Home Improvement

One of the greatest frustrations of many a Westerner living in China is the poor building quality. This is especially true in my apartment complex, Peter Hall (PH) at Sias and, more specifically, my apartment. While you can request certain things be fixed, it is sometimes better to do it yourself. Since a friend of mine is the PH version of Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor, minus all the disasters, it isn't hard to borrow tools, which I've done on more than one occasion.

This week's projects, however, required some supplies from the U.S., some silicone cocking and sticky foam weather stripping. Project #1 was my front door. With all the lights off in my apartment, the door used to almost become a perfect silhouette. Aside from which, the door would rattle when we had storms or any kind of weather. That was a pretty quick and easy fix - applying the foam to the latch side of the door took about a minute. Not it is quite snug and makes a muted squeaking sound as the door rubs up against the foam when I open and close it. I am still trying to figure out how to seal the half inch gap on the bottom of the door which a mouse was able to squeeze under last semester and escape capture, but I have a couple ideas which I will probably try out today.

Project #2 was the sealing on my shower and toilet. Within a month of living in this new apartment (which actually is new, not just new to me), the seals had started to leak. I sort of ignored them, though the toilet made me feel less than comfortable. On the recommendation of the contractor who used to live in the apartment above me, I bought some higher quality silicone cocking when I was back in the States and I borrowed a cocking tool from my friend. In the process I learned a lot about silicone...it's super slimy when it gets on your hands, and it actually starts to set somewhat quickly. I hope I've done a good job, because stripping off the cocking for this application took a bit of time. And in the coming weeks, I am not going to have much of that.