We were going to put in a new front door anyhow

The new door.  Siding goes back on next.

Yesterday I alluded to the fact that, once again, our house has been visited by a scourge of termites.  This may or may not be the proper terminology for a bunch of frigging homewreckers, but to me it's apt and I'm not going to go scrounging for the correct terminology.  This isn't science, no need to be so pedantic.

They had visited a couple of years ago, having snacked mightily on our living room floor.  We were going to be working in that room anyhow, refinishing what we thought were the original 100+-YO hardwoods, but had a concern about a certain springiness to the floor that seemed 'a little much.'

That's what happens when termites eat your floor.  It gets springy.  In a dangerous way, might I add.

So, we initiated a relationship with a pest control company to come on out and treat the house, then inspect yearly to ensure they're not on a reunion tour.  Worked well for us for several years.

The tech came out in June this year and declared the house free of any termite activity, but unfortunately he wasn't able to look behind the front door frame. *Ahem*

Sometime around the June timeframe we started to notice the door was getting really hard to close.  Seemed to be 'sticking' at the top, like it was not aligned correctly with the frame.  Maybe it was the heat?  Hmmm.  Adjustments were made, but they didn't last long.  Biff tried to reposition the hinges, but wasn't able to, because the door frame was the approximate consistency of DUST and weren't no screw gonna hold fast to nothin'.

So, OK, SOMETHING was going on.  We, obviously, were not thinking termites just yet, as we'd been assured there was no sign of them just a few months ago.

We got a new door to replace the old one, just for fun and because we wanted to rid ourselves of a few hundred (many few hundreds) of bucks on one we both really like (I was not a huge fan of the old door).  Biff put a couple of coast of Candy Apple red paint on it (love me a red front door) and got ready to hang it yesterday.

Once the old door came off, the problem was evident.  Termites.  Frigging termites.

Y'all, I nearly went out and bought a flamethrower.  

Instead, we called the pest company, secured a time for bug eradication for this morning ('no, I will NOT wait until next Tuesday for a tech to come out - there's NO FRONT DOOR ON MY HOUSE'), and Biff plywooded up the door opening like we were preparing for a hurricane.

Which, you know, we were (hello Sally [not Stella, like I said yesterday]), but boarding up the door would have been rather an overkill for what was largely a rain event.

Get a call this morning from the pest control folks, saying the tech that was supposed to come today called out sick (turns out he'd been contact traced to a COVID victim - yikes!) and the earliest they can come out now is...next Tuesday.

Well, no.  I put Biff on the horn to them and through his charm and no-nonsense conversational approach the company found a guy to come out pretty much right away.  The tech was a nice guy, did the work quickly, and left us with some of the nuclear-grade bug stuff in case the stupid effing termites happen to show up again.

Also, there will be another tech coming tomorrow to re-inspect the crawlspace and treat down there too.

So, on this temperate September Friday Biff has spent hours putting up the new door.  Seriously, it's like 6+ hours just to get the door in properly, and that's with 2 guys on the job!  Fussy work, that door installation.

The pot is slightly sweetened though, because he will actually get paid for the work he did putting in the door, as the pest control folks would normally pay for a team to come out and address the carpentry and access issues that resulted from the termite buffet.  So, Biff was truly 'working for himself' today, which is a nice bonus when it could have just been a lost day.

And that is how we got a new front door.

It didn't need to be that complicated.  Honestly, 2020, when will you let up?

Tiff out.