at other times over the last 30 years when the critters threaten to return. The year we had spiders EVERYWHERE- that was when he really reached godlike status. The hornet's nest dispatched under cover of darkness- that too. And the bats- those, too have been eliminated by this old friend.
Euphemistically labeled "Pest Control Specialists" in the yellow pages, they control by terminating. I don't really want to know how they work. I just want the job done. I have a deep respect for life- all life, and have been known to escort lightening bugs and moths out a window in order to save them. Never mind that falling two stories as I tossed them out the window might have been fatal for them, at least I did not squish them into eternity. I might add that spiders are given no quarter here. They are different.
The exterminator, the contractor and I surveyed the damage (by this time, all the bad wood was exposed- including support beams). When he said that by now, the colony of termites was in chaos and sending out alarms underground, I felt a momentary sadness. Then I looked back at the magnificent old house that could have been next- the "moment" was brief. The termites were soon to be history. Their time was measured. In a few days, they would be "eliminated" and the fresh wood going up would not be invaded.
The house, mercifully, miraculously, has been spared. It, too will be "treated" as a precaution. It's the newest thing, very green, this smiter of termites, I am assured. The same poison has been used at the Statue of Liberty and the Alamo. It must be good. This stately 100 year old house deserves the best. It's central hallway, ionic columns in the parlor and egg and dart molding (even on the second floor- a rarity I am told) enhance her dignity. Designed by one of the finest architects in the area a century ago, the house with it's colanaded porch and late Victorian trim, is a small mansion with touches not found in most of the neighborhood homes.
Tomorrow I will sign the contract that will save the homestead- with of course, a yearly return to inspect the bait in the stations inserted in the ground. They won't win, these termites. I looked out my window this morning and snapped the photo you see here. Not only are millions of termites displaced, but a whole village of sparrows who had set up housekeeping in the spaces that the termites had hollowed out will have to find a new place to stay over. A half bushel worth of nesting material and feathers was pulled out of the beam. Their consternation was audible as well. The sparrows flitted around, perched on the roof, chirped and dive bombed one another in what appeared to be an effort to understand their plight. A world turned upside in the tiny eco system called my back yard.
