I also had massive influx of crickets in my basement around June of this year. They are attracted to moisture so that's why they're hanging out in your laundry area. Setting out glue traps did a great job of getting rid of them. You can make homemade ones by wrapping some duct tape with the sticky side facing up on a piece of cardboard and with some sugar sprinked on it to attract them.
My house has a window like that as well. Mine is a little small for "crawl space", but in my case, it used to be a window to shield my basement from the outdoors. Then, the kitchen was expanded, to include a sun room for the kitchen table, and it covered one those windows in the process. So my guess is that your house was expanded at one point in time, and that window once opened to the outdoors, and since your house was expanded, it became a home for spiders, not unlike my situation.
I work for a large nonprofit organization, and we're based in a very old set of buildings (a lot from the 30s-50s). One of my favorite parts of my job is being able to spelunk around, and see ancient artifacts from when the buildings were built. A spot in our 50s section is being renovated, and the facilities team uncovered some beautiful terrazzo flooring under the nasty old carpet tiles. They decided to scrape up all of the old carpet tile glue and use the original flooring instead! Hope y'all ended up getting the stairs repaired. Sometimes tearing out the whole thing is a lot more work, but it makes it so much easier to diagnose what went wrong, and to prevent it from happening in the future. That cistern that y'all had sounds incredibly fascinating in its own right. They just don't do things like that anymore, and old irrigation/plumbing technology is incredibly fascinating.
I think the back porch area there has been modified in the past. I bet those windows opened to what was then the outside yard, and that staircase wasn't there. It probably had a bulkhead entrance there. It's possibly there WAS originally a porch there that was open underneath, not bricked. Is there another set of cellar stairs under the stairs going to the second floor? The wood lath on the wall next to the bare wires(lol) looks much more recent...wood changes color as it ages.
I'm not sure how long rebuilding a stair case takes would love to see how it's done and the finished result. The KeyKeeper is pretty brave for going in there...not sure I would. Where is Bob Vila when ya need him? (haha)
Having been a well driller, a cistern always makes for an interesting story! I never realized that they had piping that could lead back to the cistern. But that would make sense. As much as I know i'd be a bad idea, I'd probably turn that valve just to see what would happen. (Eventually something WOULD come back up that pipe, or the one covered by the board/brick in the crawlspace!) As for the trash...abandonment is always weird when it happened before your time, Anything went. Cementing it over was the best course of action! Trash, well, causes problems later in life :3 (Take it from an irrigation well driller!))
Get out the ACME catalog and buy some more expanding foam. A lot of expanding foam. Pour it down the hole in the stairs and wait for it to expand and lift the stairs. More serious, cable guy advice is wear a ball cap when crawl space spelunking.
Cistern systems are only typically found in houses built before the municipal water supplies were available in the area. That particular example is a rainwater harvesting system. Cisterns were also commonly used to compensate for low well yields.
You should be able to get a couple pre cut staircase stringers, a miter saw, and a few lengths of boards at the hardware store. Demo that old staircase and build up. You guys seem pretty handy I think you can handle it.
I would have reached in there recording with an old phone that I no longer use with the camera open and the flash on just to see if I could see anything else
maybe measure and make the replacement stairs then take out the old and try and drop fit the new in ? just an idea as key keeper said cant use the stairs while working on it so need all the wood and stuff at least pre cut when you dig in
The window was probably there when the house was built, that area might be an old addition. Definitely don't trust the stairs, based on how crooked they are I'd say both beams are broken in half, yikes! I recently worked on a house that has two sections to the basement, the original part is 31 x 31', the addition is 20 x 10' (part of it is a crawl well). All concrete/ rock walls but I guess the main part and addition were built only a few years apart 100 years ago. Still had the gravity furnace holes which were patched. The whole house was gutted during the renovation so I have a pretty good collection of knob & tube from it along with old hardware and some vintage tools that were still attached to the workbench.
When you start looking into things like this it makes you wish you could go back into time and see what they were trying to do! I guess building codes were not very strict when that house was built!
That and old commercial decommisioned buildings like construction works and things underground. Of course that your allowed into and that are reasonably safe. We have found some things, especially in the berthing complexes and old buildings here in Glasgow.
Dunno if anyone else has suggested this, but have you thought about tying a camera (like a gopro) to a string or wire and fishing it down there to see what's going on?
One of those endoscope, borescope inspection camera attachments for smart phones, is a handy tool for seeing in those hard to reach places. Great for seeing inside engines as well of course. Plus not that expensive either.
Well, judging by the number of predator webs, I think you found the source of your crickets. The window into the crawlspace from the original basement reminds me of my grandparents' house, which had a crawlspace into a crawlspace with a ditch in it for the sewer on one side, or a window shaped hole to get in from the basement side. Neither way to the sewer line was fun, or spider free.
Nice vid Bill, I have a request! I'm wondering if you could maybe go on a brief tour of some of your computers in you "dungeon", as there are many computers down there I find fascinating, also I'm wondering whether you still have the GX620 MT working as the music player? Anyway, keep up the great content.
Ok sorry about that, any chance you could return to (or if you even have them) the OptiPlex GX620 SFF, as that is a quirky, and cool little computer, though sadly I cannot say the same about it's usff counterpart, which is a piece of proprietary nonsense, and also one of the PowerMacs, whether it be the wind tunnel MDD or the G5?
Uxwbill I was wondering if you happen to have a Elmo DVR server because I obtained one with out the hard drive and the software originally for the machine made back in 2004 is out of date and cannot be found on the internet
Second! (Or not) Oh uh home repair time again! few questions if I may How old is your family's house Is your family the original owners Seems theses kinda repairs seem to be popping up, comes with owning an old home I guess Have you and or your parent's ever though of a full remodel of the house?
Yes, I'm the one who owns that. I've never lived there (although I did have a man cave room in one of the nicer parts for a while) and it was basically a freebie.
Live streams are not announced, and don't happen very often. If you happen to find one, that's great. I don't own or operate the uxwbill.com domain, and I'm not tremendously impressed with whoever took it upon themselves to register it. I wasn't asked and did not want or need that to be done. To my knowledge, there isn't anything wrong with it per se, but I cannot vouch for what you will find there since I do not operate it. The notice tells you what URL you should be using.
I also had massive influx of crickets in my basement around June of this year. They are attracted to moisture so that's why they're hanging out in your laundry area. Setting out glue traps did a great job of getting rid of them. You can make homemade ones by wrapping some duct tape with the sticky side facing up on a piece of cardboard and with some sugar sprinked on it to attract them.
Well, I recon it looks like it's time to install one of them fancy old people stair ride things and call it a day!
My house has a window like that as well. Mine is a little small for "crawl space", but in my case, it used to be a window to shield my basement from the outdoors. Then, the kitchen was expanded, to include a sun room for the kitchen table, and it covered one those windows in the process. So my guess is that your house was expanded at one point in time, and that window once opened to the outdoors, and since your house was expanded, it became a home for spiders, not unlike my situation.
3 videos today uxwbill is on a roll! Greate job!
You found the old cobweb storage and free Halloween decoration :D
I work for a large nonprofit organization, and we're based in a very old set of buildings (a lot from the 30s-50s). One of my favorite parts of my job is being able to spelunk around, and see ancient artifacts from when the buildings were built. A spot in our 50s section is being renovated, and the facilities team uncovered some beautiful terrazzo flooring under the nasty old carpet tiles. They decided to scrape up all of the old carpet tile glue and use the original flooring instead!
Hope y'all ended up getting the stairs repaired. Sometimes tearing out the whole thing is a lot more work, but it makes it so much easier to diagnose what went wrong, and to prevent it from happening in the future. That cistern that y'all had sounds incredibly fascinating in its own right. They just don't do things like that anymore, and old irrigation/plumbing technology is incredibly fascinating.
Finding old and interesting stuff in buildings is always great fun. The stairs were long ago repaired.
tour of this old house would be epic
I'd love to see an old cistern system that's fully functional, pumps and all.
I think the back porch area there has been modified in the past. I bet those windows opened to what was then the outside yard, and that staircase wasn't there. It probably had a bulkhead entrance there. It's possibly there WAS originally a porch there that was open underneath, not bricked. Is there another set of cellar stairs under the stairs going to the second floor? The wood lath on the wall next to the bare wires(lol) looks much more recent...wood changes color as it ages.
I'm not sure how long rebuilding a stair case takes would love to see how it's done and the finished result. The KeyKeeper is pretty brave for going in there...not sure I would. Where is Bob Vila when ya need him? (haha)
Having been a well driller, a cistern always makes for an interesting story! I never realized that they had piping that could lead back to the cistern. But that would make sense.
As much as I know i'd be a bad idea, I'd probably turn that valve just to see what would happen. (Eventually something WOULD come back up that pipe, or the one covered by the board/brick in the crawlspace!)
As for the trash...abandonment is always weird when it happened before your time, Anything went. Cementing it over was the best course of action! Trash, well, causes problems later in life :3 (Take it from an irrigation well driller!))
Get out the ACME catalog and buy some more expanding foam. A lot of expanding foam. Pour it down the hole in the stairs and wait for it to expand and lift the stairs.
More serious, cable guy advice is wear a ball cap when crawl space spelunking.
Somebody's gonna get hurt on that staircase, better fix it soon!
That was the point of this entire vid.
I think you need a staircase that rises up like you on The Munsters TV show. Then you could turn it into Wild Bill's Secret Storage Room LOL.
A fix? Many screws, many, many screws... :P
Very interesting. I have never heard of a cistern system before.
Cistern systems are only typically found in houses built before the municipal water supplies were available in the area. That particular example is a rainwater harvesting system. Cisterns were also commonly used to compensate for low well yields.
You should be able to get a couple pre cut staircase stringers, a miter saw, and a few lengths of boards at the hardware store. Demo that old staircase and build up. You guys seem pretty handy I think you can handle it.
You could put one of the those insect killing bug foggers down there to get rid of the spiders and the crickets.
I would have reached in there recording with an old phone that I no longer use with the camera open and the flash on just to see if I could see anything else
Is there a spot somewhere where you could make a small hole (if necessary) and drop the Hazard Fraught borescope in to see under the stairs?
Unfortunately, said borescope got slightly wet in a flood and didn't live to tell about it. I have yet to replace it.
Man I wish my house was this interesting.
Bill, there is room in there for a few thousand dell optiplex pc's, extra free storage he he :-D
The spiders probably wouldn't like that too well! :-P
Well they could be on there web while browsing the web.
I bet they would be looking at cute pictures of humans :)
That title... it’s something.. love it!
lol good to see the Keykeeper again,Bill.He reminds me so much of a good friend of mine...….lol
you should fill the crawlspace with concrete so that the stairs an flooring above shouldn't be able to collapse
Urban eXplorer W Bill.
maybe measure and make the replacement stairs then take out the old and try and drop fit the new in ? just an idea as key keeper said cant use the stairs while working on it so need all the wood and stuff at least pre cut when you dig in
The window was probably there when the house was built, that area might be an old addition. Definitely don't trust the stairs, based on how crooked they are I'd say both beams are broken in half, yikes! I recently worked on a house that has two sections to the basement, the original part is 31 x 31', the addition is 20 x 10' (part of it is a crawl well). All concrete/ rock walls but I guess the main part and addition were built only a few years apart 100 years ago. Still had the gravity furnace holes which were patched. The whole house was gutted during the renovation so I have a pretty good collection of knob & tube from it along with old hardware and some vintage tools that were still attached to the workbench.
old houses are the coolest. i live in one myself.
The home of sad onions! ;-)
Browningate sure lol.
I would be worried there would be a black widow in there. Yikes.
The laundry room at my house has a window that opens to the crawlspace under an addition that was put on. Maybe that explains yours as well.
When you start looking into things like this it makes you wish you could go back into time and see what they were trying to do! I guess building codes were not very strict when that house was built!
That and old commercial decommisioned buildings like construction works and things underground.
Of course that your allowed into and that are reasonably safe.
We have found some things, especially in the berthing complexes and old buildings here in Glasgow.
Dunno if anyone else has suggested this, but have you thought about tying a camera (like a gopro) to a string or wire and fishing it down there to see what's going on?
Older home are very interesting especially when come to home repairs.
One of those endoscope, borescope inspection camera attachments for smart phones, is a handy tool for seeing in those hard to reach places. Great for seeing inside engines as well of course. Plus not that expensive either.
ua-cam.com/video/Hsy5oBvwBZE/v-deo.html
Sadly it got wet and that was the end of it. I've yet to replace it.
Well, judging by the number of predator webs, I think you found the source of your crickets. The window into the crawlspace from the original basement reminds me of my grandparents' house, which had a crawlspace into a crawlspace with a ditch in it for the sewer on one side, or a window shaped hole to get in from the basement side. Neither way to the sewer line was fun, or spider free.
Love the videos of the Reoch palace Bill I need to get a scanning electron handycam
This isn't the Roach Palace!
I am sorry Bill kinda looks like the Roach Palace must be the cricket Palace
The Roach Palace has no basement, and I've *never* lived there.
oh ok I get it now looks like a good cricket palace though
Nice vid Bill, I have a request! I'm wondering if you could maybe go on a brief tour of some of your computers in you "dungeon", as there are many computers down there I find fascinating, also I'm wondering whether you still have the GX620 MT working as the music player? Anyway, keep up the great content.
I'm not going to do that. If there is something specific you'd like to see, or even several things, feel free to request video(s) about them.
Ok sorry about that, any chance you could return to (or if you even have them) the OptiPlex GX620 SFF, as that is a quirky, and cool little computer, though sadly I cannot say the same about it's usff counterpart, which is a piece of proprietary nonsense, and also one of the PowerMacs, whether it be the wind tunnel MDD or the G5?
Should have saved this one for Halloween the people or spiders under the stairs... lol
Hey Bill any Hamfest 2018 videos in our future?
1:29 Those steps got to go before too much longer as I would put it. Please check out videos on my channel while you are at it. Kurtis Matlack
could you have the keykeeper do mower update? what does he still have?
I'd recommend that you ask him about both subjects.
I would have stopped as soon as I saw all the spider webs yuck. braver men than me LOL
I'd need to use a few sprays of raid, each day and wait like a week or 2
Uxwbill I was wondering if you happen to have a Elmo DVR server because I obtained one with out the hard drive and the software originally for the machine made back in 2004 is out of date and cannot be found on the internet
Sorry, no. I didn't even know the Elmo Corporation sold such a product. Best guess? Try the Internet Archive's wayback machine.
I must've missed the part of the video where they found a server in UXWBill's crawlspace.
Ah very Interesting And funny. Wesile show?
Second! (Or not)
Oh uh home repair time again! few questions if I may
How old is your family's house
Is your family the original owners
Seems theses kinda repairs seem to be popping up, comes with owning an old home I guess
Have you and or your parent's ever though of a full remodel of the house?
@Rhys dang it!!
Too many spiders 😨. Burn it all down and start over.
Yay more fun Videos. Also First
You still have that snake camera thing?
It got wet and that proved fatal to it. Otherwise I would have stuck in between the steps to see what I could see.
Do you guys still own the "Roach Palace”?
Yes, I'm the one who owns that. I've never lived there (although I did have a man cave room in one of the nicer parts for a while) and it was basically a freebie.
I had thought that the roach palace was supposed to have been torn down at some point. Did you change your mind and still have it?
It would be interesting to see a video how the years have affected the condition of the house, if it's still standing.
@@WestSideJooo it still stands.
Diggit out and you get a extra room
Sorry for commenting so much. Uxwbill when are you going to do a live stream next and why don’t you want us to use uxwbill dot com on your website.
Moose & baby tiger I didn’t know he had a website. What is wrong with that URL?
Live streams are not announced, and don't happen very often. If you happen to find one, that's great.
I don't own or operate the uxwbill.com domain, and I'm not tremendously impressed with whoever took it upon themselves to register it. I wasn't asked and did not want or need that to be done. To my knowledge, there isn't anything wrong with it per se, but I cannot vouch for what you will find there since I do not operate it. The notice tells you what URL you should be using.
Rent it out!
Am I first
I think I am because it says no views
Darn you 😜
I was fist in time. not popularity. Just saying. And I am happy I was first
@@edbethskib lol np I got to clam first not long ago
0k
Why don't you move?