Univited guests

Many years ago when I was down the basement over by the furnace one day looking for something, I happened to glance up at the rafters.  These rafters were right next to where the outside porch would be and I saw something.  I almost had a heart attack and died right there on the spot.  I saw a hive..  and it was big ....inside the house. 

You never saw somebody run up the steps so fast, I was like lightening.  My husband came down and looked. Sure enough, that's what it was.

 

Every once in a while when I was doing laundry I would occasionally see what I thought was a bee but I just figured someone let it in the house accidentally.  I didn't realize they had been taking up residency

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We called an exterminator and told him we had a hive in the house.  He said he would come around 10:00 p.m. which seemed weird but I guess that's the best time to get them because they are all in there. Ewww

The guy went down the basement with a flashlight and put some stuff in the hive that killed them. Then he brought the hive back up and was showing us the hive and said they were hornets.  Although luckily this time, they were dead hornets.   Talk about creepy.  Just thinking about that hive now still freaks me out  LOL.

He searched for where they were coming in and it was in the front corner of the house and the hive was in the back of the house. Those little buggers, ha.

My husband had to patch up the hole.  The following year, we still found a few hornets down the basement and we had an exterminator come and spray the whole basement.  That was that.  Thank goodness.

Oops!!

One day I flushed the toilet and all of a sudden this happened,  Yikes!!  Excuse the shadow.

My husband wasn't home.  I had to take the tank top off so I could flush it.  After he got home, it looked like this but at least it could be flushed. 

This was in the half bathroom.  Thank goodness now it looks good as new.  Whew!!! 

The squeak

 

Months ago, every few days I would hear a little squeak.  It wasn't long enough to tell where it was coming from.  This happened for a couple of weeks.  Then I started hearing it once or twice a day but it was still too quick.  I started thinking maybe it was one of the smoke detectors announcing that its battery was low but I wasn't sure.

Finally, it started happening more and more and we realized it was coming from the refrigerator.  We pretty much didn't do anything about it though.  We were kind of waiting to see what would happen LOL. 

Then a couple of more weeks went by and I bought some ice cream from Schwans.  I only had it about a day and when I went to get some and it seemed very soft.  I checked the next day and the ice cream seemed like it was really starting to melt.  I mentioned it to my husband so he put a thermometer in the refrigerator and freezer part and turned up the controls.  In the meantime, I naturally had to eat up all the ice cream because it was melting ;-).

For a couple of days we checked and obviously something was wrong because the temperature wasn't going in the right direction.  Luckily the meat was still frozen.   

One day we were talking about if we would have to buy a new fridge, when suddenly I remembered I hadn't heard the squeaking noise for a while . Then we started thinking about when the last time the fridge was pulled from the wall and cleaned in the back.  Uh oh, it was years.

 

He pulled it out.  Oh my goodness, I wish I would have thought at the time to take a picture but unfortunately, I didn't.  There was so much dust over the back of it.  I think the squeak was a "scream for help" from the refrigerator that we didn't understand at the time LOL.  My husband vacuumed it all out and it seems to be working now. 

So, this is a PSA.  If you ever hear a squeak coming from the fridge - it might be your fridge asking/pleading/screaming for help - just sayin.