Pack rats on two legs
Jul. 28th, 2020 15:53![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillWell, things were proceeding here rather as usual; we're in a "heat wave", which means about 90 and humid, making for breathless afternoons before things cool down... the cat discovered I had propped open one of the windows in the Lift, and shortly thereafter ended up below it on the mudroom roof and had to be rescued, and there's a pack rat in the wall again, and the water box valve has silted up so that we only have a trickle of water again. So as I say, much as usual. But then...
The first night I was here I discovered my bag of silverware was gone from the camp kitchen, left outside the kitchen door. Odd. Then I couldn't find my knee pads, or my old work gloves with holes in some of the fingers. Well, maybe someone was living rough and figured they could use those things.
Today Conrad asked me where the two 10-foot aluminum ladders (two halves of an extendable) were. I didn't know, and we couldn't find them, nor one of the 14' halves either (the other was there, with the 12' extendable I bought from Ivan). Hmm. Someone had evidently been here with a vehicle and taken more than just roughing-it supplies. So I decided maybe, until I can get a proper gate built across the foot of the bridge, we should put a chain across the curve of the driveway. I went to get a measuring tape from the new toolkit... and it was gone.
So was the electric chainsaw, the compound miter saw I bought from Ivan (ah well), a small vise bolted to a plank, a heavy tarp (that cost $70 last September!), my drill bits, all four boxes of deck screws, most of the tools on the pegboards in the workroom -- hammers, pliers, screwdrivers, and so on -- and every hacksaw and blade we owned, including the one which had been propped next to the kitchen door.
Suddenly this isn't some homeless dude taking a few living supplies, or even a young fellow just starting out as a handyman. This was a real burglary, and in a way we're fortunate that half of the useful tools here are scattered hither and yon and buried under miscellaneous stuff, as Jenny was able to rustle up a measuring tape for me from somewhere. But it's aggravating, and alarming, and inconvenient not to have even one hacksaw to our names.
I suppose I should start haunting Craigslist, partly to replace the items, partly to look for things that might have been ours. Meanwhile, we'll keep an eye peeled, and it might be worth seeing about an insurance claim if the cost of replacement is significant. I mean, the toolkit was about $40, but aluminum ladders cost something, and so does an electric chainsaw...
Jenny tells me that this has happened before, but rarely. Still, it's not really the kind of welcome I had been looking forward to. And the loss of what tools we had is going to slow down my efforts to rebuild things around here.
The first night I was here I discovered my bag of silverware was gone from the camp kitchen, left outside the kitchen door. Odd. Then I couldn't find my knee pads, or my old work gloves with holes in some of the fingers. Well, maybe someone was living rough and figured they could use those things.
Today Conrad asked me where the two 10-foot aluminum ladders (two halves of an extendable) were. I didn't know, and we couldn't find them, nor one of the 14' halves either (the other was there, with the 12' extendable I bought from Ivan). Hmm. Someone had evidently been here with a vehicle and taken more than just roughing-it supplies. So I decided maybe, until I can get a proper gate built across the foot of the bridge, we should put a chain across the curve of the driveway. I went to get a measuring tape from the new toolkit... and it was gone.
So was the electric chainsaw, the compound miter saw I bought from Ivan (ah well), a small vise bolted to a plank, a heavy tarp (that cost $70 last September!), my drill bits, all four boxes of deck screws, most of the tools on the pegboards in the workroom -- hammers, pliers, screwdrivers, and so on -- and every hacksaw and blade we owned, including the one which had been propped next to the kitchen door.
Suddenly this isn't some homeless dude taking a few living supplies, or even a young fellow just starting out as a handyman. This was a real burglary, and in a way we're fortunate that half of the useful tools here are scattered hither and yon and buried under miscellaneous stuff, as Jenny was able to rustle up a measuring tape for me from somewhere. But it's aggravating, and alarming, and inconvenient not to have even one hacksaw to our names.
I suppose I should start haunting Craigslist, partly to replace the items, partly to look for things that might have been ours. Meanwhile, we'll keep an eye peeled, and it might be worth seeing about an insurance claim if the cost of replacement is significant. I mean, the toolkit was about $40, but aluminum ladders cost something, and so does an electric chainsaw...
Jenny tells me that this has happened before, but rarely. Still, it's not really the kind of welcome I had been looking forward to. And the loss of what tools we had is going to slow down my efforts to rebuild things around here.
