Well...

We figured out what the PAPs were.

We also figured out that when you're trying to hit "ctrl/i" to make something italic, but you hit "ctrl/p" instead, that means publish... Sorry, to those subscribers who received my three-word accident-post a little while ago. (And to those of you who aren't subscribers and now feel like you missed out on something fabulous -- well, you didn't, but you can subscribe by clicking that giant, gorgeous orange button to the right ------>)

Anyway, the PAPs, it turns out, were screws popping in the walls in our new bedroom. New as in two or so years old now.

New as in was completely rotten when we bought the house and we took it back to studs.

New as in even the studs we used are new although the old ones are still in there, because we put new ones right next to the old ones, because the old ones were too rotten to be trusted any longer, but too close to the property line to be rebuilt if we pulled them out, since there's just a crawlspace under there and not an actual, for-real foundation.

New, as in we spent two years and somewhere along the lines of $20,000 making this room livable again.

New, as in we splurged and went for plaster on the walls.

New, as in (as I understand it, anyway) if we could have used the old studs, they would not be absorbing moisture and swelling with the heat, and the screws would not be popping (but then again, if we could have used the old studs we probably wouldn't have been doing the work -- or, for that matter, have been able to afford to buy Big Bertha in the first place). And anyway, this part may not be true. That drippy door I spent weeks stripping is older than those studs, and it sure as hell absorbs moisture from the air.

New, as in the only thing to do is sit and listen to the PAPs and wait for there to be enough of them to make a patch job worth our while.

New, as in Johnny says "Nothing you can do about it, nothing structurally to worry about. When they're bad enough you punch them in and patch the plaster. Happens in new houses all the time."

New.

As in the kind of house I didn't buy, because it was going to be so much PAPping fun to fix up this one!