Yes, screens are good. Did I mention that I often curse the people who built (and build) the homes in California? As a Canadian, I’m used to homes built to standards like R-2000. Moreover, I was spoiled by growing up in a family where the family business went from aluminum windows and doors to steel doors, and despite being the usual dysfunctional family, I *can* proudly state that we always built really high-quality products. [Note: I am a computer weenie, almost useless with my hands, but I can recognize and appreciate these gifts in others.] So even growing up, I had a keener-than-average sensitivity to shoddy construction – standards, materials, practices, the works. Even moving from Montreal to Toronto seemed a huge step down the ladder. People’s homes don’t have WALKWAYS in Toronto! To get from the sidewalk to the front door, you’re (usually) expected to use the driveway, squeezing by any cars that happen to be in it at the time. And floors CREAK in Toronto – even in the newer, spendier suburban homes! At firsts, I asked some people in Toronto why they didn’t get that fixed, and they looked puzzled – don’t all floors creak? (Answer: NO, dammit! Not if you use the right methods and materials!) So, I’m an admitted snob when it comes to home quality.

But I had no idea how much further down the rabbit-hole went. [Sorry. I just saw the latest trailer on the big screen.] California just keeps on blowing my mind. Even the worst places in Canada are built better than most of the places here, if only because “drafty” in this climate equates to “lethal” in Canada – at least for a few months out of each year. Very few people here have ever HEARD of “dual-paned glass”, much less “argon-filled” or “low-e” windows. Seeing an inch of daylight come under your closed front door is an everyday thing here. Granted, the weather in San Francisco is such that we can sleep with our bedroom window open year-round, and (like many people in this part of the world) we get by with neither heating nor air conditioning. [I do love our electric blanket very, very much - Em resisted at first, but finally realized that sliding into a pre-heated bed on a chilly night just ROCKS. We *could* live without it, but would prefer *not* to.] But even if the weather isn’t harsh, building homes like dollhouses has some nasty corollaries – homes here are FAR noisier and dirtier than I’m used to. Dual-paned windows and insulated walls and ceilings don’t just conserve energy and increase comfort, they also kill sound. And drafts can carry in a lot of dust and pollen and such (oddly enough, drafts never seem to carry that stuff OUT, just in).

Generally, because we’re renters, I just grimace and bear it. Em will maintain that 100-year-old victorians like this one “have character” that modern, yuppie-scum lofts don’t. On the other hand, the plumbing in this place is ancient, weak, and probably not up to code. (We *do* have a new hot water tank, but only because the old one burst one day, and – in clear violation of building codes and common sense – flooded our kitchen instead of draining safely to the outside.) The electrical wiring is barely newer – 20 amps on two breakers for the whole flat, a single outlet in most of the rooms, and most of those not grounded properly if at all. The electrical wires run OUTSIDE the walls, in conduits, which is interesting because it usually means, as in this case, that the construction of the building pre-dated the common use of household electricity. And (best part), when we moved in (how did I not check for this before we did?), I realized that there were NO PHONE JACKS ANYWHERE IN THE APARTMENT. The people who lived here just before us had run an extension cord (?!) from the TEST JACK on the outside wall (aka, the demarcation point) THROUGH A CRACK IN THE FRAME OF THE LIVING ROOM WINDOW, and then (presumably) into the back of a handset. When we were moving in, I realized that the only “phone jack” in the place was a male RJ45 plug on the living room floor, at the end of a cord that I could (at first) trace back as far as the window sill. So in (at least?) THIRTY YEARS of widespread household telephony, NO ONE ever ran wiring?? I ran some proper wiring myself, if only for the sake of DSL, and otherwise get by on the newfangled “one base station, multiple cordless handsets with their own chargers” technology. Oh yeah, this place has character. Mmmmm, character.

Anyhow, I bought a screen kit for the window, so now I have to hacksaw the pieces to the right lengths, assemble the frame, remove the splines, lay the screen on the frame, re-insert the splines with the pizza-wheel thingy, trim off the excess screen, and then hopefully squeeze it into place outside our bedroom window, where there is (of course) no channel for mounting a screen. This is gonna be fun, I just know it. At least I’ll have learned a new trade. In the meantime, I simply TAPED the screen (it’s fiberglass, so very flexible and lightweight) to the inside wall AROUND the bedroom window, which is impossibly stupid-looking, but which still managed to keep us bite-free last night.

I’m still scratching – Em and I each had more bites than we first thought. Multiple attackers? More bites the second nite, even though we slept (relatively) soundly? I dunno. But I am determined to have a mosquito-free home, if it means moving to Antarctica (factoid: Earth’s only mosquito-free continent).

Oops. I *thought* I owned a hacksaw. Time for another quick trip to the hardware store. Good thing it’s (pretty much) across the street.