I woke up late today. I turned off the alarm when it went off at 5:30. I got up at 7. Wow! That is late for me. I called Yvette first thing. After spending time and money on acoustically insulating the bedroom over her bedroom, the only possible solution is to rip everything up, including the subflooring, and start from scratch. There’s a good possibility the high-pitched squeaky noise is created by layers of the subflooring rubbing against each other. The plywood has delaminated.
During the night, it occurred to me we had drilled several hundred nails through the carpeting into the subflooring to combat the problem. Now, that screwed-down subflooring has to come up. But, but we broke the heads off those screws once they were drill in. There is a kit for this. They sell special extra-long screws and a tripod for snapping off their heads, so the screws are flush with the subflooring. This was a great solution, only it didn’t work. The question now was, how do you get screws out that don’t have heads? I called a company that made the screws.
It wound up, I didn’t call the company I ordered them from, but the guy was lovely, answered my question, and threw in a fun story for good measure. The solution was to pry up the subflooring and then snap off the parts of the screws sticking out of the joists with a cut-off grinder. I had an image of someone having to sand down every one of those screws, but no. They just get snapped off. He said it would take three seconds per screw. Not too bad, except it has to be someone agile enough to do all that work with nothing more than joists between them and the floor below. I may have to hire a teenager to do that work. But then, if he injures himself, I’ll be screwed. Oh, well. I will have to think this through.
The funny story: He said just be glad that you don’t have next-door neighbors who have sex nonstop for seven days straight. He and his wife were on a cruise, and the folks next door provided the entertainment. I asked him if they were honeymooners. He said he didn’t know. He never saw them. As far as he could tell, they never left their room.
I did a little bit of work on the article. Doing this is good for me. I’m answering some questions about what I have to cover in the book. I vacuumed another tile flooring area and then headed off to Miss Kitty’s Accounting office to pick up my completed tax forms. They have been sitting there since last March. My taxes were paid ages ago.
I called Richie before I left to tell him I was interested in having him do some work for me. He called me back while I was driving. Richie is an accomplished contractor and builder. Judy and Paulette were both thrilled with his work. However, he is a talker. When I described my problem, he started throwing out solutions. I had to stop him and tell him what I was interested in. He will come by Monday or Tuesday, on his days off, to check out the situation. He may have other suggestions, but I’m through throwing good money after bad. Given that delamination is a likely cause of the problem, the only solution is to rip everything up.
Next, I went to Home Depot to pick up the bathroom sink faucet and the fans. There was no such item as a cheap faucet. I decided I would pick what I would like for the bathroom I am envisioning. I chose a high-end one that had been returned and was on sale with quite a reduction in price.
I made a quick stop to Costco to see if they had some salad I liked. There was no sweet kale salad, but there was an avocado-ranch instead. I prefer salads with kale. I like the taste, texture, and the fact that they last longer than the lettuce salads.
When I got home, I took a nap. Surprise. I didn’t even plug in the car first. Having to plug the car in every time I take a trip is somewhat annoying. I took care of it when I got up from the nap and set my alarm for 5pm when the sun will be too low to provide solar energy. Then I unplugged the car and moved it out of the driveway in preparation for driveway yoga tomorrow. I’ll move it back into the driveway after yoga and finish charging the car. That way, it will be ready to drive on Sunday.
I called Vicki at Progressive. She had given me a long extension number. When I called the 800-Progressive number, there was no instruction to dial an extension. I had to speak to someone. She dialed it, and she told me that Vicki hadn’t been online since yesterday. She also told me that this number could be dialed directly. The area code is 1-103. Apparently, companies can get their own area code.
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