Spiders Oh My

Oct 31, 2006 by Naomi.

Wow! Am I glad I went underground yesterday afternoon when the temperature was 60 instead of waiting until this morning when the temperature dropped to 15 F. I think there is something in the air that has changed. Halloween is here and thirty years ago when kids went tricking in Richland Washington, weather was mild right up to the coming of the goblins and ghosts. Rain often fell after dark and turned to ice by morning but day time temperatures remained in the sixties.

But I digress. The crawl space is not an area I seek for a quiet lunch or to enjoy the peaceful scenery, although it actually is peaceful. Full of spider webs no longer sticky or holding tasty morsels, only zillions of egg sacks embracing unhatched eight legged arachnid babies awaiting a mother’s love. There was not the slightest action so I had an uninterrupted squiggle and slide under the floor of my fifty-some year-old government house.

Now to get to the reason why I felt so compelled to proceed. Leaking water pipes were discovered months ago literally flooding the area under my house. Two offenders, water faucets, were replaced and an opinion expressed that electrolysis was probably the reason there were holes in the copper pipes. I already paid the piper — I mean the plumber - who did not have sufficient electrical knowledge but he knew an electrician who did and who could certify if electricity was the problem. Electrolysis is a powerful chemical decomposition that occurs when electrical ions pass through a solution or compound. In this case it was supposedly my copper pipes.

To make a long story even longer I resisted the call to the electrician and finally went to the city electrical engineers for their “learned” opinions. And what happened was that they needed visual verification of several things. One was what kind of connection was made of the new copper faucets to the old galvanized system installed in ancient times. The second thing was whether the connecting system actually was copper or what.

Did bonded engineers offer to come and freely examine those connections? NO. So there I was with my camera in hand slithering through the crawl space so conveniently left for working — and I use that term loosely — under the floor. Mission accomplished. Digital photos sent for perusal. I suspect that this is an exercise I will have to go through in another five years because it appears that the water pressure alone wore out the thin copper of the outdoor faucets. Oh well, by that time I will only be eighty five years old and need a full basement to hold the treasures I love to collect. Spiders go spin your webs elsewhere!

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