If the walls could talk...

We've been busy these last few weeks with countless projects.  As often the case, a simple project can lead to a major undertaking.

We had to open up a few walls for the electrician and window installation, and what we discovered was an unwanted surprise!

First...  something missing...  the exterior walls of the home have no insulation.  Well that's not entirely true.  The West facade walls and the South facade walls had a paper sheet with a thin metallic reflective foil.   Clearly in the 1950s and 1960s no one lived in these houses in the peak of the summer heat. 

Secondly... something unwanted... most of the walls were filled with historic remnants of bugs and their byproducts, including lots of sand (we assume from ants), desert cricket poop, cockroach waste, and black widow spider eggs.

The combination of no insulation and unwanted treasures lead us to open all exterior walls in preparation for air-tight (and bug-tight) spray foam insulation (more on that later).

Gross

An extraordinary amount of desert cricket poop

Sand inches thick from ants

Grass was attempting to grow in the wall at some point