My house had a secret nobody knew 😱...(House Renovation with a BIG twist) 

He deserves extra treats for his help

Let’s hope he doesn’t make a habit of it. lol

YES

I was saying "Good dog! What a good dog!" and my husband had to come in to see. He agreed that he was a very good dog!

Definitely a+

As far as I know, there aren't any termites living in Germany. Maybe in a few decades, but at the moment they are not living here.

Those are very small for the carpenter ants I am familiar with in America, but they are clearly nesting inside the wood. Hopefully the colony is not too extensive. The fact that this is the first sign Laura has seen of them is a good indication.

Germany has no termites. These are normal house ants (black ants).

@@artor9175 Agree on all points.

@@J.T... Ah ich erinnere mich an die Geschichte.

When you start a partial reform project it is easier to see the end of the work but when the reform is total it is very easy to reach that point where you do not know where to continue and you wonder "why did I get into this?" After that moment, the work advances by leaps and bounds. I know from experience. It is better to find the ant or termite nest than not to find it.

The nest is not the issue I guess, but the timber replacement will be costly...

Hmmm at least its little ants and not the big black carpenter ants

@@cherylmartin4050 They still might be. They clearly were tunneling in the wood which is exactly what carpenter ants do. And it also means you have water infiltration from somewhere causing the damp rotting wood they love.

@@Suz9006 You hit the nail on the head. Ants are merely a sign of the actual problem, not the problem themselves (although they do cause their own bit of damage).

That's a really positive way to look at the situation - I like it!

What an awesome way of looking at it!

So so so true. I renovated my 100 plus old house 20 years ago as best I could as a single mama and there were bits I just couldn’t afford to do as thoroughly. Now, twenty years later I have bits I need to redo to get at stuff I had to miss the first time around,

Ignorance is bliss....up to a point.

yup, we got them all!

@@laurakampf Man, those ghosts will be hard to get rid of. Bill Murray isn't as young as he used to be!

@@GraceSerenityK mayby it's Sam ;-) then it's not that bad

The house is over 100 years old, it will have issues. C'est la vie. Renovating/rehabbing an old house is not for the faint of heart, that's for sure.

There are more possible problems: Soil pollution Unstable foundation Sinkhole Maybe at some point a corpse turns up. This is a nightmare remodel I hope the house was REALLY cheap.

So true!

In my House, there were ants, one I knew what I was "looking" for. I could smell them. We openend the plaster over the beams and smelled if there were other nests. We had to replace several woodbeams, beziehungsweise mussten Wechsel setzen, geht alles 💪🏼

Yes, since it is soo close to the window there has probably been a very small leak for a start that slowly gotten a way in to the wood that the ants found. But there might have been other insects before that nestled inside the wood and eaten it after the first part softened up. They can be quite beautiful creatures though!

@@hiwakoo what does it smell like?

👍

@@M1NDCR4WL3R Formic acid, I imagine.

I'm so glad you said that about the plaster. I bought a 100year old house and it is entirely made with plaster. I have one wall bulging out. Was only going to take out the bad section, insulate and dry wall over the top. Guess I'm taking it all out now. Guess that will be me winter project now.

I wish it was clickbait 😂

Yes and spray the ants

@@Redf322 No spray. Poisoned ant food. They collect it and bring it into the nest and will exterminate ultimatively any ant.

Well said, was worried about that myself.

luckily just ants probably.... no termites or carpenter ants in West Europe

@@09conrado, but they still did a real number on that beam, and there is no way of knowing how many other beams they may have compromised in the house over the years. "Just ants" means there is/are moisture issues in the house, ants are attracted to the dampness - that is a separate problem from compromised beams.

@@09conrado Oh no there are several places in all west Europe where you can find termites dans carpenter ants but they are definitely not termites.

@@grandmestredespoulpes2435 This is true, but I think the migration of the invasive termites (which are not native at all to the continent) hasn't reached all of Germany, there is a northern edge of expansion from southern/warmer coastal climes. I don't remember how far north they are, but not all of germany yet I think. (looked this up when Laura mentioned termites because I figured she had heard about termites while in US. When I was in Bug Doctor school (that's what it's called when you have little kids and you are getting a phd in entomology) I don't think there were termites in europe yet so I doubted the possibility of termites.... but I looked it up an international commerce has done it's work again to spread a plague of insects.

Some preserved ants maybe (too soon?)

Excellent observation. If you're right, it means that one job solves both issues. I hope it's that positive.

That's no wild speculation whatsoever, thats the logic assessment of what we saw to date. I would, with the window above, and because I presumed it's the Eternit side of the house, think it's rainwater ingress, but the gravity theory with the same well also wetting the base beam might be the easiest explanation for the rot in the basement. There can be two reasons, wetting with rainwater ingress and an inhibited dry-out after the rain because Eternit keeps it in .... anyway, that observation might actually be very worthy.

Well done! I hope Laura & crew see this comment and consider whether it holds up! 👏

Yeah that was my house as well. Also, some rooms had four layers of wallpaper. The good ones came off in big pieces, but others it was really scraping little pieces off which took forever. I spent a week just removing wallpaper and it was a small apartment.

I love that dish! And it's very easy to customize for every taste - add mung bean sprouts or some crispy onions, or even grilled meat if that's your thing, any way it is served is delicious. (Fun to see Sriracha sauce being used here)

1st of all: Ants have several queens, not just one. 2nd The eggs are not stored near the queen, the workers move them around. 3rd Where there is one nest, there will be more.

@@dieterf.8826 Plus, why are they there to begin with. I would look very carefully at the structure beam.

@@dieterf.8826 Never said that there was only one queen... You read that... One nest = one queen. Ants nest in your house walls are not born out of a spontaneous generation; in many, many case there is a big nest right outside your doors, where they are coming from (main nest... with its own queen). So, it needs to be adressed in priority. When I dislocated my cabin (in the North), I found the Queen were there was lots of activity (lots of warriors spitting in my direction, biting my rubber gloves, and many many larvas...). Anyway...

@@rbelang8331 The ants do not come to the house unless there is rot and (biological) disintegration in the beams and posts - ants do not destroy wood - they use the already pre-damaged, wetted wood as a building site. So, after the repair and after making sure the repaired place will stay dry and solid, there is no need to kill them outside the hose. They're not a pest like wasps or cockroaches, they are beneficial organisms.

They're fairly cheap to buy. Given that the wallpaper came off easily with water it wouldn't have made a lot of difference though. Lots of layers, anaglypta or painted over paper need the steam.

there is a toilet on the mainfloor yet.

it's hard to tell on my end, they looked like the right color to be carpenter. the other option is they took over a former termite nest.

@@tsalVlog no termites in Germany. They're 'ordinary' ants that have simply found some damp/rotten wood and made themselves a comfy home. Laura has to evict the ants, fix the source of the damp and then replace the rotten timbers. Really not a huge deal.

In a half timber house all wood beams have to be there, you can't simply ignore them. :-) And the ants are simple black ants. They remove soft wood to create space for their colony. They normally live in old or fallen trees. Now they live in homes with space in the walls. So they are caled "Hausameisen" (houseants) in Germany. Have them in the wooden beam is better than the alternative. They slow down or even stop the rot by removing infected wood. The alternative would be slowly expanding rot up and downwards.

I'm not completely versed on the tech, but I think a FLIR camera or other thermal imaging camera can detect moisture. I'm not sure how well that works in the type of walls that Laura has, but it might be an option.

Renovating in cha-cha-cha!

The ants could be after the termites, meaning the beam is possibly damaged.

In central europa neither termites nor houses made of wood are that common so this saying doesn't really apply here

@@PuffiKartoffel Houses made of wood are very common in central europe. Just 'cause you can't SEE the Fachwerk, doesn't mean it isn't there. Especially older houses are probably mostly wood.

@@alexwood2156 sure they're common enough, but the majority of houses (at least in austria) is still made of brick or stone, especially the very old ones, since wooden houses historically haven't fared so well with our climate. Yes, I know people who have hauses with a wooden main structure, i just wanted to point out that the original comment isn't correct

@@PuffiKartoffel In my expirience, 2/3 of all houses made for living here in germany have at least some wooden structure to them, like the roof or an extension. You're right with the termites though, except for a rare case of invading species, those little buggers simply cannot survive in our climate. (Yet ... well see what happens with climate change ...)

She lives in Germany it's to cold for termites. What you see is all the work of black ants (called "Hausameisen" house ants in German) They only remove the rotten parts of the wood to make space for their colony. By doing that they save the so far not infected wood. It's not the first time seeing that. It's a half timer house all you can see on IR are the wooden beams because they are hallways a little bit wet. It's better to check for damp places around the windows.

@@boelwerkr I stand corrected.

The only problem with the termite possibility (I'm an entomologist in North America), is that while termites have invaded europe and have moved in to parts of southern Germany, they aren't native. I looked this all up when the sill plate seemed to be dryrotted (And some of the stuff behind the wall looked suspiciously like damaged soil tubes... which are diagnostic of the presence of subterranean/structure damaging termites.) But that was a few weeks ago and I don't remember when they were first found in southern Germany but I feel like it wasn't long enough ago for this level of damage (there is a european research group that tracks insect and disease invasions, and monitors the leading edges). Someone in another comment said carpenter ants don't eat wood. Which is TECHNICALLY true. However they do damage wood by excavating tunnels and cavities for nests etc. They just don't eat the wood they remove. And you are also right that the wood is most likely attractive to them for a reason. It is damp, it is damaged in a way that made it available to colonise. And some species of carpenter ants (though I don't know if its any of the notable structure damaging species) actually excavate into wood to eat colonies of fungi and mold (some even make little farms to grow their food on). Agree on the steamer too. Although my experience with plaster is that I would repair places where the keys of the plaster have broken so it is falling away from the lathe, but still largely attached. However I know nothing about the heating/insulation method they are using, which makes all treatment of plaster secondary. I just know that when I see a house with plaster walls that has wallpaper almost everywhere I know what to expect!

😂😂😂😂😂

Good to know, I have to do some peeling myself. Thank you!

I'd be more worried about the spiders behind you!

@Daniel Andersen Decoy snails.

Pretty close actually 😂

@@laurakampf I guessed spiders because I know they bother you, and because this house seems to be trying to torture you.