By the time I finish my morning rounds, the outside cats are done eating and settling into their cuddle piles. The three smallest kittens are in this one.
I want to snuggle the fluffy tabby so much! S/he will not allow it. The white and grey is friendly. Once in a while, I manage to sneak a pet on the grey tabby with white, on the left, but rarely do. The other two littles do allow me to pet them, and sometimes pick them up. The tortie does not like it, but tolerates it a bit more.
I ended up heading to my mother’s, today. My brother was planning to visit her and set up a call blocker, to stop the scam calls my mother gets, as well as the abusive calls she gets from our vandal. He was going to start while she was in church, as her place is so tiny, it’s easier that way. I came over to help him out.
He has a much longer drive than I do, and we ended up meeting elsewhere, then going to her place together. I’m glad I was there to help out, even if it was just passing him things. Before we started, though, we checked my mother’s answering machine for her. She can listen to messages, but can’t figure out how to delete them.
There were two messages from our vandal.
He was quite upset that I answered her phone while I was there. Had all sorts of nasty things to say about me, of course. Apparently, he’s poor because of “what [I] did”, and his $7000 in legal fees. Of course, no taking responsibility over the fact that he was caught vandalizing the gate and that’s why I pressed charges. Or his stalking behavior, etc. No mention of his trying to sue me for $13,000, for stuff I never claimed to own. He’s lucky my mother and brother aren’t up to doing him for all the stuff he took from here, over the years. That total would be over $40,000, and that’s just for the stuff my brother could remember, and that we know is at our vandal’s place.
Oh, and apparently, I have lots of money, and cameras all over the place. Well, if he thinks we have more cameras than we do, I’m good with that. Those cameras are probably the only thing keeping him away. Also, apparently God says he should be allowed on the property.
My mother has been getting these abusive calls for at least 10 years. My brother has copies of hundreds of them. It will be so good for my mother to not have this anymore. The only thing is, she will probably still call him, eventually. She does not understand why she should not do that.
Setting up the call blocker took more time then it should have, of course. The device itself was easy to do, and our vandal’s numbers were already programmed in. To block the over 5000 known scam numbers, however, required going through a process to link and turn on through the phone system.
It didn’t work, of course. Even though my brother made the arrangements and paid for the service already. The numbers should still be blocked, but that’s something he has to work out with the phone company. They should be able to set it up remotely – he used to work IT for them, years ago, so he knows they can. But they insist he has to do this from my mother’s phone.
Still, we got as much done as we could.
My SIL had packed a lunch for my brother to bring, so by the time my mother came back from church, we had tea made and lunch out and ready for her. She did not know I was going to be there, do that was a surprise, too.
It was a very good visit. Plus, there were a few little fixes she got my brother to do. I dud have to laugh when she started telling us how, when our sister had been there, she fixed the glass shade thar came off her bedroom lamp, but she had no idea when she did it.
It was funny, because I was the one that fixed it, the last time I was there. She’d stepped out of her apartment and, while waiting for her, I saw the shade and reassembled it. Then I went to help her with things and forgot about it. She did not notice it was fixed until after my sister left her place, the next day. 😄
I’m glad I was able to be there. Not only to help my brother, but with both of us there, she was on much better behavior. She tried to go off on a racist tangent only once, and was easily deflected.
The only downside is, both my brother and I forgot to pick up some milk for her, before heading home. So maybe I will be heading back, tomorrow.
Things are supposed to start getting colder tomorrow. My husband has just let me know we have a parcel to pick up. It is most likely the heat lamp we ordered to use in the sun room. If so, that will be perfect timing! I’ll have to wait until tul the post office reopens for the afternoon to go get it, though.
Meanwhile, I just have to share this photo.
This is Toni, grooming our greasy grandma. Extra greasy, since we are still doing daily ear cleaning with coconut oil. For the past while, grandma has been basically hiding out and not interacting with the other cats much. Usually, she was especially attentive to the kittens, so this was a change. We now think the change in behavior, and possibly even some of her weight loss, was because her ears were nothing her so much. We just couldn’t see how bad it was, until we started the daily cleaning. There turned out to be several cats that were especially bad. Most were not too bad at all, but grandma is among those where we are still finding chunky bits. The mites are most likely dead; we’ve gone well beyond their life cycle. However, as long as there are any cats that still have a build-up, we will be doing all of them.
A bonus in doing this is that grandma is no longer hiding out. Instead, she’s been camping out on my bed, where it’s much softer and warmer. Plus, the cats are grooming each other’s ears more – and none are allergic to coconut oil – though not as enthusiastically as when we were using the mineral oil. It was crazy how much Shadow, in particular, kept trying to eat it. I had so much trouble keeping him out of the garbage can, as he’d drag out the paper towel cleaning strips and try to eat them! The coconut oil seems tasty enough that they all groom each other more often, which is improving relationships. They are more likely to sleep in huge cuddle piles, including cats that previously didn’t get along very well.
I’m happy to say that I have no errands to run, no unexpected outings, nothing. Just a day to stay home, inside and out of the wind!
We’ve had a very mild winter so far, but as we head towards the end of January and into February, we are expected to get more average temperatures. Not so much that we need to worry about the vehicles freezing, or even plug them in. Which is good, since I discovered the truck’s block heater plug end was ripped off and never repaired. Clearly, it wasn’t an issue for whomever owned it before. This thing can handle the cold much better than the van could.
We do need to try and get the garage door closed, though. One corner wheel came off the track. I’m hoping that, if one person is able to push up the opposite corner, it will move the loose corner close enough to the track to be able to get it back on. This is something to do on a warmer day and will require taking the truck out, setting up a little ladder at one corner, and the folding scaffolding set at the other. It will take three of us to manhandle the thing. One to push up the opposite corner, one to move the loose corner towards the track, and one to try and get the wheel back on the track. It’s an unusually large door for its type.
The outside cats are appreciating being out of the wind. This morning, I counted 33 of them. Last winter, we had a ceramic heat bulb set up for them, but the old fixture we were using stopped working. We currently have a replacement on the way. What we had before was something my brother had put together to set up under the kitchen sink, so the heat from an incandescent light bulb would help prevent pipes from freezing, while the house was empty. The kitchen has no heat vent, so it was the one area of concern in the house.
What we are getting is a clip-on lamp designed for chickens. It has a heat reflector shade and comes with a ceramic bulb. I plan to set it up facing under the platform, which will have the added benefit of the sheet of insulation above, to help keep the heat in their favorite sleeping spot. If it gets too warm, they can go on top of the platform. The only thing I’m not sure of is how I will attach it securely. I’ll figure that out, once it arrives, and I can see exactly how the clamp is designed.
Meanwhile, we are still figuring out our phone problems. I spoke to my brother, through Messenger, and told him we thought the problem was the jack in my husband’s room. My brother suggested we simply detach that jack and see. I never even thought of that! So I went into the basement and traced the wire to the hub, and removed it.
Nothing changed.
My brother said it sounded like moisture got into a jack, which is what we think, too. Likely due to our two fixed males that still spray! There are two other jacks on the ground floor, but there is no way cats or moisture could get to either of those. That leaves the one jack upstairs, which we’ve never used, which could have had damage to it. So, one of my goals for today is to find and trace that wire and remove it.
If that doesn’t do it, then the problem is something else, and we’ll have to call someone in.
The main problem is, either how we have things set up, it’s hard to access all but one of the jacks. We will have to clear things for a tech to reach them, if he needs do.
Speaking of clearing things, once Christmas is over on Jan 6, and we store away our decorations, we need to rearrange parts of the living room again, so I can access the big aquarium greenhouse. We need to get our onion seeds started!
Then we will need to bring other things in from the sun room, including one of the shop lights, to set up our growing zone again. We won’t be able to do the same setup as we did last year, but I think we might not be starting quite so many seeds indoors this year. We shall see.
My husband and I needed to head out today, so I made sure to get his walker through the sunroom doors for him before bringing the truck over. Going through the sunroom eliminates stairs, but there are still thresholds and different levels of sidewalk blocks that make it harder for him.
The cats love his walker!
Our trip today was to the bank. It’s amazing how much difference having a car payment has already made to our credit scores. While I was able to get a low limit credot card (though I was approved for more), it was for naught, since this financing company would only use my husband’s income, rather than a generic “household income”. While we were going through all the financing battle, my husband tried applying for a credit card online, to rebuild his credit rating, as I was doing.
He was instantly turned down.
After only 2 months of car payments, when he tried again, not only was he approved, but approved for a limit twice what I was approved for!
One thing was different from my getting my card, though. He couldn’t have it mailed directly to him. It was sent to the nearest bank branch (we never switched our home branch after the move, as there was no need). He needed to show two pieces of ID to claim it.
He still does not have photo ID for this province. They would not accept the name he has always used as his given name, since it did not match his birth certificate. Never mind that they still had his old driver’s license data on file with the name he uses. Or that all his other ID has the name he uses. While we lived in another province, the rules changed here because of identity theft. It took me months to get my ID done. For my husband, they told him he would need to do a legal name change.
In the end, we found he didn’t, and what he needed to get his ID, but he simply could not handle the pain while being made to wait, etc. So he never went back.
Which means he was expecting to have issues today.
He was right.
The funny thing, though, is they accepted his expired driver’s license from the other province with no problem. It was still on file! Finding a second ID their system would accept took a bit longer, but they did eventually figure oit their system could accept birth certificates.
That done, he could activate the card, but still needed to use the card, using the chip rather than tap, first.
After deciding he was up to the trip, we went to the nearer city and Walmart, to pick up more cat food. The 8 bags I picked up at Costco, just a couple weeks ago, were pretty much gone. There was still some for the inside cats, but the bin for the outside cats had enough for today, and that’s it.
I counted 37 yard cats this morning, do… yeah. We go through a lot of cat food. Especially since it’s winter. The inside cats need far less.
We got another six bags. There was only one 11kg bag on stock, so the rest were 9kg bags.
The 11kg bag actually cost a couple dollars less than the 9kg bags.
So the whole thing cost over $200 – before taxes!
Thankfully, we got a donation, plus my daughter will be transferring funds as soon as PayPal does its thing for her.
At least we have a break at the gas pump. Our province is temporarily stopping tax collection on fuel right now. Regular gas prices are now around 115.9 or 116.9 cents per litter. Someone local on FB posted the Costco price right now. 99.9! It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen a gas price under a dollar per liter, even if it is just 0.1 cents.
By the time we got home, though, my husband’s pain levels were getting really bad.
Not as bad as they could have been, thanks to the truck! He’s able to tolerate noticeably more travel in it!
Tissue just crawled over right on top of grandma. Poor thing is in heat right now. Considering what happened when we tried to get her fixed before, that’s going to be a challenge!
In other things…
With our land line down, I messaged my sister, yesterday evening, to let her know. I’d managed to leave messages on my mother’s answering machine about it. It took two tries, as my call got dropped mid sentence, even though I was using wifi calling. I told my mother that the best way to reach me was likely by calling my sister, who could then send me a message. So, of course, I had to let my sister know this!
It turned out my sister had talked to my mother earlier, and she told my sister I was coming over today, to help her either groceries.
Last I spoke to my mother, she refused to settle on a day, and just settled on “after New Year”. I was supposed to do a follow up call which, obviously, was going to be a bit trickier.
After finding this put from my sister, I tried calling my mother again. She had a hard time hearing me, but at least the call wasn’t dropped. We worked out arrangements for me to come over, and when I asked, she suggested using her car, in case she was up to going out.
We haven’t used her car pretty much since getting the truck. Just once, maybe, shortly after we brought it home. So, this morning, while doing my rounds, I got her car out of the garage and checked her tires. The two on the driver’s side were a bit low. I just used the hand pump to top them up.
I had some things to do, since I was going to be out anyhow, so I left quite early.
Well.
I tried to leave.
I drove through the gate and stopped to close it behind me, when I heard a loud bang from the back. My mother’s car has always been noisy in the back, but not like this! I tried to look to see a cause, but there was nothing visible.
So I locked and kept going. I got as far as the stop sign, maybe 300 ft away. When a started moving after stopping at the sign, there was a loud, repetitive knocking from the back.
I turned around and came home!
I font know what the noise is, and have had no time to look it up, yet.
I took our truck.
Once in my mother’s town, I made a stop at the grocery store. Before going in, I took advantage of having a strong signal and called the computer repair place, to give them my cell number.
My timing was good. The tech guy was working on my computer when I called. After giving the number – with a warning that it may or may not work, if I was at home – he gave me the good news so far. Be was able to secure and protect my data. With that done, he was about to move on to starting the machine and seeing what he could find out.
I really hope it can be fixed. Blogging with my phone really sucks. Plus, there are things I do that I won’t even try on my phone!
I also updated my brother about what was going on with my mother’s car.
After going into the grocery store for our own few items, I called my mother to let her know about the vehicle situation, and ask what she wanted me to pick up for lunch. After going on about how fried food makes her sick, she then asked me to pick up potato wedges for her.
Which are fried, of course. 😆
So that was a stop at the gas station. While there, I also got some fried pierogi, plus a couple of pieces of chicken. Just in case.
When I got there, she happily had a bit of everything, including the chicken! 😆
As we were talking and eating, she showed me a Christmas card she waxed poetic on, about how beautiful it was. By which she means, it was a religious themed card, rather than a secular one.
It was from our vandal.
Out of curiosity, I looked inside.
Wow. He can’t even give her a Christmas card without going weird. The only good thing I could say is, his attempts to guilt and manipulate her went right over her head. I did get a picture of it.
Since my mother couldn’t come with me, we went over her list and I did her shopping for her, though I made sure to message my sister about the car, and letting her know that, until we can figure put what ti do about my mother’s car, before I forgot.
This trip, I paid for her shopping using my card, then gave her the receipt, as she requested. While she was getting cash to pay me back, her phone rang, do I answered it for her. When I do that, I answer like a receptionist, identifying myself in the process.
There was silence, then a hang up.
I checked caller ID.
It was our vandal.
Once we identified the number, we got a chuckle over him hanging up on me, then kept talking.
The phone rang again.
This time, I checked the number, first.
It was our vandal again.
My mother told me to answer it, like I did before.
So I did.
Once again, there was silence, then a hang up.
We got another laugh out of it, but then my mother told me something she didn’t mention before.
My vandal hand delivered that Christmas card, on Christmas day.
Then she told me how they had a lovely tea together. With his wife.
Oh, he would have been on his best behavior, with his wife there! She would not know about his abusive calls. He does those while she is at work.
I do wish my mother had let us know, though!
With all this, before I said my goodbyes, I decided to check her answering machine. At the very least, there would have been my two calls to clear, which she doesn’t know how to do.
Sure enough, there was a message from our vandal – left near the beginning of December! We keep asking her yo let us know about these, but she doesn’t!
I took a video of the message while it was playing, so the date would be recorded, then cleared her machine. The message was his usual ranting. First, demanding to know if he’s being recorded, and if he was, that’s entrapment.
Yes. Seriously. He’s leaving a message on an answering machine, and asking if he’s being recorded.
Then he launched into his usual accusations of how I font work, but spend all my time trying to put him in jail. The only new thing is that he’s now using my late brother’s children to manipulate her. Children that are estranged from her, largely because of him.
Well, at least he’s not telling her my late father and brother are looking down from heaven at her, angry that she didn’t give him the farm, and that she won’t go to heaven because of that.
Which reminds me.
My mother has been talking about giving her car to my nephew. Of course, it’s not from the goodness of her heart. It’s her usual bribery attempt: pay attention yo me, and I’ll give you things. But she only does that with the people who treat her the worst. We learned our vandal managed to swindle many thousands of dollars out of both my parents, over the years that way.
She told our vandal about her thought of giving the car to my nephew, so he now uses that in his rants against me.
With the car now suddenly making that noise, she said maybe it’s time to give the car to my nephew. I told her, that’s hardly a gift! Apparently, he works in a garage, though.
My name may be on the ownership papers, as that was the only way fir me to be able to keep it licensed and insured for her use, but it’s her car and she can do what she wants with it. Talking to my family about it later, we all agree on the salient points. If she wants to give it to him, and he has the skills and resources to fix it, that free uo funds in our budget. Finds we can use to pay the truck down faster. It also takes away a headache for us. That car has been no end of expensive trouble.
However, it would also mean, i can no longer drive her anywhere. She simply cannot get in and out of our truck safely. My sister works part time, so she could use her car to drive my mother around, but when it comes to things like doctors appointments, my mother doesn’t want that. My brother is not an option, as he would have to book time off work, and he lives the furthest away.
Ideally, we would replace her car, but we can’t afford two car payments, and she certainly would not be willing to buy another car herself.
A conundrum.
Ah, well. We’ll figure it out.
Meanwhile, before I left my mother, I made sure to tell her to check the phone if it rings again, and if it’s our vandal, let it go to machine. With me answering her phone earlier, he would absolutely lose it on her. His wife, after all, would be at work, so he would not be on his best behavior!
So that’s how my day ended up going. I had intended to try and clear end organize my husband’s room, so we have access to that phone jack, while he was still ambulatory. Tomorrow, I have to drive him into my mother’s town for an errand I can’t do for him, and even that short trip will wipe him out. So it may take a few more days before we can get to it. Especially if I end up driving to the city to get my computer!
Oh, wouldn’t that be nice!
This time of year, I’d rather be in hibernation mode, though! 😆
Shadow has taken to cuddling me at night, but his sister, Tin Whistle, has taken to having a party on my daughter’s bed.
While she’s in it.
It’s gotten so bad, the girls are looking at building a door. The upstairs is two rooms, and we only ever had a curtain over the opening between them. If they want to get any sleep, they need to make a door to fit.
Plus, we need to get these teenagers adopted!
Beyond that, we are having another quiet day of domesticity. I expect to be heading out tomorrow to do put shopping for New Years, and run other errands.
It’s such a gorgeous day, today. Clear blue skies, sunshine and temperatures just below freezing. T-shirt weather! 😄
Sad Face’s nose is still looking messy from a fight a few days ago. No new injuries. It’s always a bit distressing when I tend to the cats and find fresh blood. Most recently, on the fur of one of the friendly white and greys. Friendly to humans, that is. Friendly with most of the other cats, too, but they do get testy with each other, at tumes. To be expected, with so many maturing males. From what I could tell with the blood I saw, it wasn’t his. There were no injuries!
It is turning out to be a gorgeous sunny day. Our temperature has even gone above freezing, which is a few degrees warmer than forecast.
I got to enjoy the sun and warmth during a quick trip into town. Three of our four 18.9L (5 gallon) water jugs for drinking water needed refilling. We usually do it when two are empty. Of course, I picked up a few more little things, but will be doing a larger trip, once pay comes in.
Before I left, I checked the tires on the truck, and none of them needed topping up. That’s a good sign. Especially since we will probably have to wait until the end of January/beginning of February to get those valves replaced, depending on what the status is with my computer.
The check engine light was on again, so after I got home and unloaded, I hooked up the OBDII scanner. I got the expected codes for rich fuel mixture but, lo and behold, there was a new one.
Not an unexpected one.
Yup. There’s a code for the oil pressure sensor. Our new reader even gives extra info, including the fact that this code is very common for our make, model, and year, plus the top fixes. Those included changing the filter, doing an oil change, and even replacing the sensor. The most common fix being a simple oil change.
I really like having this other OBDII reader my husband got me. The first one we got just gave the codes, and that was about it.
This one also allows me to clear the codes. The rich fuel codes are permanent codes, but I’ve found that, after clearing the codes, then tanking up, they would clear themselves. The most important thing is knowing what’s going on, and getting an idea of how urgent or not something is.
If all goes to plan, my only outing before January will be when my husband’s private insurance disability payment comes in – with all the holidays, I’m not quite sure what business day that will be – and I make one last shopping trip of the year. We will be doing both an oil and a cheese fondue for New Years, so the food we get needs to be fresh, rather than the mostly frozen finger foods we got for Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Christmas day was highlighted by charcuterie boards – we had so much, I had to split it between two!
On Christmas day, we gave the cats a break with the ear cleaning. We’ve treated them with mineral oil for 10 days, and from what we’ve read and been told, that should do it. Some of the cats, however, still have insanely dirty ears – a sign of either continued mite activity, or just that it was so bad, we haven’t been able to get it all out. Our grandma seems to be the worst case. Black gunk in the ears of a black cat. It seems we just didn’t see what was happening until it git really bad, and my goodness, it’s hard to do her ears!
I do think it has made a difference in her, though. She is becoming more active and her appetite seems to be improving!
Some of the cats seem to be developing what looks like dandruff around the ears. We suspect the mineral oil may be getting a but much for their skin. So when we started up the ear cleaning again (if we need to do one, we need to do all), we switched to coconut oil. The girls are the only ones that use coconut oil in cooking, so the big Costco size tub they got is still quite full. It just needed to be melted, first, so the prepered strips of paper towel we use can absorb it. Which had the added benefit of the oil being still warm when we started.
Or, should I say, when I started. Before my daughter was able to start brung7ng cats, I was able to do Clarence, Tin Whistle, Misty, Shadow, Ghosty, Cheddar, Potato Beetle and Ginger, all on my own. They let me just come to where they were, curled up on my bed, and do their ears. Even Ginger, who had among the most severely dirty ears, due to not being able to self clean as well, no longer complains or tries to fight. Beep Beep is another one that has become quite calm about it, but I couldn’t reach her in the middle of the king-size bed. 😄
In the end, it was only Soot Sprite and The Beast (Tiny) we couldn’t find. Knowing the routine, almost all the other cats were milling around the good bowls, waiting for their wet cat food. Soot Sprite came up from the basement, and we got him done, but we had to start opening cans before The Beast came up from the basement, too!
This is Ginger, with a full belly, enjoying the cat cave. We have a second one, but the cats don’t use it.
I hope the coconut oil works well, and we can finally get their ears all clean. There are three cats that are still really bad for some reason. Thankfully, Ginger is not one of them!
I found myself waking up way too early this morning. That’s what I get for going to bed before midnight!
It has been warming up all night, and is supposed to stay above freezing for most of the day.
I think the yard cats are liking it. Only 25 came around for breakfast! They don’t get as hungry when it’s warmer.
The fog is still here and expected to stay for a while longer. The resulting frost on the trees is quite gorgeous – and I’m happy yo not have to drive in it!
I did get some good news of a sort, this morning. Our oldest cat didn’t show up for breakfast this morning. When my husband came out, I told him about her being missing, and that was why we’d come knocking at his door after we couldn’t find her during the ear cleaning session. I feared we were now looking for a body. He told me that she did turn to be in his room! He thought all the cats were out before closing his door. She may have been under his hospital bed, far enough that we couldn’t see her. Or maybe under the table that holds his little medication fridge.
While I’m glad she was around after I’d gone to bed, the fact that she isn’t coming around for food concerns me. For now, I hope she is in her usual spot, cuddling my daughter in bed!
The Re-Farmer
(This post will be published late: it seems we lost power, while I was writing it!)
Not having my desktop is getting frustrating in unusual ways.
But first, the cuteness!
In the parcel we received yesterday (thank you!!), a blanket was used as packing material, with instructions that it be used for the outside cats.
They love it!
Especially Sad Face, who now seems to prefer it over the self warming mat.
My usual task of switching out the trail cam memory cards, after feeding the outside cats, is pointless right now. I don’t have a computer to upload the files to.
The solar camera, however, is supposed to be wifi accessible. My husband looked up which app it needed, which I downloaded and started to set up. Then, I continued the set up at the camera.
Once the camera wifi was turned on and readied in the settings, I tried to link it to my phone.
As far as the app is concerned, the camera doesn’t exist.
Same with my wifi settings.
It’s much warmer today, with almost no wind, but it was still below freezing, so I wasn’t going to hang around. I might have to bring the camera indoors to figure it out.
The other frustration is a blogging one. Normally, in the days leading up to Christmas, I do things like embed daily Christmas carol videos. Then, in the days before New Years, I do some “10 most popular posts of the year, type stuff.
Things I am not going to do on my phone.
When writing these posts, I work in several tabs at the same time, with related posts I intend to link to, open in still more tabs. I also spend quite a bit of time, finding and selecting videos to embed.
Can’t do that on a phone. At least, not the way I prefer to do it.
I also have issues with tapping a screen. I end up with many more typos, autocorrect messes the strangest things up, and it’s just a lot more painful on the hands – though not as painful as using the little Bluetooth keyboard. Overall, it’s just not conductive to writing like I usually do.
Tomorrow, I go into the city. My husband suggested I stop somewhere to pick up a rescue USB. So I will try that before I start calling computer repair places.
Speaking of tomorrow.
My mother called. She’s not doing well. The exterminator is coming tomorrow, you see, and the letter she got has so much she needs to do…
She would have gotten that letter maybe a week ago. She never told me about it. I knew she got it because she told my brother, and he updated me, but we didn’t get a date from her.
I reminded her of how little she had to do, the last times the guy came to spray for bed bugs. He’s used to having to go into homes with people who have mobility issues.
Then I asked if my sister had her day off tomorrow, and could help her, because I’m going to be in the city, with a stop at the clinic along the way to do some regular bloodwork. She said yes about the day off, so I suggested she call my sister.
The thing is, the exterminator can come in anytime between 9am and 4pm. Because he’s doing other provincially run buildings in the area, too, there is no way to know when he will make it to her town. He has shown up right at 9am, and at just before 4pm. My mother should be staying out of her apartment for 12 hours, instead of the 6 hours recommended for people who don’t have respiratory issues. Which means one of us needs to get to my mom’s for 9am, then stay there until the guy arrives, then find somewhere for her to hang out for hours. She’d rented a motel room before, but she doesn’t want to do that anymore. I can’t blame her for that! Still, I’m not able to do it this time, so hopefully, my sister will be able to step up. Otherwise, my mother will basically be hanging out in the common room.
She wondered where the bed bugs came from. I told her, since she doesn’t get out much, it’s likely from within the building. She told me her apartment is going to be the only one sprayed. I told her, my thought is that others have them, but they just aren’t reporting it.
Which means the common room is most likely where they are being spread.
Another frustration! If that’s true, then her apartment being sprayed won’t do much, since she will just get infested again. Ideally, the entire building would be done, including the common areas. It’s not a big place, so it is pretty feasible.
Standard practice is, he will leave traps to check, and spray again in a month. I think my mother would rather live with the bed bugs. It was already a fight for my brother to keep her from canceling tomorrow’s appointment.
The Re-Farmer 