The back porch of the loveshack is a screened-in concrete pad. The screen walls are subframes that are bolted to the pad and tacked to the supports that hold the roof up. The screens were installed in the subframes when they were laying down, so that gravity would aide in their construction. In particular, a 3 foot wide, 7 foot tall piece of aluminum screen is not fun to try to install while balancing on a ladder.
The original construction was 50 years ago, and the hardware holding the frames to the house have now all rusted. Replacing the screens is a ladder-based affair.
When we moved in, there were several panels that were severely damaged, and I took an afternoon carefully removing the flashing around the panels and applying fresh aluminum screen. (Previous tenants in our tenement had found this untenable, and stapled to the flashing.) This, combined with $15 worth of citronella candles, greatly improved the porches appeal as an evening bug-free get-away.
This is very important to have, and thus why I know about the screens.
Then, something curious happened. I received a flustered text message from The Girly. Something was putting holes in the nylon screen. Holes that are the size of a fat pencil. Given the pucker of the screen is facing the great unknown wilderness of the park behind the house, it was something that appeared to want to be out of the porch.
Whatever this could be stumps the imagination. We have been witness to quite the arthropod menagerie: There is the 18:00 mosquito rush, the unseen noseeums that leave us with the itchies, the thumb sized cricket in the bedroom, june bugs... june bugs... june bugs, stick bugs, preying mantis, flies, and even a few spiders. But what would want to get out? The dog has not produced anything remarkable, and he has not been displaying any aggression that was not linked to an obvious stimulant. There are no cocoons or nests. Nothing went bump in the night. It is a small mystery that I hope will not grow in size.
Just outward holes in the screen.
"Snakes?", I suggested over breakfast.
Not in the screen.
"Rocket propelled snakes?"
Somehow, those don't seem as scary.
Reminds me of the mystery holes in the little rental house. There were some holes in the screen porch there too. Just like that and about the size of a #3 (first grade) pencil.
ReplyDeleteAfter a bit we realized that there were also matching co-linear holes in the venetian blinds and in the downspout.
if I were to guess, and I have, the holes were very nearly 0.357 inches in diameter - if you get my drift.
But what this might say about your screens remains a bit of conjecture.
Interesting point. I should instruct people not to loan me guns when I am drunk. Since there are no holes in the house, the fire-arms hypothesis has startling implications.
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