Don Vandervort, Head Homeboy, has written more than 30 DIY home improvement books, been a segment host on HGTV, served as MSN.com's home improvement expert and written countless magazine articles.
So we took down our termite-infested roof trellis over our backyard porch area. When we first moved in, the realtors said we only had termites in that one area, and that we should take it down. Four years later, as wood was actually falling randomly on people at our parties, we thought maybe we should get going on that.
We had two brute friends with chainsaws come and help demolish it in a few hours one afternoon, at which point the bundling of wood became my new hobby. Let me tell you, bundling is fun for about one bundle. You can pretend you’re Heidi, and you and grandfather are out in the woods preparing for winter with the goats. Then the string starts eating your fingers, and the piles of wood keep falling out of the string, and there may be a few expletives hurled at the porch area in general.
The wood is hauled out in the kids’ wagon, and stacked on the street for the 311 clean up truck to come and haul away.
But I looked at the firewood we had stacked up, covered in termite dust from where the termites had apparently been vacationing from their permanent roof trellis home nearby. This firewood is going to have to go, too, I thought.
Luckily half of it has been burned in the fireplace, but this thought occurs to me: When I carried it to the fireplace, wasn’t the termite dust spilling into the house? And what about the termites? Termites don’t just leave, right? They don’t just see us taking down the trellis and say, “Wow, these guys are serious!” and pack up their families and politely take off for the neighbor’s wood? Which means they’re still here. And now I’ve invited them into the fireplace. At night I imagine the termites eating through all the supporting wood beams in our house. One day at one of the kids’ birthday parties, surrounded by all their friends, our kid will blow out their candles and the whole house will blow over.
I’m going to hope they’ve moved on, and in the meantime, I’m bundling and hauling like a Sherpa.
