Attic

How many alien-invasion movies do you see where you root for the aliens to win? Except for one splendidly bizarre scene, “Aliens in the Attic’’ is conveyor-belt family product, an action/adventure/sci-fi/comedy made from the bland corporate DNA of Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. It appears designed for families who never leave the mall. That one scene, though - it’s a honey. See, the nasty little ETs who have invaded the vacation home of the Pearson clan shoot darts that turn grown-ups into zombies controlled by a video-game-style joystick.

Q. My one-floor Cape house was renovated before we bought it. The previous owner opened the ceilings and put in two skylights, and finished the ceiling with drywall. This created a pocket in the ceiling above and/or below the skylight (for two skylights, that is), and we don't know if the pockets are insulated. Should we install soffit vents below the roof overhang, where there are none for the whole house? (The roof does have a ridge vent). DOUG, in Hotton's chat room A. Give top priority to building soffit vents, 2-inch-wide screened strips, on all soffits.

Q. I have mold growing in my attic space. I have been told that I don't have proper air flow. Would a contractor or roofer be a better venue to fix this issue? JARED WETMORE, in Hotton's chat room A. Call a ventilation specialist. Vent Master is one franchise. Or, check the attic and have a contractor or handyman install a ridge vent and a continuous 2-inch-wide screened strip along each soffit (the underpart of the roof overhang). After you do this, you still have to get rid of the mold.

Profit-seeking developers, angry neighbors, and vacillating officials will continue arguing about zoning in Newton and other municipalities, but I have a conciliatory proposal for them: If you have to grow, then grow up, not out. Instead of subdividing existing lots and devouring the scarce open space, keep the existing footprints intact but allow taller structures to improve home values and increase revenues for the city. From 1949 to the 1970s, Newton zoning ordinances allowed up to four-story houses for single families and up to six stories for multifamily developments.

SABINE PASS, Texas -- When the eye of Hurricane Rita made landfall over this Gulf Coast community, 81-year-old Amos Dondee was here, riding out the storm in a back room of the Boot Scoot Bar. "It was something I had to do," said Dondee, whose raspy voice and white beard earned him the title of "old man and the sea" at the bar where he serves as the live-in security guard. Rita roared into town with 120-mile-per-hour winds last week, but most of the several hundred residents had cleared out by then.

A collection of rare movie theater posters found in a northeastern Pennsylvania attic has fetched a total of $503,000 at auction. The sale of 33 posters from the Golden Age of Hollywood ended Friday at Heritage Auctions in Texas. The auction house said a rare 1931 poster for the movie "Dracula" topped the list with a selling price of $143,400. It sold to an anonymous overseas buyer. A surprise of the auction was the $101,575 price paid for the rare poster of the 1931 movie "Cimarron," the first Western to win the Best Picture Academy Award.

Q. I have been bothered by a cricket noise, or at least a noise like a cricket, for 19 years. It's in the attic, and I replaced an attic exhaust fan three or four years ago, then took it out. It's still happening. It often happens when the wind is blowing, and often at night. Do you know what it is, where it is, and is there anything I can do? Adelle Rabinowitz, Randolph A. I don't know anything, but I can give you a guess. Yes, I do know something, that crickets are unlikely to live 19 years, let alone give out a chirp that long.

Kids say the darndest things, especially when daddy is trying to hide from the police. State police say troopers went to John Colby's home in Massena in northern New York on Sunday morning to serve two warrants for his arrest for failure to appear in court for vehicle and traffic violations. Troopers say Colby's 27-year-old live-in girlfriend told them she didn't know where Colby was. But then the couple's 4-year-old daughter chimed in, telling police that "daddy is scared and hiding in the attic.

Jewish saint, martyr, and representative of the 6 million dead, Anne Frank has been consecrated as the stand-in for all the Jewish men, women, and above all, children, murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust. Through her diary, and its theatrical and cinematic adaptations, Frank has become a kind of spokeswoman, offering the briefest of glimpses into the terror, dislocation, and prolonged agony of the campaign to hunt down the Jews of Europe and transport them to their deaths. The temptation to pull Anne Frank from her pedestal has to be only too tempting for satirists and would-be provocateurs.

Firefighters believe a grease fire damaged the kitchen, attic and a motel room at a New Hampshire country club. Firefighters from a half-dozen towns responded to the Sunday night fire at the Atkinson Country Club. No one was reported hurt. Firefighters believe the grease fire spread into an exhaust system inside the kitchen, and that heat from the fire breached through a metal duct and spread into the attic. WMUR-TV reports (http://bit.ly/sruhQH) firefighters said they took precautions to avoid a roof collapse, venting it and pulling out the duct work.

A collection of rare movie theater posters found in a northeastern Pennsylvania attic has fetched a total of $503,000 at auction. The sale of 33 posters from the Golden Age of Hollywood ended Friday at Heritage Auctions in Texas. The auction house said a rare 1931 poster for the movie "Dracula" topped the list with a selling price of $143,400. It sold to an anonymous overseas buyer. A surprise of the auction was the $101,575 price paid for the rare poster of the 1931 movie "Cimarron," the first Western to win the Best Picture Academy Award.

Q. I have a 1920s Dutch Colonial with a walk up, unfinished attic. One can walk down the middle of the attic on floorboards over joists. The bays under the floorboards are filled for the most part with rock wool insulation. All of the soffits were stuffed with rock wool, but I have removed that for ventilation. We use the center for storage. Would it be fruitful to lay fiberglass insulation over the floorboards in the area where we do not store anything? ROB, from Arlington A. For starters, you did well to clear the soffits of insulation.

Q. I have been bothered by a cricket noise, or at least a noise like a cricket, for 19 years. It's in the attic, and I replaced an attic exhaust fan three or four years ago, then took it out. It's still happening. It often happens when the wind is blowing, and often at night. Do you know what it is, where it is, and is there anything I can do? Adelle Rabinowitz, Randolph A. I don't know anything, but I can give you a guess. Yes, I do know something, that crickets are unlikely to live 19 years, let alone give out a chirp that long.

Kids say the darndest things, especially when daddy is trying to hide from the police. State police say troopers went to John Colby's home in Massena in northern New York on Sunday morning to serve two warrants for his arrest for failure to appear in court for vehicle and traffic violations. Troopers say Colby's 27-year-old live-in girlfriend told them she didn't know where Colby was. But then the couple's 4-year-old daughter chimed in, telling police that "daddy is scared and hiding in the attic.

Jewish saint, martyr, and representative of the 6 million dead, Anne Frank has been consecrated as the stand-in for all the Jewish men, women, and above all, children, murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust. Through her diary, and its theatrical and cinematic adaptations, Frank has become a kind of spokeswoman, offering the briefest of glimpses into the terror, dislocation, and prolonged agony of the campaign to hunt down the Jews of Europe and transport them to their deaths. The temptation to pull Anne Frank from her pedestal has to be only too tempting for satirists and would-be provocateurs.

Firefighters believe a grease fire damaged the kitchen, attic and a motel room at a New Hampshire country club. Firefighters from a half-dozen towns responded to the Sunday night fire at the Atkinson Country Club. No one was reported hurt. Firefighters believe the grease fire spread into an exhaust system inside the kitchen, and that heat from the fire breached through a metal duct and spread into the attic. WMUR-TV reports (http://bit.ly/sruhQH) firefighters said they took precautions to avoid a roof collapse, venting it and pulling out the duct work.

By Jessica Bartlett, Town Correspondent The state is reacting with renewed measures for fire safety after a 24-unit apartment complex in Quincy caught fire in July, destroying much of the roof and structure and causing the building to be condemned. According to reports, the fire started when a charcoal grill being used on a balcony of one of the Faxon Park Apartment Complex buildings ignited the wooden balcony and traveled into the attic. State Fire Marshal Stephen Coan today released the findings of the investigation that occurred...

Investigators say a multi-alarm fire that destroyed a Colonial-era inn in Groton this summer was likely caused by an electrical malfunction in the attic. State Fire Marshal Stephen Coan announced Thursday that the Aug. 2 fire likely originated in the attic at the rear of the Old Groton Inn and was not a case of arson. But he added that the building was so badly damaged that the reason may never be known for certain. Lightning was also ruled out as the cause. No one was hurt in the blaze at the 333-year-old inn that didn't have...

Q. I have two furnaces, one in the basement and the other in the attic. Is the one in the attic bad for ice dams? Why was it put there? VINCENT, in Hotton's chat room A. Hot air furnaces in the attic generally cannot be insulated enough to prevent ice dams, nor can an open gas flame be insulated enough to prevent ice dams. Actually, I have been told by an irate designer that such furnaces and flames are now insulated (and vented) enough so that ice dams are not a problem.

THE SNOW QUEEN Presented by American Repertory Theater. At: Loeb Drama Center, Cambridge, through Dec. 31. Tickets: $15. 617-547-8300, www.american repertorytheater.org CAMBRIDGE - Imagine a bunch of young children set free in a musty old attic cluttered with long-forgotten stuff. No laptops, no Nintendo, no glowing screens of any kind. Unplugged from electronic toys, they do what kids have always done: They play. A sheet turns into a rolling river. A cardboard box becomes a reindeer, a goblin, a flying sleigh.