#373 – The Expat Files: Earthquakes, Building Standards, and Ant Infestations

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 that 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 You know my seminar's starting about now so I'm in and around Guatemala and Guatemala City And as you may or may not have heard A couple of days ago there was a pretty big earthquake on the Guatemala Mexican border Now there's some controversy as to whether it was a 6.2 or a 7.2

[00:48] But that's Latin America, details details right? I mean come on if there was an earthquake in and around Germany They'd have it down to about 6 decimal points Anyway it doesn't matter if it was a 6.2 or a 7.2, it was a damn big one So naturally I've got some expat gannabes and wannabes sending me emails Asking me the extent of the casualties and damage and all that stuff Well let me tell you about 5.30 in the morning when it happened The place I was staying in swayed back and forth for about 30 seconds And some dishes clanked together and stuff But that was about it And then when gringo and expat friends and acquaintances From around the area started reporting in, same thing No real damage, just a nice 30 second rocking and rolling But if you turn on the TV news and you look at the local media and press You will see some damage

[01:34] Some buildings down, some houses wrecked, some streets full of debris Even a couple people dead And who are those people? The very poor people And whose buildings are those? They're mostly old adobe or tin metal shacks And rusty rickety stuff cobbled together That would never even meet 1960's first world building codes The fact is about 60 to 70% of housing in Latin America is just like that And all those first world subdivisions and residential towers Well, they didn't get a scratch In fact anyone in the neighborhood that had his house or business built to first world standards Just sat upright and rode it out for a 10 to 30 seconds And then rolled back into bed Anyway, as I've mentioned in past shows It's all about how and where you build

[02:20] For example, if you build on the side of a hill or a mountain Which so many people do You're just asking for trouble, not only from earthquakes But from heavy wash outs in the rainy season Bottom line, people just won't learn and they will be stupid And not just in the third world either We've got plenty of first world morons with money in California Who build million dollar houses on the side of hills and mountains too Duh Anyway, like I've said in many past shows They have very good architects down here who learn all the right techniques However, they're always cutting corners Because the owner, builder or contractor More often than not are forced to cut 20% or more out of the budget And because in effect there are really no inspection teams or departments down here I mean they do have them but it's a joke of course

[03:07] Because they sit around in their offices on their dead asses doing nothing And that's why so many building contractors, architects, etc. Get away with what they do So beware, when you build a project down here yourself You can't just hand your plans over to a contractor Go back to Cleveland for a year and come back down when it's done And think that it would ever get past first world inspectors The fact is you gotta stick around your project Keep your eyes open and stay vigilant all the time So that's what you have to do if you build anything down here But most gringos and expats don't do that They buy an existing structure or one that's under construction And in that case, what I highly recommend you do is Hook up with a gringo expat who knows something about construction And get him to go over and do an inspection of the project before you plunk any money down

[03:54] Good idea right? So how do you find a guy like that? Well, it seems like anywhere there's an accumulation of gringos There's gonna be someone there who was in the construction business When you're on the gringo tourist trail you're always gonna run into guys like that But if you're way off the gringo tourist trail Where you really wanna be by the way I'm gonna recommend something that I'm almost always against under any other circumstances But in this case you can make the exception And that is head down to the nearest gringo expat bar And ask around there or put a note on their bulletin board And soon enough you'll get a call from some gringo expat who was in the construction business So you just offer to pay him for an inspection or buy him a lot of drinks I mean after all you did find him at an expat bar right? That said you just might look at this whole ordeal as a job opportunity

[04:41] Think of it, with all these corner cutting architects and builders down here I've yet to see an ad in any of the classified sections of newspapers or bulletin boards On or off the gringo tourist trail Where some gringo or gringo firm is offering to do first world style inspections on homes or businesses Now I think that would be a killer business because Who else can a gringo or an expat trust to do those kind of evaluations Not to mention when you're off the gringo tourist trail especially If you could find a local to do that kind of thing He's probably not going to speak English And of course there are some local latin firms, contractors and architects That will do evaluations like that But remember you're counting on people culled from that same group

[05:27] That cut corners themselves and cause all those structural problems in the first place Bottom line there may be some good ones but I wouldn't trust them as a rule So there you have another expat business niche That'll cost almost no money at all except for a little expat self promotion And remember because you've got that gringo advantage If you gringoize the name of your company Such as American Certified Building Associates or some such nonsense And liberally dab your ads with red, white and blue And US this and American that Soon enough you're bound to have a nice city stream of not only gringo and expat clients But upscale gringo wannabes too So is that misleading or is it false advertising? Well for one thing if you weren't a first world builder or contractor

[06:13] Or grade A weekend do-it-yourselfer Or even some kind of dedicated hardware store junkie yourself Then I wouldn't try to set up such a business But even if you know absolutely nothing about building codes and contracting yourself Like I said before it'll be easy enough to find a gringo contractor Probably retired living down here himself Gringos are almost always up for a new adventure like that Especially when it involves making money So once again there's a demand and no one's filling it Oh and one more thing about earthquakes which they call temblors Like tremble and terimoto's Terimoto meaning moving earth Did you pick up on the moto part? Anyway if you come across a beautiful Spanish architectural ruin that can be restored That is you'd think it can be restored

[07:00] Or any kind of beautiful old farmhouse or building that you fall in love with If it's made out of adobe You know a kind of an unfired brick made out of straw and mud Like a lot of these old beautiful structures are I'm talking adobe instead of wood beams, stone and concrete I'm warning you don't buy it Unless you intend on leaving it pretty much as it is in a somewhat glorious state of ruin Because you see if you try to restore it or build onto it Or use it as any kind of structural support Because it's made of adobe and rock and not reinforced with concrete You'll just never stop that thing from crumbling and falling apart in subsequent earthquakes Now over the years I've known some gringles and expats Who've actually bought some of these colonial wrecks and ruins Just to use them as a cool background setting especially at night

[07:48] Using strategically placed flood lamps and fountains and such And that works fine as long as you have your main place of business or home Constructed nearby Maybe even on the same lot But not attached to that structure So though it is nice to have a majestic ruin on your property Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it So the bottom line is why do you think all those old Spanish cathedrals And convents and monasteries and stuff Are mostly without roofs and are in majestic crumbling ruin Because they were made of adobe and pre-rebar construction techniques Now that's not to say you can't buy and completely restore Let's say a small old Spanish colonial church Oh you can do it alright If you have sacks of money because you just can't start plastering the walls

[08:36] You gotta do extreme and heroic foundation reconstruction measures Not to mention even throughout Latin America where things are pretty lax They have their own historic preservation laws and sites And though you may be able to buy a church or a ruined cheap It might have to be restored the way the government historic protection society Tells you it has to be restored And if you veer off and do it the way you want You might have to pay some bribe money In fact you might have to pay some bribe money Whether you do it their way or not Ok but let's not get into that right now Anyway suffice it to say that one gringle friend of mine Bought a beautiful crumbling little Spanish colonial chapel With the obligatory caved in roof and all It was out in the bony's in Honduras And it cost him I think 12,500 bucks

[09:23] And that included a nice piece of land He restored it alright But it took him 5 years and a couple of hundred thousand dollars Because he was forced to call in a bunch of architectural restoration specialists From one of the universities in San Pedro Sula And it really was finished off beautifully But when I asked him if he'd do it again he says Nope, no way And even after all that he still gets nervous and keeps his fingers crossed When he feels a little temblor coming Oh and one last thing about earthquakes Like me, Xpad Eddie's been through dozens of them big and small And he's got his own particular method of seismography He says he's only been through two earthquakes that really frightened him And both were seven pointers so strong that they knocked the umbrella out of his drink

[10:09] Now not to minimize these things But I have to tell you After being down here more than 20 years Every single long term gringo Xpad I've spoken to Does have his own stories about earthquakes Yet none of them, and I've spoken to hundreds of these guys and gals Has reported their own trauma or injury due to an earthquake Which only confirms what I said before By far the vast majority of all the terrible stories of woe And the traumas you hear about earthquakes Come from the very poorest segments of society Especially the ones living in those tenement ghettos in the big city called Ascenta Mientos And in Brazil they're called Favelas You know, all big cities in Brazil are overloaded with those kind of slums The Favelas Yet reporters refuse to train their cameras on them

[10:57] That would be bad PR during the World Cup, you know? And even though about 40% of Brazil lives in those terrible slums You'd think everyone in Brazil was middle or upper middle class If you've been watching the World Cup on TV But I digress as usual So yes, us long term Xpats do hear the occasional horrible earthquake story But they're always coming from the locals, not from gringos Though who knows, after this broadcast I'll probably get some emails from gringos who've been holding out Hey, that's a good idea Okay, calling all you Xpats out there and gringos living in Latin America Come on now, send me your own personal earthquake tragedy story I'm talking about your personal tales of woe Stories about the locals do not count, okay? Just trying to gather some data here to get both sides, you know?

[11:45] Alright, enough said about that, let's move on Now, you might remember, maybe about a year ago I did a show or two where I talked about insects No, not incest, insects Though we'll have a show about incest soon, so don't worry I'm not kidding, this is everything you wanted to know about Latin America So we have to cover incest eventually But today we're sticking with insects And nope, not the outdoor kind, the ones that live in your house And if you heard my shows about insects about a year or so ago You'll remember I also told you it's not a good idea at all to have wall to wall carpeting down here In fact, it's a terrible idea In fact, you probably shouldn't have wall to wall carpeting up north either But down here, with the heat, the rainy season, the humidity And all the bugs and creepy crawling things that would rather live in your house

[12:32] Than outside in your garden, well then you do not want wall to wall carpeting But you know, they sell a lot of that stuff There are a lot of carpet stores down here And even with all the beautiful cheap tile and marble and real rainforest parquet wood That, believe it or not, you can get in vast quantities down here as cheap as pine That said, still, duh The flooring of choice for many pretentious upscale gringo wannabes is You guessed it, wall to wall carpeting And I'll tell you this, I've been invited to the houses of a lot of these people And it seems like after about two years Those carpets end up looking and smelling like The carpet remnant you put inside your dog's house to keep them comfy at night You know, the one you never clean Because there's just no way to do it effectively Now the sad fact is, Latin Americans of all stripes and all socio-economic classes

[13:21] Have no concept of training or disciplining their dogs And Latins love to have dogs in the house So, not only do they jump up on people and furniture and beds They occasionally pee and crap around the house too Which gives a visiting gringo a real warm fuzzy feeling When he realizes he's a guest at a house Where wall to wall carpeting has been installed for some years In fact, I cannot tell you how many upscale Latin houses I've been in Where that scene is repeated over and over again Which brings me to something else I mentioned in the show quite a while back Which is even more relevant now that it's the rainy season And both me and expat Eddie Had recent run-ins with both good and bad ants A-N-T-S, ants

[14:07] And by the way, they're called Ormegas down here Ants are Ormegas with an H Now of course, there are thousands of different kinds of ants living outside everywhere But let's break it down to the ants that get into your house There's basically three different kinds The first type, a kind of ant that's so small that down here they call them noseums They're the tiny little ones you see at one in the morning When you go down to the kitchen to grab a snack Suddenly you flick on the light and you see a long thin trail of them Leading from some crevice to another Sometimes running the whole length of your kitchen floor or your countertop Now you should never freak out when you see a long stream of those tiny things Because what they're really doing is cleaning up some kind of mess

[14:52] You or some other human made, like crumbs from the tabletop that hit the floor Or maybe the remnants of a splash or two of lemonade Well, in a way, when you think about it, these ants are doing you a favor They're coming in, eating your crumbs in your spills and leaving the place microscopically clean And believe me, in a couple hours they'll be gone without a trace So there's no point in trying to spray them with toxic chemicals or anything In fact, you'll find that down here you rarely need to use any of that stuff at all Unless you're a slob or a slobstress by nature Wait a minute, I think I just made up a word, slobstress But hey, you get the point, right? So anyway, if you're down here and you don't clean up after yourself And you let food pile up, you'll probably be using a lot of poisonous crap To get rid of all the bugs that are going to invade

[15:38] Though I have to say often you'll find yourself fumigating a place After you've moved in and found out that the previous tenants were slobs too So once again, leave the tiny noceum ants alone Now, as for the basic second type of ant you'll find in your house Well, they're the ones that look pretty much like the ants that get in your house up in the States And of course, they're after the spills and the sweet stuff and the messes that you leave around too However, if you're that big of a slob and you leave that much of a mess They're not the kind of ants that are going to eat and run If that's your habit to leave morsels of food around They won't leave and come back, they'll set up shop nearby They're not stupid They'll be fighting it out with the monster cockroaches Who'll surely be hanging out at your place too And of course, you're going to want to get rid of those kind of ants if they set up a colony

[16:26] But if you don't change your sloppy habits, they'll come right back So they are a nuisance and they're irritating But some gringos down here and most Latins Eventually resign themselves to cohabitating with both cockroaches and ant colonies But like I also mentioned in a previous show that does not have to be However, I can pretty much guarantee if you've got adolescent kids You're going to have both cockroaches and ants And to tell you the truth, I don't know which is harder to live with The insects or the kids But then again I know lots of expats without children who don't have cockroaches or ants either Bottom line, you get to choose Now the big question is, do they bite? Well in my experience, those medium sized to small ants that get in your house don't bite

[17:12] But the ones outside that look an awful lot like them, they do Which is why you don't want to go walking through the brush in sandals And by the way, those little tiny ants, the nociums, they don't bite Though down here they also have a flying insect called a nocium too And those things can bite, and it hurts Though I don't know how they do it, they're so damn small, how do they get a grip? Just one of those scientific mysteries aching to be solved Like the mystery of how so many people with so little gray matter And so little talent ended up in the US Congress And that brings us to those big old, what you might call, up in the states anyway, carpenter ants You've seen them, they're about five times as big as your regular old standard ant

[17:57] Up in Cleveland that is, but down here maybe twice or three times as big as the Cleveland ones Now like I said on that past show, if you see some of these guys in your house, look out And it's not like they're going to crawl up your leg and bite you, though I'm sure they can It's that they found some wood in your house somewhere that's good to eat Generally, pretty much any kind of pine But they'll never attack any of the 20 or so varieties of rainforest hardwood that you see down here Bottom line, they just love pine That's why you can have rainforest hardwood virtually everywhere in your house And never have to worry a bit about those ants or termites And yep, they've got man-sized termites down here too that make very quick work of pine Yet they leave pretty much everything else alone

[18:43] So anyway, like one old-time Latin carpenter told me, he said Even if you see two or three of those big ants in your house, don't think they're scouts or have just stumbled in Or are on some kind of fishing expedition or just exploring The fact is, he said, they've found something in your house and they're setting up shop there Bottom line, if you see two or three of those guys in the house, you should be worried Anyway, I heard that advice some years ago and it's always stuck in back of my head That said, let's go back about a year Now, in the bedroom of one of the houses I'm staying in, which has tile floors everywhere by the way With no carpeting and not a single throw rug in the house Funny thing, but it would seem like every once in a while I'd see just one, maybe two of those big ants Usually in the same place, crawling along the window sill, which is glass and aluminum

[19:33] So no wood there So like any good gringo, I squished them and chucked them out Then maybe a month and a half later, I saw one or two of those guys again Now, I was on the alert, remembering that famous warning from that old carpenter Okay, so after squishing and chucking those guys out, and believe me, they snap, crackle and pop like pre-GMO Rice Krispies Anyway, I decided to bring my gardener slash maintenance guy in for a look-see And I gave him specific instructions to spend a whole day if necessary looking all through the house To see if he could locate any more of those monsters, or any of their favorite food, pine And now you might ask, well, if you have nothing but hardwood in your house And ceramic tile, what are they gonna eat? Whatever it is, it's gonna be well hidden from view

[20:21] Practically camouflaged, but those ants, they'll sniff it out from blocks away I'll tell you this, remember, edible number one is your bed mattress I don't think there's a single bed company in the world that doesn't put some kind of pine support in the main frame of the mattress And then, of course, you've got all that crummy, cheap-ass furniture from China That's all soft pine, too, and it's everywhere You can buy it at all the department stores down here, including Costco and Walmart So basically, they're selling you food for those big ants But who's sharp enough to be thinking about that? For example, if you buy a stuffed chair, the entire framework, or at least part of it, could be made out of strips of delicious pine Yum, yum So what I'm saying is, look out for stuff that's upholstered In fact, a grangle friend of mine went to a really nice design center here in Latin America

[21:11] And bought all leather furniture from Italy Imported very expensive stuff, and guess what? He had his furniture set up on a big, shaggy throw rug And yes, he ended up with an ant attack And luckily, he caught it in time before anyone's fat ass could put a permanent dimple in that fine Italian leather So anyway, what I'm saying is, even if you think you haven't got pine hidden somewhere in your house, I bet you have Now that isn't to say you can't have it if it's treated with toxic chemicals Like that green, ugly, outdoor all-weather pine furniture is Bugs are smart enough not to eat that stuff Though certain human kids will chew on that stuff when it's a swing on a playground Go figure, huh? And believe it or not, you could even get that stuff down here Imported, of course, from gringo land up in the States

[21:59] So believe it or not, it's actually got gringo cache You know, the gringo advantage going for it Take it from me, it's a bad choice any way you look at it So anyway, my maintenance guy spent two or three hours going through the house And he shrugged his shoulders and said, I found no more ants and I see no pine Okay, so I felt good about that Until about a month ago Now remember, the first pair are those giant suckers I ran into about a year or so earlier Anyway, about a month and a half ago I decided to go in my closet and pull out one of my vintage guitars And for those of you who know about vintage guitars, I've got a 1967 Les Paul Deluxe Anyway, like I mentioned in another past show, if you've got musical instruments around That is, any musical instruments made of wood

[22:46] You just can't leave them sit in a closet or in their cases You have to take them and air them out once in a while And occasionally do some maintenance Like for example, down here in Latin America They've got some tremendous luthiers who actually make guitars High quality guitars by hand of course As well as other stringed instruments and drums too And as I like to do every couple of years I took my guitar to an old luthier who was about 75 years old And he did what you might call a tune up on it Which by the way took him a day And cost a whole 25 bucks And do note that back in about 1980 or 85 I had a tune up on that same guitar In a well known guitar shop up in Chicago And it cost me 125 bucks back then

[23:33] Okay, so far so good I brought that guitar back And pulled out my rare vintage guitar number 2 From the top shelf in the closet A 1965 Martin D28 Dreadnought Okay, so I took that guitar to my favorite luthier And it's a much more delicate guitar A very valuable guitar too And again he charged me a whole 25 bucks Okay, so far so good So I put that guitar back in place in the closet And pulled out my third vintage guitar A 1970 Fender Jazz Bass Which was really my acts of choice When I played semi-professionally way back when Anyway, as I climbed the ladder And went to the top shelf in the closet As I reached for my favorite old bass guitar I felt sick for a second

[24:20] My hand pulled back instinctively Like I just shoved it into a wall socket Here to my shock Was a grouping of about 20 of those gigantic carpenter ants Going in and out of a tiny gap in the guitar case Now I have to mention with those first two guitars They came with their original cases That were made of wood alright With velvet padding inside But that wood luckily was maple And let me tell you nobody makes guitar cases out of wood anymore Much less maple Now maple's a hardwood that doesn't exist down here in Latin America But thankfully bugs, ants and termites don't like it either Now get this That third guitar case, the bass guitar case Was a replacement because the original one Fell off the back of a van in the 70s

[25:06] With the guitar in it and got hit by a car believe it or not Now the guitar survived all that perfectly fine but the case Which again was mostly bent maple Didn't survive and never really closed correctly after that So I bought a replacement case Which by then in the late 70s Was basically molded plastic like they are today And inside had the usual crushed velvet to protect the guitar But what I didn't know is that Underneath that crushed velvet Was a substructure lattice of pine Talk about cutting corners Such is the state of the musical instrument business these days too And by the way just for your information All three of those guitars that I have are still in production Each of them more than 2000 US dollars And the new ones though they look like clones

[25:53] Are about half again as light by weight As my original 60s and 70s vintage models Which also goes a long way to explain The state of the musical instrument business these days too But back to those ants Now you have to know when I saw those big ass ants Entering and leaving that case through that little space between the latch and the plastic It just about had a heart attack Anyway I immediately yelled for my maintenance man slash gardener And I grabbed the handle to that guitar case and raced into the garage And the first thing we did Or I should say he did because I didn't want to do it Was flip open the case And then shock The inside was filled with hundreds of these gigantic ants Carrying around little egg cases everywhere

[26:40] So I did what every red blooded gringle would do in that case I just started cursing big time And I did what I hate to do and I grabbed the can of raid Or the infinitely more toxic Latin version Which can be purchased at all Walmart's and Costco's down here by the way Now that's really evil stuff And you don't want to use it unless you absolutely have to But this was an emergency So I went after every one of those creepy little egg carrying arthropods with a vengeance Like a New York cop on a homeless guy they didn't have a chance Then as I grabbed the guitar to assess the damage I noticed Even though there were dead ant carcasses and eggs all over it There wasn't a single mark on that guitar And you know in that split second I actually thought about going back to church

[27:27] But logic got the best of me Whoops, stay tuned, more to come next time South of the border Down Mexico way You've been listening to The Expat Files Living in Latin America Coming to you twice a week from somewhere south of the border Email me The Expat Files at gmail.com And don't forget to check out expatwisdom.com To sign up for your free reports on Latin America See you next time, nos vemos Ah she was a victim