Cellar Door and Wall for Owl Home
Donation protected
Currently the house at Owl Home has a squatter
And for his health, and ours, we need to keep him out.
Technically, from his point of view, we are the squatters, since he was here first. Our visitor gets in through the massive gaps in the walls in our cellar.
Owl Home was purchased, and then stripped completely when we discovered it was mostly made of asbestos, rats, pure 100% Australian venom and possums. Since then we have been living with our toddler in an environment frequently without internal walls. Our windows are, in many places, a single layer of plastic stapled over a gap. During the first winter, the average temperature inside the house was about 5C.
We've made huge changes since then, hand carving our own beams, repairing the ceiling, putting in the plaster. We cannot afford a builder so we are doing all of this by hand. We have only injured ourselves mildly horribly during this work.
The problem is, our squatter keeps getting in.
He has learned to chew through the plastic and cardboard that covers the areas we cannot yet finish. We would not mind so much, but he breaks into cupboards, smashes plates, pees through newly painted walls (current theory - possum is half alien, with acidic pee), gorges on food that makes him sick, and leaves the result of that eating all over the place. He might be adorable, but he's also dirty and destructive. Evicting him is illegal - if we catch him, we have to release him on the boundary of our property, a whole ten meters away. Killing him is also illegal, and a bit mean, though he is making an attempt to kill himself by eating things that are bad for him.
He is also murdering our heating bill due to opening up areas for cold to get in.
The best solution is to seal up the cellar and put a door in.
However, the space is awkwardly shaped and bounded by a rock wall, and off-the-shelf doors will not fit. We need to build the framing, design and build the door ourselves, and fit it.
Possibly while doing battle with a possum. He has no fear.
This GoFundMe is for the materials and work that will go into producing a cellar wall and hand-carved door featuring a picture of our squatter doing what he does best - stealing things:
If all goes well, we will be able to buy the materials to make our door and wall. We will post pictures of the work as we do it, in case anyone else is curious about how to craft a handmade door.
Our toddler will continue to be convinced she is being brought up in a hardware store, but worse things have happened. Plus, if we can seal our squatter out of the house, he might actually move into the possum box outside and she can feed him fruit on the back deck.
And for his health, and ours, we need to keep him out.
Technically, from his point of view, we are the squatters, since he was here first. Our visitor gets in through the massive gaps in the walls in our cellar.
Owl Home was purchased, and then stripped completely when we discovered it was mostly made of asbestos, rats, pure 100% Australian venom and possums. Since then we have been living with our toddler in an environment frequently without internal walls. Our windows are, in many places, a single layer of plastic stapled over a gap. During the first winter, the average temperature inside the house was about 5C.
We've made huge changes since then, hand carving our own beams, repairing the ceiling, putting in the plaster. We cannot afford a builder so we are doing all of this by hand. We have only injured ourselves mildly horribly during this work.
The problem is, our squatter keeps getting in.
He has learned to chew through the plastic and cardboard that covers the areas we cannot yet finish. We would not mind so much, but he breaks into cupboards, smashes plates, pees through newly painted walls (current theory - possum is half alien, with acidic pee), gorges on food that makes him sick, and leaves the result of that eating all over the place. He might be adorable, but he's also dirty and destructive. Evicting him is illegal - if we catch him, we have to release him on the boundary of our property, a whole ten meters away. Killing him is also illegal, and a bit mean, though he is making an attempt to kill himself by eating things that are bad for him.
He is also murdering our heating bill due to opening up areas for cold to get in.
The best solution is to seal up the cellar and put a door in.
However, the space is awkwardly shaped and bounded by a rock wall, and off-the-shelf doors will not fit. We need to build the framing, design and build the door ourselves, and fit it.
Possibly while doing battle with a possum. He has no fear.
This GoFundMe is for the materials and work that will go into producing a cellar wall and hand-carved door featuring a picture of our squatter doing what he does best - stealing things:
If all goes well, we will be able to buy the materials to make our door and wall. We will post pictures of the work as we do it, in case anyone else is curious about how to craft a handmade door.
Our toddler will continue to be convinced she is being brought up in a hardware store, but worse things have happened. Plus, if we can seal our squatter out of the house, he might actually move into the possum box outside and she can feed him fruit on the back deck.
Organizer
Ceredwyn Ealanta
Organizer
Belgrave Heights VIC
