laundry/walk-in closet/bathroom

the bathroom is off the kitchen, and the laundry is off the bathroom. these three rooms - bathroom, laundry, bedroom - are about the same size and placed side to side at the back of the house.

the bathroom required more caulking than the other spaces and i'm still looking to put a few mirrors in and caulk over the window, and there will need to be some work done fixing the walls, but it's pretty close to being finished.

the laundry/walk-in closet/sew room is an unfinished space, like the garage/sun-room in the front. this is the one part of the apartment i have confirmed rodent activity in, through an entry point somewhere back behind the piping. the entry point is also the source of a significant draft that i'm not going to plug up until the fall. i had to do a tremendous amount of cleaning in this space.

walking into the bathroom.

the door to the laundry is to the immediate left of the door to the bathroom. there's a door to the hot water tank there, too - so three doors. the boxes in front of the door are a temporary measure to prevent insects or rodents from crawling under it.

this is the entry into the laundry. the three rugs on the ground (which is concrete) were all there when i moved in and cleaning each of them was a priority in this space. i also scrubbed, lysoled, wiped, swept, mopped, vacuumed, scraped, sprayed and did whatever else i could to get the concrete floor as clean as i could. the dresser was left here by the previous tenant, but in the main part of the unit.

stepping onto the rug, taking a step forward and looking left opens up a narrow concrete space surrounded by recently built over wood planks, underneath a heating shaft going back to the furnace (also in a closet downstairs). i suspect that this was at one point a hallway and lobby coming in and out of the backyard. there's still the remnants of an old door frame, here, including a metal chain. in that space, the previous tenant left a large clothing rack that i have filled up with tank tops, dresses and old shirts from a previous life. there is enough space to get in there and to pull it around a little. i also installed a $10 amazon lamp as a light fixture by taping it around the wooden joist. there's a switch, but it's always on. so, there's the closet.

this is a nice dresser. as mentioned, it was left here. i don't think it's actually an old dresser, but it's manufactured to look like one. i have filled it with a variety of tshirts, long sleeve tshirts and sweaters of varying thickness, organized by thickness. i have a lot of shirts. the dresser is actually totally full.

i bought this wardrobe organizer on amazon for $40 and was not impressed by it. it was supposed to have a more closet-y shape to it with "shelves" for pants and towels and have a rod with some clothes hangers in it for jackets. i was going to use it for exactly what is in the picture - jeans, towels, bedsheets, etc - but i ignored the intended shape of the wardrobe and just built a 4x3 organizer with four shelves and 12 cubby holes, which i'm using for (1) different sized jeans in the close column, (2) various types of dust covers for electronics in the second column and (3) rags and clothes i want to try to sew before i give up on them. i have a big pile of jeans with rips that i want to sew.

this useful little shelf was also left here and is perfect for a laundry shelf. the shelf is broken, but it doesn't matter if i use it like this.

so, that's the wall.

on the back wall is the craft table i'm using as a sewing table and general clothes making or fixing table. i bought the table for $20 on kijiji. the shower curtains hanging from the wall were intended to block the draft but are now also acting as a deterrent to rodents, along with multiple cups of bleach to block paths and a handful of glue traps to catch anything that falls. i'm going to eventually clean them and then put them over the walls, and will likely buy some more for that reason. this is to cover the walls both for cosmetic reasons and because rats cannot climb on shower curtains. i need to buy a chair for in here as well as a step stool to get into the ceiling to clean. the lamp on the ground was left here and will probably not stay in this room, as there are two other $10 amazon lamps intended for this space (currently in the bathroom).

this is a mini sewing machine that i bought for $50 and should do what i need but, if it doesn't, i could get a bigger one, too. the extension cord was recently bought on amazon and has usb ports in case i need them in here. you can see an open hole under the bathtub that has been a problem but that i'm not hearing activity in more recently. i will probably seek to block that.

this is the dryer, on top of what i believe is an ironing table. i don't have any clothes i would iron, but it's there, and that table will open up when i get a chair. in fact, there are foldable wood chairs in the table, but i'd rather get a more comfy chair. the dryer belongs to the owner. it works fine. i was initially confused by the indoor vent, but it's actually helpful as a source of heat in this space.

the washing machine, also owned by the owner, was dirty and mangled, it needed to be taped up and the dispensers are broken, but it works well enough if you just put liquid soap right in it. it's a shame that it's a little busted, but it works, so whatever. the reflection of the duct is for the fan that was put in in december.

so, that's the close wall.

i bought this shop vac on sale at canadian tire for $50 and it has made it much easier to clean in here, but i'm not done in here yet.

this lamp is above the washer and was here when i moved in as well. this one will stay there, and i bought the other three in this room to be the same type as it.

back to the bathroom.

i bought that dust buster on amazon for $30 about two years ago.

this metal shelf was purchased on amazon for $40. the cardboard taped to the shelves is to eliminate the holes and comes from two cut up cereal boxes. it's shampoo/conditioner on bottom, towels on second rack, then soap and cleansers, shaving items and oral care items. 

i built this as a makeup shelf in 2015 and there's a little still there, but it's now intended to hold hair items on top, toilet paper on bottom and frequently used items in between. a full makeup table exsts, but  haven't screwed t together yet. there are some shower shelves i haven't installed yet on the bottom.

i bought this as a towel rack in the previous basement. i don't remember how much it was. i have a larger mirror to put behind it, but i need to buy a shelf to put it on first.

here's the whole wall.

the shower was actually pretty clean and may have been recently reinstalled. it had to be recaulked, which i did. i put my own shower curtain on.

i had to put a little silicone in to keep the shower handle on, but i'm actually not replacing this shower head, and i usually do.

this is directly above the bathroom sink. there is a window where there would normally be a mirror. it's to ground level, quite large and directly visible from outside. it's kind of creepy, actually. instead of looking at a mirror, you're looking out a window.

so what i did was cover it up with a drape and get a fan put in for starters. there's a window behind that. there's two of those $10 amazon lights taped to the drapes and a small shard of a mirror that was previously leaned against there but fell to the ground and got smashed.

what i am going to do is take the drape down, seal up the window and then cover over it with a large piece of cardboard. that has the pieces of the shattered mirror glued on to it. i'm going to have a string of bright usb lights placed around the shards of glass. it should have a pretentious art deco look to it.

that will be my bathroom mirror with vanity lights

as for myself, i'm still recovering from a year's worth of damaged hygiene. i'm looking better everyday.

there's the sink. it was pretty dirty, and the sink wasn't leaking, exactly, but needed to be tightened. it was not connected to the wall well and a lot of caulking was needed to fill a crack at the wall. it's much more sturdy now. the black soap holder replaces a margarine lid and was an amazon buy.

this is the fan they put in, and i'm glad they did. brand new. works great.

this is where the rodents have been sleeping. one of the managers just punched the wall open to fix a leak. it is actually the kitchen sink and not the bathroom sink that is directly above this. i put some glue traps and a container of bleach in there and i think there's actually a dead rat in there that's decaying because they did move the bleach container and now i'm seeing insects in there. i am not touching it for now. i've just taped it over, and they won't touch the tape, but i have at times seen several in there. it's weird. i can cut open the tape with an exacto knife and put things in there, then tape it back up. getting in there and cleaning it out with the shop vac will need to be done at least once, but not until i'm ready to dispose of the contents of the shop vac. the rats are not afraid of me, for some reason. they'll just stop and look right at me. it could be the height difference (cats will not fear you if looking in through a basement window either), but rats are not remotely as stupid as cats are, and cats are legitimately fucking stupid.

i will need to get that fixed. for now, that is gross, but of minimal concern.

the tenants above me are not from canada and don't seem to be that concerned about cohabiting with rodents.

the toilet was extremely dirty when i moved in, but that's not why i changed the toilet seat. the toilet seat was for somebody that must have been barely five feet tall and must have looked essentially like a child. i bought that toilet seat in 2014 for $50 at home depot, and it's been in a bag since 2018, and became mildly discoloured. the containers on the side are bleach and vinegar, and the top is full of powdered bleach. you can see where i tried to seal up the floor and the sink in the back.

you can see the powdered bleach on the replaced toilet seat. it worked well enough.

 i bought a makeup and charging table with a separate mirror and lights for this space but i have yet to set it up due to concerns about water leaks from the rodents sleeping in that space. that will go there when the rodent issue upstairs is resolved.

that's a picture of the wall, missing the makeup table (that power cord will go on the table and the lights will all be swapped out).

...and, that is looking out of the bathroom and back into the kitchen.

walkthrough remaining spaces

this is looking from the bedroom to the front door. the immediate foreground is where i'm building the recording studio. there will be shelving with a stationary bicycle closer to the front door.

this will be where the exercise bike and shelving for cds and textbooks is put. most of the items in the picture will end up in the garage.

the garage is behind this door, which leads upstairs to a lobby with a front door. i have not cleaned out the garage yet, but it will be the next task. that will let me clear a lot of this stuff out of there.

this is a shot looking back to my studio desk.

i don't really need a living room because i don't have people over or watch tv. but i'm going to set up a listening room with a stereo, one or two couches and some coffee tables. this is looking through the living room into the kitchen.

this is looking back at the listening room from the kitchen (with the hallway leading to the front door behind it)

kitchen

some things in the kitchen are being redone or revisited, but i set up the kitchen first and posted a summary of it:

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2025/10/step-one-in-setting-this-place-up-was.html

i have added caulking to the floors and am going to be swapping out some shelves due to load issues. i haven't set the saw up yet.

the coffee table book is still coming, and these pictures will be better organized, but this is a terse documentation of the cleaning i've been doing this month.

bedroom:

as mentioned, the bedroom is relatively small. to me, bedrooms need to have beds, dressers, closets, stereos, bookshelves and writing/typing spaces. the thing that can't fit in here is a closet, which has been moved to it's own space.

the bedroom had drafty baseboards, but i didn't notice until the cold snap. right now, the floor is still thawing from the freezing winter, but the drafts are sealed. the windows weren't that bad, but they were sealed. 

everything was scrubbed, washed and vacuumed, including the bed. the bed took a while to clean a coffee spill and some general dirtiness off of. 

i'm not done in here yet. i need shelves and i need to put books on the shelves. i have not set up the typing system or the stereo. my celestions need new tweeters.

walking in.

broad view.

the kefs will eventually go in the living room, after i get new tweeters for the celestions, which will go here instead. i found these matching speaker tables on the curb for free.

i bought this dresser for $50 when i first moved to windsor. the system on the left is the living room system, temporarily connected to the kefs in here. the bedroom system with the tweeterless celestions is currently beside it. there is also a monitor for the studio and a printer/scanner, here. the bedroom system will move to where the living room system is, the monitor will go in the studio and the printer will come down on to the dresser, where it is now. i lost two of theses drawers and have instead just taped the front of them to the dresser. the four drawers have socks, underwear and pajamas. the rest of my clothes are in the walk in closet.

i bought this desk in the apartment i was briefly in over the summer, for $20. it was intended to be a sewing desk, but there's a better sewing desk in the walk-on closet. the chair was found for free on the curb. i need to do my taxes this weekend. this is a writing/typing desk, for when i want to sit up to work. the laptop on it is also temporary, as is the 90s ethernet cable.

i have a filing cabinet and some shelves to move in to this space but haven't yet. this shelf will be for larger reference books. note the caulking on the baseboards.

the whole wall. the windows did not require much caulking. the windows open to a fenced area and don't require drapes, so i might not bother.

the back wall. i have some wood to install some shelves for paperbacks on it. there will be two (for now) full wall shelves stacked with novels, for the journal project. that's my old sarah painting from 2002.

the modern bedtable - hard drives, laptops, usb keys, ip phones...and kleenex boxes. gantz graf, baby. that chromebook is my current typing pc, which i need to upgrade. there are two newer hp chromebooks in the pile that don't expire until 2030. two of these tables were cheap walmart buys and one was bought second hand on kijiji in 2015ish.

the bed. 

again. the white cylindrical object is a hepa air filter, which is less necessary now, but i'm still using. there's an alarm clock and a container of pomegranate grapefruit palmolive dish soap i use as an air freshener.

i will get some smaller tables to put on top of these ones to organize and declutter some of the smaller items.

my airgapped typing pc, a lenovo office pc, is in this box, ready to be setup with a custom windows 7 image.

the other kef with the other table, plus an electric heater on a box. the box has the shelving unit for in the corner in it.

looking out into the future studio.

it's not entirely clear what's going on here.

several reports in arab-funded papers are claiming the kurds were defeated by the syrian army. these reports replace the usual pictures of female fighters, which western media has liked to print, with very unkurdish appearing bearded men, following islamic dress codes. this looks to me like it's islamist propaganda, which the western press has a tendency to fall for, and it's not clear if there's any value to it at all, or if it's distorting reality and contains some truth hidden in it.

it does seem to be clear that there has been a kurdish withdrawal from what are historically armenian and assyrian regions that arabs have been occupying since they were settled there by the ottomans after the armenian genocide.

the kurds have claimed that they never intended to occupy these "arab" areas but were holding them to prevent isis from returning to them and were waiting for the proper conditions to withdraw. what we're seeing are not conditions that would be considered acceptable, as they amount to a functional isis victory, and it's clear there was a retreat from a surprise attack. but, it's important to understand that they were only there to hold the area, in the first place. the kurds would not be expected to put up much of a fight in these areas.

i certainly oppose a return of isis, but it seems as though the americans are in support of an isis takeover of the syrian state, under apparent saudi pressure. the kurds have a fight on their hand if that's the case.

the kurds should be able to defend themselves against random isis terrorist cells and against the syrian army, if they have to. the part of the narrative in western media, which is funded with arab money, that's not making sense is the idea that the syrian army defeated the kurds and drove them out. that's laughable. the kurds will beat the shit out of the syrian army, which is no better than a terrorist cell, if they have to. the kurds can fight the iraqis if they have to, too. they can also put up a good fight against the iranians.

the kurds cannot fight the turks and the kurds cannot fight the americans. if the kurds were legitimately defeated, that would suggest either the turks or americans are responsible.

but, that is what isn't clear. 

i have read some reports in kurdish media that are stating that the syrian state has agreed to stay out of rojava, which is smaller than the area you've been seeing on maps for several years. i would not trust the fascists that have just taken over syria. however, i have yet to see claims that the syrians have moved into rojava.

if the kurds can hold rojava proper with minimal interference from the nazis in damascus, they will maintain their sovereignty. i certainly would not expect the syrian army, run by terrorists, to be able to succeed in dislodging the kurds from their actual homeland, or have any say in how they choose to govern themselves. it will be a dangerous relationship for the kurds to navigate, and time will tell if it is sustainable. the new regime in syria is not like the government in iraq, or even the government in turkey, which are nominally democratic. it's more like the government in iran. i would suspect it isn't.

but one would expect the kurds to withdraw, analyze and wait rather than stand and fight and that seems to be what they're doing.

claims that rojava is on the brink of destruction would be reliant on what the turks are up to, and that doesn't seem to be a serious threat at this point. it seems to just be saudi propaganda.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260220-for-syria-s-kurds-dream-of-autonomy-fades-under-damascus-deal

i need to reiterate that i think the united states can completely wipe out the irgc in less than 12 hours and that it isn't restrained by the kind of cultural considerations that the russians have been in declining to target ukrainian politicians. the americans can, should and probably will just wipe them out.

what happens next is likely to be messy and take a while to sort out, but there's no particular reason why the americans need to get involved at the outset. it is probably in america's long term interest to let iran figure it out and call washington when they've got their shit in order.

this is actually an algorithm and a policy that i would support in a number of theatres, if clear guidelines are set around the characteristics of the governments being annihilated. in order for a government to qualify for overnight liquidation by the united states, it would need to be sufficiently authoritarian (theocracies would be the worst offenders) and demonstrate sufficient human rights abuses against it's own people.

the iranian government is the worst state actor on the planet and clearly most deserving of liquidation by the american world police. there are other states in the mena that are deserving of liquidation, and a few in southeast asia.

hiring mercenaries.

great.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/government-plans-boost-canadian-forces-221227434.html

restricting refugees' access to services will not reduce costs, it will just redistribute them. if canada is going to have refugees, those refugees need to be funded by federal taxes. if there is no money from the federal government to fund resettlement, it should restrict refugee entry to levels it can financially support.

"letting the market deal with it" is not the solution, it's the problem.

that said, most canadians agree with this. trudeau seems to have had an abusive childhood that warped his perspective of who he was. he thought he was a prince, but he didn't have a treasury, except the country's; he was a philanthropist without a fortune to distribute. canadian taxes became his fortune to distribute for his philanthropy. trudeau was completely out of touch with public opinion on this point, which wants a generous but sustainable approach to resettlement.

there is a process for alberta to follow if it seeks a constitutional amendment and it has the right to try to do that. this is a very difficult process, but, on this particular issue, it has a moderate possibility of success.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/danielle-smith-alberta

we should only hope that the unconquered sun, the sol invictus, should not smite us for our insolence.

the word insolence is of etymological value.

the local weather forecast has been having a lot of issues over the last few months. it gets the right idea, but has difficulty nailing a scaling factor, and consistently misses timing by several hours. it may forecast a warm up, but be off by five degrees, or a cool down and by off by five degrees. they have generally been better at this over the last many years. what's going on?

the forecasts this week make it clear to me what is happening.

- today, it was dark and rainy. they correctly forecast the rain, but the high is about five degrees lower than predicted.

- the days before that were sunny and warmer than seasonal, although pretty blicky cold still. they got the idea right, but the actual high was about five degrees higher than forecast.

it's fairly clear that the factor they're missing is sunlight and that the sun is affecting the weather right now more than usual.

this might be partially due to blackbody radiation on the earth and the cold surface temperature releasing less heat overnight or when it's cloudy while the ground remains frozen, but the factor is the sunlight.

listen.

concerns about the clear reality of nazi collaboration in western continental europe aside, the invasion of the atlantic coast of europe, which canada participated in, was largely a liberating process. sort of. the first thing the anglo-american forces did was slaughter the socialists, of course. during the war, the resistance to the nazi occupation was more aligned with stalin, as the russians were fighting a real war, and the british were fighting a phony war. the nazis merely meant to occupy france; they meant to depopulate russia. hitler's attack on stalin was stupid, and the russians were going to win, regardless. it was a matter of time before the red army drove into berlin, paris and probably on to madrid, where they would have set up puppet states out of the resistance to the german occupation. so, had the forces of capitalism not come in from england to "save europe", the result would have been the socialist soviet republics of france and spain, and probably of italy, too. the anglo-americans had to kill all of them socialists as the first order of business, to make sure the continent was safe for investment. this is not taught history, but there were large massacres by incoming british, canadian and american soldiers.

but what is at least true is that they didn't support the nazis. they may not have wanted an american occupation, but at least it wasn't the nazis. all evidence suggests that the dutch and french are appreciative of canadian efforts to undo the german occupation, even if the resultant american occupation wasn't their intended or desired outcome.

in historical israel, on the other hand, there was a war going on between the then current occupiers (the english and french) and a previous occupation group (the arabs), as the long standing hegemon, the turks, also an occupier, had been replaced. nobody welcomed british troops to the mandate area as liberators. the arab tribal leaders were aligned with the nazis, and fighting to overthrow the british. these troops were in place to occupy the region and prevent an uprising, not to liberate it.

it's easy to condemn the arab groups for aligning with the nazis out of free will rather than being forced to submit to them, although it's clear they had a common enemy: not the british, but the jews. however, that's not really relevant. the british should not have held on to the area so long after world war one. if the arabs wanted to join the axis powers, and hitler and mussolini would have them, that was their prerogative. the next step would be to blow them up as axis powers rather than occupy them to stop them from joining the axis powers, and that would have been a better outcome, with a more clear result. had the british blown up historical israel in the second world war instead of protecting it, it would not be having the problems it is having today. if 1945 is year zero, the calendar in historical israel was never reset. that's the problem.

it is fundamentally incorrect to equate graves of colonial soldiers in gaza with fields of dead canadians in belgium or france.

the canadian presence in historical israel was tied to a british occupation of it, and the graveyard in it is a marker of the anglo-french colonial presence in the region.

it is correct that it be demolished.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/gaza-cemetery-graves-9.7093884

for myself, i am done major cleaning in here for a little while. i'm now focusing just on vacuuming, spraying, wiping over the four finished rooms, on a daily or bidaily basis.

the next step is for me to clean myself, and i'll need to be taking lengthy overnight showers on a daily basis for the next week or two, while i'm typing during the day.

i'm choosing to be patient and methodical as i fight for each square inch one at a time. this is the russian theory of rat control, a slow and grinding and unstoppable movement forwards, inch by inch, month by month. resistance is futile.

- figure out where they are

- clean it up. immaculately.

- figure out how they get from where they were to where they are

- block it off using silicon, sprays, glue, chlorine, vinyl, etc

- repeat

eventually, i will get to the dnieper.