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For mosquitos, you could try plants that would attract dragonflies to your yard. They eat them up by the ton.
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Jul 13, 2022 20:48
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Hadlock posted:Yeah I am on a 5000sq ft city lot with four adjacent lots inside of 0.5 acres + at least 6 trees (not on my lot) 40' high I could hit with a rock. I can spray my yard but don't have much control over the rest of the area I went to wirecutter for 'best bug zapper' and they have a whole article about how bug zappers are bad and don't even work. The bits that stuck out to me: -mosquitos don't care about bug zappers so they're no use for them. -they explode the bugs which releases a mist of bug juice which can carry disease -experts say it's better to repel bugs than attract them So they said to use deet, but even better was some other thing (picardin), and also the simple mosquito coils that you burn to repel them. Alternatively since they're weak fliers, you can use a strong fan and aim it at your feet since if there's a strong wind they try to go under it, and prefer to bite lower extremities. I ended up buying 10 mosquito coils from amazon for $7, and a bottle of picardin spray. If I'm allergic to it I'll get some deet. They also said citronella does nothing against mosquitos.
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Jul 13, 2022 21:31
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Holy CRAP. So, our saga starts when the downstairs sinks, shower, and toilet gurgle every time the washer drains. Not when you flush the toilets, not when you run a shower, just when the washer drains. We call in the local plumbers who put a water jet down the washer drain, assure us it's draining normally, and leave. We call the local septic tank people; they look at the septic system, say it looks as if it had just been cleaned out the month before, and recommend the local specialist in drain unplugging. He came today. He had to dig a hole into the septic system because there is no cleanout. A lot of turning on showers, sinks, and the washer follows. It turns out that our house, built in 1931 next to what was then private land and is now a state park, has two drain systems. One of them serves only the toilets. The other, a greywater system, runs under the house, and as far as we can figure runs somewhere into the state park, possibly into a dry well.  The septic system is small, and the leach field (as far as we can guess) is tiny; the back yard where it would be is ~~ .05 acre. The sewer specialist thinks that it's likely that the reason that only the toilets run into the septic system is that the septic system/leach field aren't large enough to support a four-bedroom house. (Fortunately, only three of us live here. But still.) The pipe that everything but the toilets drain into is galvanized iron and runs under the foundation, so it's been there a good long while. The pipes that feed into it were done relatively recently (PVC pipes) by an amateur who didn't know what they were doing and used the wrong fittings. Holy gently caress, I wasn't remotely expecting this. I'll be calling a septic engineer (who I am assured will not report us to the county) to investigate the size and condition of the leach field and what can be done. Holy poo poo. "Full copper repipe."
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Jul 13, 2022 21:35
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brugroffil posted:For mosquitos, you could try plants that would attract dragonflies to your yard. They eat them up by the ton. Or if you can build a bat box. Bats love eating mosquitos.
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Jul 13, 2022 21:45
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dxt posted:Or if you can build a bat box. Bats love eating mosquitos. And bonus it offers 24/7 protection! We used to see bats zooming across the swamp behind our Florida house once it got dark out. Constant back and forth gorging on mosquitoes.
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Jul 13, 2022 21:54
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dxt posted:Or if you can build a bat box. The whole point is to have FEWER bugs in the yard
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Jul 13, 2022 21:59
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BATS AREN'T BUGS!
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Jul 13, 2022 22:01
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:The whole point is to have FEWER bugs in the yard goddamnit thank you I knew it would come to this 
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Jul 13, 2022 22:01
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Probably preaching to the choir here but if you have mosquito problems and don't live in an actual, "standing water multiple months of the year," no bullshit swamp the best thing you can do is find any areas where standing water are collecting and do whatever it takes to make it not collect there. If your backyard is a wetland you're kinda SOL, but if you've just got dumb poo poo collecting water kill that. An old college buddy in Florida had a backyard that was loving mosquito central, but he wasn't really near any water. Like, it's florida, there's water SOMEWHERE, but not adjacent to a pond or swamp etc. His house is even on a small hill with pretty good (for Florida) drainage. But what he did have is a poo poo ton of sawed-off metal pipes sticking out of the ground all around the edge of his yard where some previous owner had decided to take down a chain link fence around the property. Real loving eyesore, and hazardous to boot but he's a single, goony guy so he just kind of rolls with it. One day I'm out there doing backyard stuff with him and trying to stay as close to his bonfire of citronella as possible when a thought occurs to me and I go poke my head over one of those pipes. Sure enough, standing water in there. Off to the hardware store, bought some expanding foam, and plugged them all. Blobs of foam poking out the tops of the pipes, ugly as gently caress, but again this is a guy who's OK enough with them there in the first place to not dig them up. Stopped the mosquito problem in its tracks. Last time I was down to visit him the yard was just normal non-swamp florida mosquito levels, not the hell he had before.
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Jul 13, 2022 22:09
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dxt posted:Or if you can build a bat box. Bats love eating mosquitos. We get both, and essentially zero mosquitoes. It owns. Though I've heard bats don't give a poo poo about bat boxes.
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Jul 13, 2022 22:09
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Just installed a bat box under the eaves of my second floor recently, hoping I get some flying vampire friends soon.  Though yeah not gonna hold my breath.
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Jul 13, 2022 22:13
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brugroffil posted:We get both, and essentially zero mosquitoes. It owns. Probably depends on the availability of natural bat hangout spots.
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Jul 13, 2022 22:13
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I've pretty much given up on ever truly getting rid of the tiny black ants around our house. They'll show up inside now and then, but we're very good about keeping our food sealed up and such so they mostly just wander around rather than actually going after anything (and they're killed on sight). They're everywhere outside, though. Base of every bush and tree, loving around in the shed, they're all over the place. The whole town is beset by 'em, so there's no point in going after them in our yard.
Toaster Beef fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Jul 13, 2022 |
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Jul 13, 2022 22:17
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Toaster Beef posted:I've pretty much given up on ever truly getting rid of the tiny black ants around our house. They'll show up inside now and then, but we're very good about keeping our food sealed up and such so they mostly just wander around rather than actually going after anything (and they're killed on sight). They're everywhere outside, though. Base of every bush and tree, loving around in the shed, they're all over the place. The whole town is beset by 'em, so there's no point in going after them in our yard. California is one giant ant's nest, but we've kept them out of our house for a decade by ringing the place with a little pile of diatomaceous earth. It's sharp grains at a microscopic level, bugs can't walk across it because it slices up their little carapaces. Bonus advantage, it's nontoxic (but don't inhale it) and cheap. If the ants are tunneling under the ground and coming up from beneath the house this doesn't really work tho.
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Jul 13, 2022 22:46
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For any that make it inside, those Terro traps are amazingly effective.
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Jul 13, 2022 22:48
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Borax powder and sugar water. Keep doing it a few weeks and keep it liquid to a consistency of runny syrup. If it's too heavy on the borax, they'll die nearby or in the liquid. If it's mixed right, they'll bring it back to the colony and kill the queen and larvae. It's cheap, effective, and easy to mix. Plus it's pretty safe. It's just laundry detergent. It's basically the same poo poo as the store bought stuff but like 1000x cheaper.
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Jul 13, 2022 23:28
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Can anybody comment about my thrilling plumbing discovery? Would double systems with greywater going one way and sewage going another have been common practice at some point, or is this just the sort of thing you do when you're trying to make it work?
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Jul 13, 2022 23:54
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I’m guessing the grey water used to just run outside and best wishes that it just drained away.
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Jul 14, 2022 01:01
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Ja my neighbors house with the 1940s garage & a bar out the back had sinks & a urinal that ran along through a 3” galvanized pipe about a foot underground and just…stopped about six feet away from the bar. No French drain or nothin’
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Jul 14, 2022 02:11
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PainterofCrap posted:I live in New Jersey, in a swamp that was drained in the 1920s, less than a mile from the Delaware River. I have creeks & (wet) swamps all around me. The mosquitos are heinious, and I've thought about having the yard sprayed, but I really can't see what good it would do unless they laid down DDT with aircraft. Step 1: Call your county mosquito control office https://www.nj.gov/dep/enforcement/pcp/bpo-mfagencies.htm . Complain about the number of mosquitos you have. Worst case, they come out and do essentially nothing. Step 2: Consider buying or making some traps from here: https://eu-shop.biogents.com/collections/traps/?lang=en
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Jul 14, 2022 02:23
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Can anybody comment about my thrilling plumbing discovery? Would double systems with greywater going one way and sewage going another have been common practice at some point, or is this just the sort of thing you do when you're trying to make it work? Yes, it used to be very common. Especially back when "septic tanks" were 55 gallon drums with a street sign on the top as a lid and an undersized leech field. My last house was exactly this until I put in a proper septic system. Gray water drained to grade and went through the neighbors back yard along with their graywater and then......somewhere down the street.... I bet their graywater still does.
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Jul 14, 2022 13:03
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Last wasp tip, for nuisance wasps that haven’t got to full on building a nest stage, but are kinda hanging out or thinking about building a nest in a particular spot: as mentioned spray bottle with soapy water, but add a tiny bit of peppermint oil. It’s like holy water to a vampire, really makes them gtfo. I keep a bottle on hand by my porch and it’s enough to prevent them setting up shop anywhere on the front side of my house. Not permanent but also totally not poison. Now if you have like a loving hornet nest you need the foam spray of death do not try to peppermint them lol
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Jul 14, 2022 14:37
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always be wasp spraying these are not fuzzy *bonk* bumble *bonk* bees who have gotten lost all you can do is hope the wasp decides not to add you to the list of things it wants to gently caress up today
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Jul 14, 2022 14:48
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know what I found.. sand midges.. while pissing them off when taking my garbage bag out.. OUCH. I will be positioning my land. Edit: Went out and sprayed, they're full on bees.. Bush is soaked in home defense gently caress you bees. tater_salad fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Jul 14, 2022 |
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Jul 14, 2022 15:10
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…positioning it for a nuke from orbit?
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Jul 14, 2022 15:53
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PainterofCrap posted:…positioning it for a nuke from orbit? I guess autocorrect changed my way of spelling Poisoning to Positioning.
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Jul 14, 2022 16:10
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I may be a stinky hippy but sand midges would make me contemplate chemical warfare. Those things are awful
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Jul 14, 2022 16:41
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Quick paint question: we got a few quotes to paint the exterior of our home, one with PPG Permanizer and one with Benjamin Moore Regal. There's a ~$700 difference. I talked to my soon-to-be brother-in-law who works for PPG and he said there's no difference in paint, they're the same level, but I've also seen that dude eat four frozen pizzas in one sitting...
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Jul 14, 2022 16:45
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As a highly intelligent person who often eats four frozen pizzas in one sitting, I'll have you know that
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Jul 14, 2022 18:28
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Omne posted:Quick paint question: we got a few quotes to paint the exterior of our home, one with PPG Permanizer and one with Benjamin Moore Regal. There's a ~$700 difference. I talked to my soon-to-be brother-in-law who works for PPG and he said there's no difference in paint, they're the same level, but I've also seen that dude eat four frozen pizzas in one sitting... Your brother in law is a god among men.
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Jul 14, 2022 18:37
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We talking Totino's Party Pizzas or is my man going hog on Tombstones over there?
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Jul 14, 2022 18:53
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Trying to decide what to do here. Is this extra bit here to help prop up the mirror or is it decorative?
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Jul 14, 2022 18:55
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It’s a backsplash, it’s to protect the drywall from water E: I’m a dummy, yeah like the poster below says it’s bonus counter space Anza Borrego fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Jul 14, 2022 |
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Jul 14, 2022 19:07
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It's someone's (not terrible imho, just kinda dated looking) solution to a lack of counterspace. The wall clips on the mirror do seem to be resting directly on top if it.
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Jul 14, 2022 19:27
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I'm more worried about how that countertop is overhanging the toilet tank without much room to spare. I can imagine myself busting my knuckles trying to un-stick the flapper or the float or replace a broken chain etc.
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Jul 14, 2022 19:41
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Just finished reading through this thread. It’s been a wild past few years with houses huh? Some highlights were: Someone’s relative selling their home to Zillow circa summer 2021 (just because lol whoops) The goon asking about concrete density for their survival bunker The surveyor casually moving property markers “because they messed up last time”
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Jul 14, 2022 19:43
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Is there a good source to buy "quality" faucets? Got a half bath that needs a new one, and we're looking to get a new kitchen faucet as well. Want to avoid the stuff at LowesDepot and buy something that will last. Not like high-end luxury stuff, but just decent quality that isn't plastic covered with faux-metal finish.
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Jul 14, 2022 19:45
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ohhyeah posted:The surveyor casually moving property markers “because they messed up last time”
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Jul 14, 2022 20:00
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DaveSauce posted:Is there a good source to buy "quality" faucets?
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Jul 14, 2022 20:33
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DaveSauce posted:Is there a good source to buy "quality" faucets? Go to a fixtures store. Tell them you want quality not luxury, something middle of the road. They will point you at a display of things and tell you to pick one. They will all be roughly the same price. You can probably be in and out in under 30 minutes assuming you know what you want and they don't have trouble finding it in the back. Or go to the "other" aisle in LowesDepot. At least mine had an aisle where nothing exceeded $150 and another one where it was just double the price.
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Jul 14, 2022 20:39
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