An Indirect Cost of Owning a Dog

There are two pet doors at our house. One for the front screen door and one for the back screen door. Old Kardino built both screen doors for us and put in the little dog/cat doors at the bottom of each. The flaps he made out of a rubber doormat. They're always open when we're here and the back one is always open even if we're gone for a week. That way, Kuci the cat (pronounced kuchi) can always go in and out and Bandi (pronounced Bandi) has access at night to the back for personal reasons. If we're out, she's up front in the courtyard. If she's accidentatlly left inside she'll claw her way out through a screen (most windows left open always) necesitating a visit from Kardino to fix the gap. [photo of  one entrance to part of Cangkir the old hardware store]


Bandi runs outside a lot, tearing through the front pet door flap causing the screen door to open. We like to keep the screen doors closed even though there aren't many mosquitoes around here due to frequent spraying which is nice except it's part of the human plot to destroy the biosphere. So Kardino has added a couple of clips to the door to keep it shut but still she runs out with such force sometimes to open it and we fear that the one mosquito that gets in before we notices it will be one of the ones with white spots that carries dengue. So I had Kardino install a door closer. I don't think he's used to doing that. I continued typing away sitting cross-legged on the sattee on the front porch and didn't realized that the instructions were in English. Right away it lost it's slow closing feature and just slammed and he couldn't fix it with adjustments. I found the instructions and read to where it said to be careful in turning the adjustment screws because it can be ruined if it's done wrong. It's too heavy for the door too so it is a little hard to open and one has to hold it to close it or it will slam shut. We've lived with it like that for a couple of months waiting for Gregory to come help figure out what to do. So we've gone to five hardware stores looking for some other way. We don't want another door closer. We've been looking for a hinge with a spring that works like a door closer. He has them on a screen door of his back in Tucson. Also there's a type of clasp that's used on screen doors that makes them hard enough to open where we're confident Bandi rushing out wouldn't force the door open. First store was my favorite. It's a family owned old fashioned hardware store owened by the Cangkir family. They don't have family names in Bali but both husband and wife are called Cangkir (pronounced Changkir and not to be confused with the cangkir that means cup) so I've got to ask they why that is next time. Maybe they're not originally Balinese. He had a box with four hinges that swing both ways, like the ones used for swinging saloon doors. He said we could probably use one or two of them for the screen door and it could be used for a one direction swing as well. Then we went to the giant Home Depot type store and they didn't have what we wanted . Then we tried two Ace hardware stores - they're all over. Didn't have what we wanted. There were two hardware stores further in to Denpasar that are used by builders so tried them. The first one was closed for a ceremony celebrating its birthday and so we drove a long way to the second one and it had moved to near where the prior store was. Tomorrow we'll go try them. The taxi for all that was the all of almost thirty dollars but we got nice tour of hardware stores and a Japanese bento lunch. By the time this problem is solved it will cost more time and money than having a new door custom made. But we're getting a deeper knowledge of hardware stores in greater Denpasar.