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Destruction - day one.

Destruction Saturday was a very eventfull one. Mel and Matthew gave me the entire day to work on destroying the bathroom. To this I owe Mel big time. However, I did do some rather discusting demo work that she would not have done.

There is no longer a question of when the PO's horribly remodeled, ant infested bathroom will go. We have made the observation that is the second large remodel of this bathroom that is visible. By far this was the least water tight remodel and the cause of many problems, one of which was the ants, who knows how many more we will find. Notice the water stains on the plywood in the pictures below.

http://www.footefamily.net/house/upload/2005/12/br_destroy1-thumb.jpg

http://www.footefamily.net/house/upload/2005/12/br_destroy2-thumb.jpg

http://www.footefamily.net/house/upload/2005/12/br_destroy3-thumb.jpg

I began at 9:30 and did not stop until around 4pm. I began with sealing off the MBR entrance with 4mil plastic and tape. Then I started into the "linnen closet". The sawzall and wrecking bar made quick work of this, enabeling me to create an access point to the other bathroom. Out came the toilets and remaining sinks. Once these were gone it was into the removal of the multiple layers of panneling. Towards the end of the panneling removal (close to the tub) is where I located the nest. There were roughly 300-500 ants forming a large pile. The removal of a pannel caused them to begin to move. I quickly grabbed the sawzall to remove the pannel and shopvac to suck up this pile. I removed the opposite face panneling and discovered an area where the ants had formed galleries. This was where the winged ones were with all the larva. That 2x4 was cut quickly and taken directly out side into the snow whle the shopvac was left on for the remainder of demolition in this area. I was able to remove this nest and the dividing wall. The raised floor remains and I hope totacle this tomorrow.

We'll see.