Thank you @Mischievous Magpie (CO 5b) I did not kill it since it really seems pomponellas has so many buds it can afford to feed some insects. It did not seem like an insfestation because there was that only one. My baby also ate one (just tasted it) lol 🥰. I guess they just look like tiny cupcakes.

The daylilies are the worst, imo, because once the deer eat the buds, that's it. The phlox will regrow and bloom, and the hostas return, but the daylilies - ugh. Vent away! It is completely reasonable lol. I have a large garden to spray also. Although for me it's not the size but the fact that sprayers never ever work for me. Whether it's a spray bottle, a pump sprayer, a spray bottle I'm re-using or a brand new one, it might spray for ten sprays and then stops. My husband can't get over how our garage is littered with the bodies of unusable spray bottles. The other day after the deer ate some of my daylily buds I was so desperate to spray the remaining one I almost emptied a bottle of grated cheese to use it to sprinkle the deer repellent with! I actually found some deer poop in the yard this morning so I will go (and attempt to) spray again this evening. :) Dee

My most simple experience is reduce the thing that attracts critters, which is ~95% smell. Short form: keep adding so there's usually a thick layer of woody stuff on top. Compost talk is mostly about keeping out stuff that tends to be the worst smelly (meats/fish/dairy). I've found more effective approach is to focus on a pile that has a lot of non-smelly (from critters point of view) or smell-absorbing stuff in it - and I do that by just adding smell-absorbing stuff to the pile. That is mostly / most effectively made up of leaves, wood chips, sawdust, shredded paper/cardboard, etc - in other words woodier materials. Most general yard waste won't smell in a way that's attractive to most critters, but YMMV. In my bin management, I've mostly just kept a bunch of leaves and/or woodchips around to layer on top when needed. If you have access to sawdust, that's great. There are some other things you could add/sprinkle on top like wood ash - in moderation, and not all composters approve. But it does mask smells. That's mostly worked and I've gotten away with putting a lot of stuff in the bin that "compost types" often recommend against. Squirrels and chipmunks don't seem interested enough to bother. I've found a mouse nest occasionally or two in a leaf bin or pile. But it depends what your local fauna is and their predilections. When I've been in places with raccoons, no guarantees and I've been much, much more conservative with what goes in the bin. If you have animals that dig to get at worms like in compost bins (eg moles) that may or may not be a problem. I didn't have time to worry about dealing with that.

Due to the chemical hazards with spray foam my wife does not want to use it. She's probably right even though I'm less concerned. Compromise at its best.  Our inspector mentioned nothing about floor joists being off. The ceiling looks fine.  The rest of the room has trim relatively flush with the floor.  Ceiling to floor measurements around the room average 108.5" whereas the roughly 8-10 ft. span of wall of concern show that distance of roughly 109". In the attached photos from the basement right below the room, I measured the height of the running wood board immediately above the stone foundation up to the joist plank right above it. The height in the area of concern was about 1" shorter, which to me affirms some sinkage. Would it make sense to try and raise the joist boards in this area?