blog.erwintang.com

Since my last post, I confirmed the latest silicone seal that I used near the door jamb prevented them from popping out into my bedroom. The bad news is that it only took them less than a day to figure out they could just go underneath the flooring plank and pop out in a gap in between the end of the plank and the tile of the bathroom. This gap is less than an inch from where I applied the silicone. I saw the gap earlier and I was wondering if I should just seal it up just in case. I didn’t and now I know I should have.

This morning, I applied silicone all along the edges the flooring planks at the threshold. It’s been less than a day but it seems like they don’t know how to get in now. The bad news, however, is that I’ve discovered a new point of ingress. The ants are coming in from under the door jamb on the opposite side of the threshold. The threshold was/is a highway of sorts. They pop out from one side of the door jamb and then make their way parallel to the threshold and then go under the door jamb on the other side. So tomorrow, I have to seal off the other side as well.

So this is proceeding pretty much as I had feared. It’s just a series of escalating actions on my end. I block and seal off gaps, get a short respite, and then the ants go probing for other openings, and find them. I continue to block and seal, and the cycle begins anew.

My resolve remains strong however. I have lots of sealant, tape, and foam left. It’s a singular entity versus a hive mind of possibly thousands. Who will win in the end?

The battlefront in my war against the ants has shifted slightly. If you’ve been following this saga, the ants were firmly entrenched underneath bathroom sink, in the sink cabinet. After much hard work and strife, I sealed them out of the cabinet. They then were using the outside of the cabinet, which I then also sealed off.

The ants then moved to the threshold between my bathroom and my bedroom. The current front is now the doorjamb, the floor moulding, and the gap between my floor planks and where my closet starts.

In the photo above, you can see basically where all the ants are currently coming and going from. The metal track is where my closet door slides along. All that dried foam is from where I sealed off large gaps where the ants are going under the flooring and the moulding. I’ve never used sealing foam before and it’s very difficult to apply accurately. More is better than less, however, because once it cures and hardens, you can use a utility knife to cut it down to size. I haven’t done that yet.

You’ll also notice the silicone sealant along the rest of the moulding. Yes, the bead I applied is messy and inconsistent but that’s not my concern right now. My primary concern is ensure my latest efforts prevent the ants from entering my apartment.

Whenever I seal off a new area, it always takes a few days to assess if my efforts have worked. I’ve realized that just because I see no ants a few hours or even the next day, it doesn’t mean they can’t come in any more. It could be they’re just not interested in coming into my apartment for whatever reason. Remember, I’ve seen no ants for nearly two weeks in some instances, only to see them again. Who knows where they were or what prompted to return again.

What’s interesting is extrapolating where this is all going. The ants seem to be moving their points of ingress further into my bedroom and away from the bathroom. How far into my bedroom will this go? I hope they just give up at some point.

So about 45 minutes after I made my last post, I decided to call the non-emergency police line. I was getting tired and I knew that if the alarm was still going off when I actually wanted to sleep, I would have trouble falling asleep.

I have heard that people can be on hold for hours on the non-emergency line but it only took a minute to get through. I told the call taker exactly what I wrote in my last post: an alarm across the street was going off for nearly an hour and a half, I thought I heard the fire trucks attending earlier but nothing changed, and the alarm was loud enough to bother the whole block. I also told the call taker that I might break into the building soon to turn it off myself if nothing changed.

They knew I wasn’t lying about the alarm because they said they could hear it through the phone. Interestingly, they also said they hadn’t had any reports about this alarm all night. Was I really the first person to call this in after nearly two hours?

Now of course, as it always happens, as I was on the phone, the alarm went off. I told them immediately and remarked that this was just my luck. I went outside onto my balcony and told the dispatcher that I could see fire trucks down the block, in front of the building with the alarm. I guess they finally turned up? Who called them?

The dispatcher said that if the alarm went off again, I should call this number again and to not break into the building to turn off the alarm myself.

The alarm stayed off all night.

I hope you’re able to listen to the audio file that I’ve embedded above. If you can, you’re listening to an alarm that is going off from across the street. There is a new apartment building being constructed and it should be done in about two or three months. Clearly, the building’s alarms have been installed.

Now why did I decide to record this? Because this alarm has being going off for over an hour and a half now. It started around 11:30pm or so and it’s now nearly 1am. You can hear the alarm anywhere in my apartment. It’s not deafening but it’s loud enough to be annoying. It’s also loud enough that most people would have trouble sleeping. Closing my windows does not mitigate the loudness of the alarm to any extent that would be considered acceptable.

I don’t understand why no one is responding to this alarm. About ten minutes after the alarm started, I heard sirens from what I would assume to be the fire brigade. Unfortunately, if the fire trucks were for the alarm, they weren’t able to turn it off.

I am not understanding how this alarm hasn’t been handled yet. All construction sites for new apartments should have security after hours. If there is security, why haven’t they called someone to take care of this? If there isn’t security, why the hell not?

The only silver lining to all of this is I’m probably not going to bed for another two hours or so. When bedtime does come though and this alarm is still going off, I’m not sure how I’ll be able to sleep.

I had a coffee at 10pm this evening, just because I could. I don’t have to wake up at any specific time tomorrow because I don’t have any work until the new year.

I have a full two weeks off this year for the holidays. I have some things I want to do and also no plans at all at the same time. There are a few housekeeping duties that I need to attend to, like cleaning and getting rid of stuff, but I am ok with days where I sleep in until I feel like it and sip coffee until the late afternoon.

I also have lots of video games and TV watching pencilled in. My service of choice for this month is Netflix and I’ve been catching up on many shows I’ve missed.

I fully expect my sleep schedule to get completely messed up and I’m looking forward to that.

I’ve been observing my bathroom for ants for the last two weeks and I haven’t seen any. It doesn’t mean they aren’t there, it’s just I haven’t been able to observe them. That said, they were pretty easy to find when I started my battle with them, so this is a great development.

This weekend, I went to battle the ants underneath my kitchen sink. I was going to reinforce some areas that I had taped off with stronger tape that isn’t affected by heat. I spent about an entire hour under the sink and I didn’t see a single ant. I’m not going to declare victory based on that alone because I saw a ton of ants a few weeks ago and I hadn’t changed anything since. There’s still many gaps and holes to still seal up under the sink. I likely did not see any ants because they either found somewhere else more to their liking or colder weather had driven them to somewhere warmer. Their absence is because they are choosing not to be under my sink, not because they can’t get to it. I am sure if I gave the good reason to be there, they’d easily find their way.

I need to continue to seal all the gaps and put some expanding foam into the larger holes. I feel perhaps the winter is giving me a respite from the ants and once the warmer weather returns, they’ll be back in greater numbers as well. I need to use this time wisely and prepare.

I know I complain about the weather a lot on this thing but I have to admit, this has been one of the most mild winters I’ve experienced in many years. A year ago, we experienced one of the worst snowstorms in recent memory. It took people upwards of eight hours to commute home.

This winter, so far, has been quite pleasant. Not only have the temperatures remained well-above freezing, the usual rain that is a staple of Vancouver winters has stayed away for the most part. It’s been dry enough that it’s beginning to worry some experts because it could lead to more drought.

I have no complaints at all. The dryer weather means driving is easier. The warmer temperatures means being outside is less of a hassle and I haven’t had to break out my warmer clothes. It also means I’m less tempted to turn on the heat and thus increasing my hydro bill. It’s all good to me. Let the warm days continue.

I was not home for the majority of Sunday and while I was out, I received a phone call from the building manager. He said that the unit below me I had some pooled up in the living room and they wanted to check if the leak was coming from my apartment. I was unable to come home immediately but I did check the security camera that I have in living room. I didn’t see anything weird. My camera also has audio and I didn’t hear the sound of water either. I had some doubts that whatever leak was coming from my place.

I returned home as soon as I could, without upending my original plans. When I arrived home, I saw a mysterious puddle of water in my living room. It was about three feet long and about a foot wide. It would be the amount of water you’d see if you spilled about a glass of water on the floor.

I texted the building manager and let him know I was home. A few minutes later, he arrived at my door with a plumber in tow. They checked a whole bunch of things in my apartment but to make a long story short, they determined the leak did not originate in my apartment. There’s a long wall that divides my living room from my bedroom and the water pipes are inside this wall and they go up to the unit above and down to the unit below.

I could see the faint lines of a water stain on my flooring and I could tell the water actually seeped from inside the wall, underneath the floor moulding, and onto my flooring. The plumber determined whatever was the source of the leak, it was above me. The building manager and plumber then left to go above me to check on those units.

I was left to clean up the water. I used a bath towel to soak up the water and it didn’t take much effort to do so. I remember the flooring guy that sold me my floors said that my floors could handle liquid spills for about 24 hours before it might be a problem. I wasn’t away for nearly that long so I’d like to think my flooring is still ok. Just to make sure, I turned on a fan and blew air along the affected area to help dry out the floors.

The bigger question is what condition is my wall in on the inside? Is the drywall all mushy and wet in there? Or did the leak basically go under the drywall, miss all of it, and just pooled up on my floors?

The building manager came by later to tell me they weren’t able to find the source of the leak but he did tell me that he knows that the person on the 30the floor installed a new dishwasher a few days ago. They couldn’t find any evidence though that this was the issue. So, there’s nothing to be done for now. You can fix a leak that you can’t find.

Every couple of hours I go and check the area to see if any new water has accumulated but so far, there has been nothing. In terms of water leaks, this was on the lower scale of impact. I am thankful I didn’t come home to my entire apartment covered in inches of water. It was clear that some amount of water leaked into my apartment and then stopped. While I am thankful it wasn’t catastrophic, it worries me that this happened in the first place and we don’t know why and where the source of the leak is. In my experience, water leaks aren’t a one-time event and they don’t usually fix themselves. I don’t think this is the last time I’ll have to deal with this problem and that worries me.

What troubles are ahead of me?

I braved my one of the largest local malls in the Vancouver area this evening. I hate going to Metrotown but it has the widest selection of stores out of any mall that’s close to me, so it has some benefits. I needed to go buy my niece her birthday present since her birthday is just days before Christmas.

I was expecting terrible traffic, no parking, and wall to wall crowds but I experienced none of that. I got there quickly, found parking immediately, and there wasn’t a whole lot of people at the mall. I did my shopping quickly and efficiently, and got out of there in a reasonable amount of time.

Perhaps it was a Monday or maybe it’s not even December yet or people just might be poorer now but it did not resemble that stupid Christmas crush of shoppers that were a hallmark of years past.

The experience was pleasant enough that I’d even consider a return trip to Metrotown in the new year, this time to shop for myself.

It had been over two weeks since I’ve observed any ants in my bathroom, so on Saturday, I made the decision to put back all the crap that was underneath my bathroom sink. Unfortunately, right before I went to do this, I observed three ants milling about just inside the threshold of my bathroom, right near the sink cabinet.

For the next hour, I observed any ants I could see to figure out perhaps where they were coming from and where they were going to. Some of the ants seemed lost, they would initially move purposefully, probably following a scent trail but then they’d just to a point where they didn’t seen to know where to go next. They’d double-back on their trails repeatedly and wind up going nowhere really. I needed an ant to either show me where they were going or to where they came from. Some of the ants didn’t do that, so after a few minutes, I’d just eliminate them.

One ant proved immensely useful. It appeared seemingly out of nowhere, near the doorjamb. I followed him for several minutes as navigated up off the floor, up the wall, and then along the wall, where it met at 90 degrees with the sink cabinet. I had previously sealed this entire corner edge with silicone sealant, so I was expecting this ant to get confused and wander aimlessly. I kept watching it though and to my surprise, it wiggled into the tiniest of gaps where my sealing job was not perfect. It just disappeared into this tiny hole. If I hadn’t seen the ant go into it, I wouldn’t have even noticed it. These ants are quite small, so they’re able to squeeze into the smallest spaces. I immediately sealed off this hole. Are there more of these imperfect areas where I think I’ve sealed it off? Probably.

As for where they’re coming from, another ant gave me a possible lead. I have no definitive proof just yet. This ant seemed confused and there was a chance it was just wandering. It had originally appeared out of nowhere and I had followed it up along the bathroom wall. It double-backed a few times and it seemed like it was wasting my time. Then it climbed down the bathroom wall and then walked along the tile, hugging the doorjamb moudling. It eventually just followed the wall and entered my bedroom. That wall immediately makes a series of 90 degree turns and it winds up being in one of bedroom closets. The vinyl flooring planks in this area also have a bit of a gap between the end of the plank and where the moulding is. This gap is huge for an ant and I saw it walk down into this gap. Is this where the ants are coming from? It’s difficult to say because I did not observe any ants emerging from these gaps. I only saw one ant go in there and it might have been just confused. It’s something I need to observe more.

The good news is that the ants don’t seem to be underneath my bathroom sink anymore. None of the ants I observed this weekend were found there, nor did they seem to want to go there. So based on this, I went through with my plan of moving all my crap back underneath the sink. I also screwed back in the panel I had removed a few weeks back so that I could seal up a long gap.

I feel like I’ve made progress here. If the ants are actually coming up through these gaps between floor planks and the moulding, I’ll have to seal these up too. These gaps are quite big though, so the silicone sealant I’ve been using won’t work. I’ll need to switch to that expanding foam I bought. Using that might be an adventure.