# Help! Wooden window frames dripping amber-like resin?



## Chi_gal (Mar 23, 2009)

Hi, I have no idea if I'm in the right forum. But I thought maybe someone could point me in the right direction. I bought an old Chicago (1920s) brick 2 flat a couple of years ago. I am on the top floor. This weekend, I pulled back my curtains to find that 3 of the windows in my bedroom have an amber like, hardened substance dripping from the top of the window frame.  The details are:
1) The windows are red oak. 
2) This is not a small amount of substance. There is spatter, and some of it hardened mid-drip from the top of the frame.
3) It is like glue, but it dried crystalline. It is not sap because sap stays kind of tacky and soft or sticky. And it is too hard to be waxy.
4) It smells bad, like bug poison. 
5) Where it seeped in from the frame, it has bleached the wood.
6)It is NOT coming from the roof or outside the house. It is something either in the window frames themselves or in the walls above the windows.

So my question is...Does anyone on here know if there was a substance used in the woodwork of old buildings that could melt and drip out and then harden like this?

I have some photos. I'd appreciate any ideas. I don't know whether to call a contractor, an exterminator or an exorcist!


----------



## inspectorD (Mar 23, 2009)

It looks like you have a water leak, and there is a substance which is being picked up as it comes through. So your guess was right on...what is it? Only some testing will tell.You have a local area health dept, ask them to check it out. They will find out anyway if it is something toxic. So you might as well have them do it for free.


----------



## upholstery02 (Jun 16, 2009)

Wooden window are nice and gives long life if it is a good quality...
It is very important work to decorate the windows with curtains and drapery covers....

Anything Upholstery:


----------

