ASCII BBS file of household tips

quickfix.txt

While Googling the best way to fix a slamming door, I came across this great ASCII file of “all-time best hints for making household repairs.” It’s cribbed from a mid-90s issue of Mother Earth News, and has a bunch of great little tips.

• To cut down on slamming noise, put tabs of leftover peel-and-stick foam weather stripping at several spots all around the doorstop…
• A squeaky floor is usually caused by two or more boards rubbing against each other. Silence the noise by sprinkling talcum powder over the boards and sweeping it into the cracks…
• When drilling into the ceiling, poke a hole through the center of a throwaway aluminum pie pan. Hold the pan over the area to be drilled, and poke the bit through. This way the pan will catch most of the dust.

The file’s part of the survival section of the awesomely old-school textfiles.com, which is a large collection of old text files from BBSs in the 80s and 90s. So fun. Don’t miss the sections on mass media, internet, and anarchy.

OT: Bob O’Lary’s Tally-Apple BBS was my first “online” experience back in Tallahassee in the early 90s. Although I wasn’t much of a contributor, I did love to download shareware and just marvel at the fact I was sitting on my Mac talking to another computer over a phone line. Viva ZMODEM!