By:Monte Leeper
Cats seem to be a hot topic amongst my readers. Having lived with 11 cats who all had the run of our Ohio property when I was a kid, I really do not want anyone to think I have anything against them. I even dated a Katz, once, but one reader with issues writes:
I don't know if your reader is aware that trapping cats and removing them is not a solution to this problem. Cats that have to be trapped are probably semi-ferine and would not find homes at the shelter. They would be destroyed. A squirrel trap could do a lot of damage to a large cat. Besides, other cats would come. People that cannot share their environment with outside cats or wildlife do not belong in houses with gardens.
My advice would be ...
Take your shrubs, lawn and trees inside your house, where you could wash them with Lysol once a week.
Move to an apartment at the tip of the North or South Pole, where there
really aren't many animals around or shrubs either.
Move to Mars, where you would be completely isolated.
Another writer, not from Mars, wrote:
Q. We love and value your column, "Ask the Experts," in PrimeTime. We need your help. A week or two ago you published a letter about how to discourage cats from doing their business in your yard and lawn. I read the column to my husband and then discarded it. Little would I know how desperately we need this valuable information now. Having just moved into our new home, we notice that the cats are making our home, their home. It looks like they have been for some time. YUK!
Please, please mail us a copy of your very important column informing people of what to use to repel cats from destroying property. We would appreciate this so very much, and as soon as you possibly can. Don't mean to be so pushy but this problem is really bothering us. Again, we appreciate your wisdom and your great sense of humor.
Q. In your Feb. 24 article, I read that sometime before, you helped with squeaky floors. I never saw your answer and I'm having a terrible time with mine.
We built our home 10 years ago and now the floors sound like chalk on a board. It's awful. Someone said the sub-floor and the top flooring were never glued. Everyone has a different solution:
1. Nail the sub-floor to top finished floor by nailing from underneath.
2. Nail right through the finished floor to sub-flooring.
3. Drill holes through sub-floor and force glue between the two layers.
4. Get all new floors. (Too expensive right now.)
Please, can you help? By the way, it's the first floor and underneath is not finished, so you can get to it easily.
A. The cheapest way to handle the problem is to turn down your hearing aid or turn up the stereo.
All of the methods you listed will work under the right conditions. But first you have to know the conditions.
The squeaking can be caused by different but related issues based upon size of materials and how they were joined. The floor structure movement may be caused by under-design or use of low-fiber stress lumber. If this is the problem, reinforcing the floor is accomplished with added cross beams from below, but this must be investigated and properly calculated by an architect or engineer.
Sideways movement within the floor structure, referred to as twisting or flexure, causes squeaking from excessive loading or lack of "bridging," the cross pieces that keep your parallel floor joists from twisting closer to each
other. You've probably noticed these criss-crossing sticks between ceiling
joists in basement open ceilings.
I prefer solid bridging, made of 1 1/2-inch-thick wood, the same depth as floor joists placed at points determined by calculating joist bending. Your problem may be from nailing. When nailing floors, special adhesive coated nails are used. They activate from heat made by friction when nails are driven into the wood. Unfortunately, if your floor was built before 1970, or someone forgot, coated nails were just getting to the marketplace and may not have been used. The nails are riding up and down as you walk, causing squeaking annoyance.
Your goal is limiting movement in the floor. To avoid damage to the new
floor finish, determine where the squeaky areas are and enter the floor from
below. Angled shims are inserted in spaces between the floor joists and the
flooring above. You may also use metal angles or plastic shims specially
made for this purpose, available at home centers, or wood blocking, nailed to
floor joists under pressure directly against the underside of the floor
above. Check the condition of squeaking in an area before continuing.
There are other methods, but they include injecting adhesives into the floor or using power nail or screw devices used by an experienced flooring installer. If there are spaces between the floor strips, a syringe and carpenter's glue may work, but be very careful. Filling many areas will cause the interlocking flooring to lose space needed for expansion and contraction,
causing future buckling of the floor as the temperature and humidity in your
house change from season to season.
Good luck!
