Cleaning Out - By Force

Gross. A few months ago we realized we had a mouse in our pantry. Once I got in there and started cleaning it up it became more clear that it seemed like a mouse family! YUCK.

I've spared you complete exposure of the damage, but here are a few less offensive shots.

If there was food in a bag or box it was devoured - bagel chips, bird seed, cheap cat food for the stray cats that come over.

It was pretty unorganized anyway, but come on.

I had to pull out & sanitize everything - our flower vases, all of our small appliances, even the box that I keep quick access candles and our house flags in! I pulled up the liner and got some contact paper at Target to replace it. It was far too disgusting to just wipe down. While I had it empty, I put out rat poison to make sure they weren't coming back. After a few days of having everything pulled out and ensuring that the mouse/mice had their fill of poison (1 box of that green stuff and one block of it later)....






.... I santized the wood shelves and put down the new contact paper. I wasn't very good at that. Check out the huge 'bubble'. Oh well.



Once I had the contact paper down, I did another few days of emptiness and did the mouse poop check. All Clear. Then I put it all back nice and organized. Now it's defunked and clean but now I'm weary of putting anything in bags (or boxes in there). I also pulled out the "pest deterent" from Sharper Image and plugged that in. It is supposed to make the noises that deter mice and other pests from coming in. Not sure it works, but I'm okay hearing that squeeky little noise. And it's a converation piece when friends come over and ask about the werid little noise.

Much better. And I also had a little time for spray painting the ugly to make it nicer.

So What Do You Get For Seven Grand?...

... OR "I Think We Got the Trick and Not the Treat"
(a late Halloween Tale)



That's right, a brand new entire sewer line to replace the one that was so wrought with tree roots and basically disintegrated that it had to be abandoned.




Saturday the night for Halloween parties, I walked into the kitchen to find both sinks full of water - with NO stoppers engaged. Mr. N&TOH had just taken a shower. That was the only water that it could possibly be! So we grabbed the plunger and got the water to move -- but only as far as the dishwasher right beside it (WITH clean dishes in there). I managed to grab the bottom rack and move it to the dining room. Then I proceeded to scoop buckets of water out of the sinks and throw them off the patio while he scooped cups from the dishwasher. See, the dishwasher doesn't have as huge a basin as the sinks so we were starting to get gushing water from said dishwasher. We said forget it, let's worry about this after tonight.



Jump to Monday and we couldn't actually get anyone out until Tuesday. This plumber put the snake down the kitchen drain and came up with dirt and weeds. Fantastic. He told us we were gonna need Roto Rooter. Yeah, that sounds like a big problem. They came out Tuesday afternoon and discovered that our CAST IRON pipes were basically original to whenever The Old House first received indoor plumbing and had since been shredded by tree roots and rust. It was now time to abandon those pipes and put in an entire new PVC sewer line - FROM THE BACK OF OUR LONG, ROW HOUSE TO THE FRONT WHERE THE CITY TIES IN! LOVELY!



I wanted to do a small kitchen upgrade with a new stainless DW and new Stove and some new granite counters but that is not going to happen. Instead, we can now shower, flush the toilet, and do laundry. For now.