No Escape

Now that the weather is getting a bit chillier, I notice places in the apartment that leak. Cold air from the outside rushes easily in where the door doesn't shut quite right or the window sill is askew. Time to break out the caulking and the plastic and cover up those little imperfections (or in the case of an older apartment, those major gaps).

Drew and I picked up supplies over the weekend, and straightaway decided to at least put the foam stripping around the door frame. I hadn't used this type of stripping before, but it seemed easy enough. Unroll a section, stick it to the frame, then pull off the paper covering. That's what we did.

Then we discovered that we couldn't close the door! THAT won't work. So Drew figured that if we put the foam on the other edge of the frame, we could close the door. He carefully peeled away the stuff, patient even when it snapped off in sections, and repositioned it, tamping it firmly in place. Then he slammed the door shut. Ta-dah! It worked. The door was nicely closed, and we felt the cracks for leaks. No air was going to get in past that thick black foam. Good.

Now we need to take the trash out. Drew grabbed the doorknob and pulled. Nothing happened. Puzzled, he yanked harder. Nothing budged. "Mom, I think we're stuck in here. I can't get the door open." He is heading for the sliding glass door, figuring on leaping over the balcony, running around the building to the front door, and pushing from the outside.

I take ahold of the doorknob and turn. The door opens just fine. "What? Let me try." He shuts the door, then grabs the doorknob and pulls for all he is worth. It doesn't budge. This time when I try, I have a hard time getting it to open. This won't work. We can't afford to get locked in the apartment. I open and close it a number of times. Then I realize what is happening.

The foam tape is sticky on *both* sides! It sticks to the door frame AND to the door. What on earth? I must have gotten the wrong stuff. Silly me. I never have been very good at 'mechanical' things. We scuff the stickiness, and eventually, the door opens a bit easier. It still won't let the cold air in, but Drew and I have a good laugh.

I think to myself, that's the way life is sometimes. You want to go through a door, but you think its locked to you. In reality it isn't. It just takes some work to get things to function the way they should so you have easy access.