The Cool House: Being jacked around

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Being jacked around


I spent a very frustrating hour this afternoon trying to glue two telephone sockets back on the wall. Sockets we never use because we have cordless phones, which Steven has told me just to cut off at the wall. But if I cut the phone wire I will be left with lovely holes in the skirting boards (baseboard). And not tiny holes either but miniature mouseholes, like the ones in the Tom and Jerry cartoons.
Every room in the house has a phone jack, and judging from the tangle of wires in the basement, there were at least six lines going into the house at one point. The electrician said he had only ever seen this system in offices, never in a residential home. There were also UHF and VHF TV cables in all the rooms, too. I imagine everyone lived there own lives and came together just for meals. Maybe.
Anyway, the new kittens, being stronger than they look and always up for some mischief, managed to pull the jacks in our room and the bamboo room clean off the walls. It looks as though these have been re-glued several times before, I'm sure I remember doing it myself once, but despite my best efforts with Gorilla glue and weights to secure them to the wall while the adhesive dried, they just refused to stick.
Now I'm left with a couple of options: chop off the wires and replace the sections of board with the holes in; try a stronger glue and hold them to the wall for 24 hours. Neither of these is very appealing.
Or I suppose I could try Velcro?

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