It's always good to come home, but this return may be the sweetest in memory. Sassy and Nica sure seem to think so.
On Monday night we moved into a local Ramada prior to our home being draped in tenting material and injected full of toxic gas bright and early Tuesday morning. (Cheery thought, huh?) Sadly, when you live in a condo community and the association has a contract with Terminex, you are stuck with their most unnatural solution to the problem of termites.
We had spent much of the weekend, with grandson Brandon's help, removing all plant life from inside, the balcony and any pots on the patio and in the front entryway close enough to be killed by the gas. (Most of the plants were stored inside our pool yard, and are waiting for Brandon's return tomorrow. A couple of the deck plants were enormous and had to be divided; hopefully they'll go back upstairs a lot easier than they came down!)
A neighbor across the complex, whose unit had been done the week prior, and who was out of town all this week, graciously offered the use of their refrigerator, freezer and garage. Many, many boxes and bags of things were driven from our side of the community to theirs to be stored. Potting soil? Plant food? Bird seed? All these things had to find new temporary homes.
We took advantage of the bags provided by Terminex to leave a few things in the house, but well protected. We suspect the technicians got quite a laugh when they saw a bag stuffed with toilet paper.
The "suite" we'd booked at the nearby Ramada was adequate - couch was too soft and the bed quite hard, the cable very limited, but we made do. There was a decent on-sight restaurant, open for breakfast from 5:30 - 11:00, and dinner from 5:00 to 10:30. The food wasn't bad, and we let room service deliver our meals. Tres decedent... (Hey, we figured we deserved it!)
On Thursday, when we got word that the homes were safe to enter, we dropped the girls at our friends Doggy Day-Care facility, game back here to get all the windows and door wide open, wait for the Gas Co. to get our gas back on, and when we had hot water, began washing sheets and the first load of dishes in the dishwasher. (Company says there's no need to wash anything because there's no residue. Right!) And, Larry filled up the car time after time for the return of our food, house plants, etc. By about 5:00, both of us hot and tired, we locked the house back up, went and picked up the pups and, sadly, trudged off for one more night in our ever more depressing little home away from home. (We could have moved back then, but, with full agreement from a vet friend, felt it better to give the place more time to air out before bringing the dogs back.)
Despite the fact that the weather guessers predicted coastal fog this morning, the sun came up bright and warm. We packed up the rest of our stuff and bid the Ramada Costa Mesa/Newport Beach a fond farewell. I was following Larry as we were driving on the street behind our home and could see how excited both dogs were getting in his car - the knew where they were and were as thrilled to be back as we are.
There really is no place like home!
On Monday night we moved into a local Ramada prior to our home being draped in tenting material and injected full of toxic gas bright and early Tuesday morning. (Cheery thought, huh?) Sadly, when you live in a condo community and the association has a contract with Terminex, you are stuck with their most unnatural solution to the problem of termites.
We had spent much of the weekend, with grandson Brandon's help, removing all plant life from inside, the balcony and any pots on the patio and in the front entryway close enough to be killed by the gas. (Most of the plants were stored inside our pool yard, and are waiting for Brandon's return tomorrow. A couple of the deck plants were enormous and had to be divided; hopefully they'll go back upstairs a lot easier than they came down!)
A neighbor across the complex, whose unit had been done the week prior, and who was out of town all this week, graciously offered the use of their refrigerator, freezer and garage. Many, many boxes and bags of things were driven from our side of the community to theirs to be stored. Potting soil? Plant food? Bird seed? All these things had to find new temporary homes.
We took advantage of the bags provided by Terminex to leave a few things in the house, but well protected. We suspect the technicians got quite a laugh when they saw a bag stuffed with toilet paper.
The "suite" we'd booked at the nearby Ramada was adequate - couch was too soft and the bed quite hard, the cable very limited, but we made do. There was a decent on-sight restaurant, open for breakfast from 5:30 - 11:00, and dinner from 5:00 to 10:30. The food wasn't bad, and we let room service deliver our meals. Tres decedent... (Hey, we figured we deserved it!)
On Thursday, when we got word that the homes were safe to enter, we dropped the girls at our friends Doggy Day-Care facility, game back here to get all the windows and door wide open, wait for the Gas Co. to get our gas back on, and when we had hot water, began washing sheets and the first load of dishes in the dishwasher. (Company says there's no need to wash anything because there's no residue. Right!) And, Larry filled up the car time after time for the return of our food, house plants, etc. By about 5:00, both of us hot and tired, we locked the house back up, went and picked up the pups and, sadly, trudged off for one more night in our ever more depressing little home away from home. (We could have moved back then, but, with full agreement from a vet friend, felt it better to give the place more time to air out before bringing the dogs back.)
Despite the fact that the weather guessers predicted coastal fog this morning, the sun came up bright and warm. We packed up the rest of our stuff and bid the Ramada Costa Mesa/Newport Beach a fond farewell. I was following Larry as we were driving on the street behind our home and could see how excited both dogs were getting in his car - the knew where they were and were as thrilled to be back as we are.
There really is no place like home!
.JPG)
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