#763 – The Expat Files: Wall Anchoring, Security Deposits, and Life in Latin America

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came out to play and now I wonder Hello there all you expat wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started All right today. We've got another crazy chapter in the expat Eddie saga That's if we get to it, you know how I can ramble and after you hear it You're gonna think man let that be a lesson to us all but first let's talk about something more practical You know when you move into a new apartment condo townhouse, whatever

[00:48] What's the first thing you do after you clean the place out? Well, you move your furniture in of course, and you start hanging knick-knacks doodads pictures mirrors coat racks Well all kinds of stuff. I know I know you're thinking big deal. That's old hat people do it all the time Well, I'm here to tell you today that in Latin America putting up pictures posters hanging lamps mirrors, whatever it's a whole different thing from the way you do it up in the States and it could just drive you nuts because Remember up in the States you've got wooden studs and drywall in probably 95% of the cases anyway And all you do if you want to hang something is run down to the hardware store buy a package of wall fasteners or drywall Anchors and if you're hanging something heavy, maybe a toggle bolt You know those bolts that have a kind of a collapsible wing nut on one end of them that you shove through the hole and it

[01:35] pops open on the other side within the wall and you tighten it up then as you tighten it it uses compression to solidify the Attachment and why use that well It's because you can put bigger heavier objects on the wall than you can when using those tiny plastic wall clips In fact, most of the people that resort to those toggle bolts have done so because they put them much cheaper and less Complicated plastic ones in and they failed. I know I know we're all familiar with that stuff family No, what kind of errors you can make to especially if you put something heavy on the wall Like for example a big mirror with a metal border and you've undersized your wall attachment. That's what generally happens, right? Hey, I've been there we've all been there, right? But so what then you just pop another hole next to it in the drywall and you'd be a little more careful with the tolerance This next time and everything works out fine, right?

[02:22] But what about here in Latin America where everything that's worth building is done in concrete and rock hard plaster? And I mean rock hard. Well for one thing that means forget about that cheapo 1999 drill with the quarter-inch chuck that you bought at Walmart or the local hardware store and don't even think to buy one of those Real cheapo drills that looks like a modified flashlight Fact is you'll really need something much more substantial than that because if you're down here in Latin America for the rest of your life You're gonna sooner or later end up drilling holes in concrete walls So you'll have to dish out probably at least 35 to 50 bucks for what they call a hammer drill or at least a drill That has a switch on it that changes it into a hammer drill because you know with the hammer drill function The bits not just spinning around it's going back and forth and up and down too

[03:10] So you'll make a lot more headway in the concrete Although it still will not be a breeze ladies because you'll know if you ever tried it that holes drilled in concrete and block and cement Can take a long time and wear your patience not to mention wear out the drill bit and speaking of drill bits You'd be wise to have an assorted bunch of concrete drill bits on hand because you're gonna need those for any number of repair jobs Around the house even if you're not the one doing it because your maintenance man's gonna have to drill holes and for sure he won't have a hammer drill And he'll be using yours and he won't have any concrete drill bits either He'll be using your stuff too Which is why you should have a minimal amount of a sort of junk in your toolbox or else You'll be sending him back and forth to the local hardware store like a madman For example ask for the case of drilling holes in concrete

[03:55] You know a regular old drill bit for wood or even steel will not work in concrete It'll just start smoking and you'll burn your fingers if you try to remove it too quickly from the chuck and for you Ladies out there who usually have your men do the handiwork like that. Oh, did I say something sexist? Is that on PC? Well sue me. Hey, it's the truth most women get their men to do that kind of stuff, right? All right So now you know what you're gonna need around the house a decent though Not necessarily expensive drill that has what's called a hammer drill option a little button or lever on it that Switches it from a regular drill to one that kind of spins and vibrates the drill bit Oh and by the way for you ladies out there when it's on the hammer drill function It's gonna make a lot of noise and it'll tend to walk away from you when you first start drilling the hole

[04:41] So just know that drilling holes and concretes around ten times more difficult and messy than drilling in drywall or wood So get used to it All right Let's get back to when you first rent an apartment or buy a house Whatever if it's not new meaning there were previous tenants They'll certainly have removed their stuff off the walls and they'll probably be plenty of holes in the plaster concrete or block Where they've made attempts mostly unsuccessfully to fill the holes of the wall anchors. I was talking about however And this goes back to the general Latino lack of detail or more than likely it's just that they do it the way everyone else does and has been doing it for Generations that's the way dad and grandpa did it but often because they don't have a hammer drill They'll just pound a big nail right into the wall

[05:28] And even if the walls are plaster concrete and block if you've got a big enough nail and a big enough hammer You can make some headway and get them to stick but man I'll tell you it ain't pretty and they're not likely to hold forever That's for sure by the way here in Latin America if you're gonna move out of a place There's a kind of a catch 22 in the attempt to recover your deposit Which is by the way why I always suggest you pay six months or a year up front Then when they ask for a deposit you tell them what a deposit I just paid just six months up front and generally they think about it for a second scratch their head in cave You know I've been down here more than 27 years now And I only know one person who ever got their deposit back Oh a few have gotten a partial deposit back But a complete deposit only one lucky fool and here's how it goes

[06:13] And it usually has to do with the fact that you've got a lot of holes in the wall from hanging things right now If you leave the fasteners in the wall the landlord is gonna say hey We got to repaint the place and pull the anchors They're called by the way Tarugos here in Latin America anchors are called Tarugos anyway like I said you really can't win as far as getting a deposit back because if you're a real nice tenant and you pull out the Wall anchors and re plaster them or spackle them the landlord is gonna say they have to repaint the place no Not just those little dabs where those two rugos were they'll say oh, no We got to paint the whole place because you know after you've lived in a place for a while the paint fades And sometimes there's kind of a shadow effect around a picture or a frame you hung due to dust and fading and stuff

[06:58] You know what I'm talking about So even if you pull them out re plaster them and retouch them with paint It's never enough the landlord will always have a reason to say look the paint doesn't match We got to do the whole thing and it's coming out of your deposit. So just be aware of that It's not such a big deal But also remember that most landlords will buy the paint and of course subtract it from your deposit But isn't it funny? They'll go out and buy expensive paint like Sherwin Williams Meanwhile, you'll generally find the empty paint cans they use initially before you even got in the place Stuffed in a laundry room closet or under the kitchen sink and you'll see they use the cheapest no-name brand of local paint possible Oh and speaking of cheap paint down here in Latin America They've got all kinds of dirt cheap no-name paint brands and most of it junk and also the comparatively high-end stuff like Sherwin Williams

[07:50] But do notice when you're driving around and you see some guy paint in a house They're almost never using Sherwin Williams or Sears or Benjamin Moore any of the high-end stuff They're using the local brands that are half the price as Sherwin Williams And not only that every single painter down here dilutes his paint with water Hey goes a lot farther right even though it says right on the cans of the good paint like Sherwin Williams And I'm using that as an example. They've got others do not dilute or it'll void the warranty Yeah, like any of us has ever taken paint back because it says on the label one coat and it's never one coat They're bigger liars and politicians Somehow they get away with it and no one has ever addressed that issue Well, we are now but in Latin America, there's nobody to sue anyway, which believe it or not in most ways is a good thing

[08:37] However here in Latin America painters are so used to diluting the paint that actually says on the labels of the cheap brands The proper way to dilute it say what? However a sprinkles now there is no proper way. You just don't dilute it Unless you're a truly cheap ass and you're only painting your house or apartment because you're fixing to sell it Oh and by the way note that 99 percent of latin painters don't use masking tape or drop cloths either So even though that stuff's widely available to latino workmen. It's just an unnecessary expense So again buyer beware when the job's done. You can expect drops and spatters on everything Even your car and your windows and your dog Oh and you've heard me say this many times in past shows When you hire a latin workman to do anything for you, whether it's painting electrical plumbing

[09:24] They never completely clean up after themselves So for example, if you paid a guy to wire some electrical for you or fix something Even if it works just fine and the repair is all you wanted it to be Don't pay him the money and say goodbye until you've done a nice thorough inspection of where he's been working In fact, you'd do well to hand him a mop and a broom and say hey you ain't done until it's cleaned up Cleanup after a job just does not seem to be on the average latin guy's radar Now, of course a lot of gringo say well I guess it doesn't matter too much because i've got a cleaning lady it made, you know Plus they're shocked how little they pay for a repair In fact one gringo who had a guy come in and fix her washing machine She said he made a terrible mess But she felt guilty asking him to clean up since he was so damn cheap

[10:10] In fact, she said it cost her as much to have the whole thing fixed as it would have cost to get an estimate up in the states But still it kind of gets on your nerves that these guys will come in and trash up the room You're in mong up your woodwork and leave their fingerprints on your walls So expect that and expect you'll be pissed off a lot, too So my advice advise them right when they walk through the door that you want to see the place exactly as you left it And they'll agree to that though. Probably no one's ever said that to him before But hey, never too late to clean up your act, right? So it's important to talk about these things they call Tarugos They're the absolute best way to anchor anything into a concrete wall or even if you're going to bolt anything down to cement Anywhere in a house in latin america now these things are different than the plastic wall anchors you've got in the states

[10:58] Or even the metal expansion bolts you've probably seen if you've ever worked with concrete You might have worked with them. You drill a hole You shove the bolt in there and then you whack it with a hammer and it expands deep in the hole and tightens itself up Great idea, but i've had trouble with those things. Hey, they're available down here, too And i'm not saying they don't work, but they're a little tricky to get to fast and tight It's true at first. They work fine. However in the long run. They always seem to work themselves a bit loose So i'm not sold on them and that's why i'm going to tell you the best way i've ever found to attach things to concrete walls If you do it right, it really is permanent So I mention those plastic Tarugos and they work and often when you walk into an apartment that you might want to rent Let's say you'll see some of them embedded in the walls that they haven't taken out and as mentioned they do work

[11:50] After a fashion anyway, but in time they do loosen up too. Why? Well, one of the reasons is because there's so many earthquakes here In fact, I know this probably sounds a little scary, but sometimes you get hundreds of them in a day They're just so small and imperceptible that only the seismographs can pick them up Anyway, all those nano movements going on day after day plus the fact that latinos almost always undersize those things In other words, they hang a big mirror and they're supposed to use a big fat Tarugo That's maybe two inches long meaning it's got to go into the wall two inches And in that case you should use one that's three eighths or a half an inch wide but instead because most latins don't have a hammer drill and even if they have one they have a Undersized one with only a quarter inch chuck That means you're limited in the width of the drill bit you can use by the way with all decent drills

[12:38] The chuck will usually open up to fit a half inch bit But that's neither here nor there because some concrete bits could be a half an inch but the shaft Is cut down to a quarter inch that's to accommodate the smaller drills, of course Hey, I don't want to lose you here But this is kind of important like I said many latins use these plastic Tarugos and they're heavy duty plastic by the way And they hold nicely sometimes for a long while But eventually they worked loose either because they're undersized for the job or the hole was drilled too sloppy or big And it's not a good fit and then you've got the earthquakes But you know, there's a simple and easy way to mount those things forever at least for a lifetime and it's something I do all the time because I Drilled and placed a thousand of these things and doing construction and stuff

[13:24] You know, they're always amazed when I show a latin maintenance guy or construction guy my own little tricks They always say wow, I gotta start doing that and whether they do or not I don't know but i've got a method and listen to this All right So you buy a handful of those Tarugos you ask the guy at the hardware store for the right drill bit for the necessary hole you'll have to drill by the way, if it's a big Tarugo that means one that's three quarters or a half inch wide You'll have to get that same size concrete bit But believe me you have to buy a much smaller one maybe an eighth of an inch concrete bit and drill a pilot hole Or else if you start out with the big fat half inch bit Your drill is going to wander all over the place and you'll never put that hole in straight or exactly in the right spot

[14:09] You've marked but you can do that real easily with a tinier eighth or quarter inch concrete bit All right So now you've drilled a pilot hole and you've struggled with drilling that half inch hole two inches deep and believe me Sometimes when you're drilling you'll hit a rock that's been mixed in with the concrete and man You'll feel like you've been drilling forever and sometimes you'll get through it And sometimes you won't if you don't you have to decide if you're deep enough and if you're at an inch or an Inch and a half deep. Maybe you are so then you cut down the Tarugo accordingly But sometimes you'll hit that metal rebar which is crisscrossed throughout the concrete and all latin homes And then you just have to forget about it and start drilling another hole nearby Because you're never going to get through that metal and if you go at it too long, you'll destroy your bit

[14:56] All right Let's assume you've drilled a hole and now there's dust everywhere because that's going to happen when you drill through concrete So the cleanup is pretty nasty But here's the solution to that you get yourself a vacuum cleaner and if you're nice and coordinated You can hold a nozzle right under the drill bit as you're drilling and all the dust will be sucked into the vacuum cleaner Best though to have someone else hold it for you because you'll have a hard enough time drilling through that concrete Sometimes you'll need two hands for that and a lot of body english, too Now that vacuum cleaner trick will alleviate one huge mess. Believe me Now here's the part that amazes latin contractors you get yourself a straw Yeah, a regular drinking straw the kind you can bend to a 90 degree angle, you know, they got little ribs in them You just bend them and they kink to 90 degrees Well, you kink it stick to small end all the way into the hole

[15:43] And blow on the straw and there'll be a big puff of dust coming out of that hole Now that's part of the key to getting these things to fit nice and tight To get the dust out of there because you don't want to jam it into the hole with a hammer or whatever When you've got a thimble full of dust deep in there then when you pound the torugo or plastic insert in with your hammer Chances are it won't pound all the way flush You'll have some of it sticking up and now you're kind of screwed because the whole system has been weakened However, you use that little straw trick. I just told you about none of that will happen But there's one last thing you go out and you buy some liquid nails, you know You go to the hardware store comes in a caulking tube So you need a caulk gun and down here in latin america. Anyway, they've got three or four different brands they sell They'll either say liquid nails in english or in spanish No mas clavos, which means no more nails speaking of buying things in caulking tubes like liquid nails or

[16:35] Silicone caulking. Here's another heads up. You really have to look at the expiration dates In fact, I was in a big hardware store the other day well known Franchised all through latin america was in there to buy a caulking tube of 100 percent silicone caulk and a tube of liquid nails Because man does that stuff come in handy. I always got a tube or two around the house Anyway, you must look at the expiration dates I looked at these tubes of silicone caulk and they really looked okay in every other aspect however, the expiration date was 2017 about a year past their useful date now you might say well, it'll still work But believe me when it comes to things like liquid nails and caulk that stuff slowly But surely starts hardening in the tube after its due date

[17:21] So you really have to watch out now If you were at a hardware store up in the dates and stuff was a year past its due date There would be irate america's going nuts and maybe someone would even yell out let's sue But there's nothing like that down here. In fact, I called over a floor walker, you know sales guy And I showed him the due date and he was totally shocked But he didn't go over to the manager and say anything. He just put it right back on the shelf So look out. Oh, and here's another thing you should do anytime you buy anything that's in a caulk tube Even if it's well within its use date Squeeze the center of it a little bit between your fingers It should not be hard but soft kind of like cookie dough then, you know, it hasn't prematurely hardened So why would I even bring that up? Well, sometimes i'm driving past the big box stores and hardware stores and outback you see pallets of this stuff

[18:07] Just toasting in the sun and it's the tropical sun, you know And if toasting in the sun will prematurely age a gringo It'll prematurely age some caulk or some liquid nails won't it? But back to wall fasteners. Well, you buy some liquid nails And if you've blown the dust out of the hole with that bent straw you inject a little glob of liquid nails in the hole And then you proceed to tap the wall fastener or torugo into that hole till it's flush now Don't overdo it You don't want to plug the hole up with liquid nails So have a big mess on your hand when you start hammering it In fact as you're pounding with the hammer you're bound to get a little oozing out of the center hole But that's okay. Just wipe it off with a newspaper, whatever. But again, don't put too much of that stuff in the hole I'd say only about a thimbleful but note this Now you got to wait about a day for that to totally harden and then tomorrow you can put your pictures up or your mirrors

[18:58] Whatever. All right. Now you'll be fastening things outdoors once in a while too You might want to put up some clothes lines or attach a hammock or awnings or wind chimes to your house spotlight security cameras Whatever and you'll want to do the very same thing That's why you should buy liquid nails that says it's for indoor and outdoor use There are two kinds, you know, and the indoor stuff's a little cheaper And man, I tell you that stuff hardens up like a rock and that's exactly what you want Oh and by the way If you're in a retail store these days hardware stores included more and more stuff is labeled in both english and spanish Which is cool for you guys and gals out there whose spanish sucks Now that's something that's just coming to vogue these days. It didn't even exist five or six years ago So that means these international companies are getting on board with the fact that latin america is a huge market for construction materials

[19:47] But do note that even some of the big hardware stores don't have all the hardware you might need when doing a job outside Let's say you're mounting a satellite dish or stringing some cable wire or mounting a basketball hoop Whatever now i'll tell you 99.9 percent of latinos use galvanized steel hardware outdoors You know, it's supposed to be rust resistant and stuff But it ain't when you've got a very penetrating sun and a heavy rainy season not to mention a lot of people Live on or near the beach or salt water I'm serious in a couple of years fasteners that were shiny and new Begin to dull up and corrode and start getting pretty stanky, you know, kind of like a rap stars tooth rack Oh, and I forgot to mention if you've got a swimming pool

[20:32] You're gonna have some hardware hookups in and around the pool and they're gonna be exposed to weather and you're gonna see the degradation fast So what are you supposed to do about it? Well latinos just live with it and sometimes they paint it and that makes it worse But there is a good solution a very good solution Actually, if you're gonna stay in a place a while wherever you can outside Anyway, you want to use stainless steel screws washers bolts, whatever Oh, and by the way latinos love to mismatch their hardware In other words, you could have a aluminum window frame and they'll use galvanized steel screws to fasten it Well, it looks good for a while. Those are dissimilar metals and the corrosion happens even faster you technical types Remember they call that the galvanic effect, but sometimes you just can't get around it

[21:18] Especially when it comes to aluminum hardware for skylights and doors, etc The tip here is if you're bolting or bracketing stuff Especially outdoors if you got to put a galvanized bolt or screw into aluminum use a nylon washer That'll really slow down the degradation even better use stainless steel hardware as mentioned But if you go into the average hardware store, they just don't have it Of course, you can order it from amazon But it's always better to actually see feel and touch this stuff and buy it in the store if you can right Which brings us to these little stores that are popping up everywhere in medium and large cities in latin america In fact, if you jump on your search engine and put in the word tornadoes, that's screws and latin country You'll see there are all kinds of little tiendas called casa de tornadoes. In fact, I love those places

[22:07] They've got every kind of screw bolt fastener. You can imagine plus nylon washers and stainless steel stuff, too However, you got to laugh at the name of these places You know if you do a translation of casa del tornadoes, it means house of screws Yep house of screws And because our english slang for screw means just what you think it means in fact it's down here in latin america thornillo just means Screw as in fastener so for example If you just arrived from cleveland at a latin american airport and grabbed a taxi and said take me to The nearest casa de tornadoes he's going to take you to a place that sells screws and hardware Fact is you see a lot of things don't translate So if you're thinking on going to a strip club your taxi driver

[22:53] Just wouldn't get it because a strip club in latin america is called a night club. Yep. That's right a night club Even though your average latino doesn't know what the english word night means. He knows what club means They use that word all the time meanwhile up in the states if you go to a night club It's a place with mixed couples and music and dancing Maybe all on the up and up until maybe around part-time and people are drunk and stuff Anyway, when I first discovered these little tiendas casa del tornadoes, you know house of screws The latin guy that was with me. I think it was a plumber said, what are you laughing about? Hey, there was no way to break the language barrier and explain it to him, you know So anyway, if you're doing any kind of outdoor project, especially you want to use some stainless steel hardware wherever you can So do by all means check out the nearest house of screws. Can you tell I like saying that?

[23:42] By the way, there's a quick and dirty way to hang a picture mirror Whatever where you don't have to go through any of that buying screws and torugos and liquid nails You just buy yourself one of those small diameter eighth inch wide concrete drill bits and instead of drilling a hole perpendicular to the wall you tilt your drill up and That means the drill bit itself is angling down and you drill a pilot hole at about a 20 or 30 degree angle So you drill into the wall about an inch or so Then when you're finished you just take a regular old nail one That's slightly longer than the hole slide it in and voila. You can hang a picture a clock Whatever now remember you want the nail diameter smaller than the hole diameter So you can slip it in and out with your fingers That's the quick and dirty way to hang something that's not too heavy and something you'll take with you if you move

[24:31] In other words something that's not permanent meaning you wouldn't want to do that If you were hanging cabinets on a kitchen wall, you'd definitely want to do the liquid nails and the torugo thing Oh and my advice for all you renters and homeowners out there in latin american land As soon as you get down here and move into someplace permanently or semi permanently Go to one of the big hardware stores or hardware store chains or even costco and buy yourself a nice Compact wet dry vac man. Will that thing come in handy? Especially the wet vac part? I don't know a single gringo who's lived down here for any length of time Who hasn't experienced a major or minor flood in his house or garage? Could be from a leak in the roof in the rainy season bad toilet valve or in the most recent case with me The washing machine drain tube, you know that shoots the gray water down the drain

[25:18] It became brittle and cracked it took the dogs to alert me that there was something wrong I walked into the laundry room and man what a mess But luckily like I said, you have to have tile floors forget about wall to wall carpeting even rugs Because you know once they've been saturated with water There's no turning back you practically got to get rid of however with a tile floor Once the water's gone and it dries up. It's as good as new But here's something you should never forget if you're gonna put a tile floor down that is your building new or adding on to your house Whatever always always always insist they put down a vapor barrier before they lay the tile i'm talking about a real Certified vapor berry not just a piece of plastic sheathing You know under any good solid tile floor. There's a concrete slab or concrete top coat

[26:05] That's not where you put the vapor barrier you put it down before you pour the concrete So what happens if you don't put down a vapor barrier? Well, maybe nothing especially if it's on a second floor or higher That's when you can do without but when your cement slabs on the first floor directly touching the earth Even with a properly prepared gravel bed if you don't have a vapor barrier in time and it may take a couple years You'll get some moisture seepage. Maybe even a little Crystallization a kind of a white powder that starts depositing not on your tiles But on the grout joints and not everywhere either But even just a little bit of that is a nuisance and unsightly And even if you dig out the affected grout and put down new after a couple years, it'll come right back Which is why by the way all new houses here in latin america look absolutely great fantastic

[26:51] But almost none of them unless a gringo is involved cracking the whip will stand the test of time without a lot of Unsightly and irritating defects, but you knew that already, right? All right We're getting towards the end of this show and I wasn't able to get into that wild and crazy expat eddie story Sorry about that. We'll get to it directly next time. But before we close today I want to remind you once again that my july 2018 Expat insider seminar gets underway in about exactly five weeks from when this broadcast goes out I've still got a few spaces You can get all the details and sign up information by going to www dot the new expat dot com And click on the seminar link you've been listening to the expat files living in latin america If you need some help with your own plan b you can schedule a one-on-one phone call with me

[27:40] But first download my free plan b questionnaire at www.thenewexpat.com Better yet if you want to get your plan b going from right up there in the states Just sign up for my nine hour expat essentials course Get the perfect plan b blueprint by going to the expat files dot com slash academy most famous