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Do not continue reading if you have just eaten, are eating, or are about to eat.
No, seriously....it's gross.
Last chance!!
OK, if you insist.....
It seems to my fiance and I that life keeps conspiring to prevent us from having a relaxing weekend. Or even just ONE DAY of a weekend. Two weekends ago it was a clogged main drain pipe in the building, which thankfully was caught and fixed before any damage was done; we only had to mop up a puddle and steam clean/disinfect the bathroom floor. Of course, the landlord is probably looking at a pretty large bill since this happened on a Sunday morning, but that's his problem, not mine.
This past weekend it was mice.
Saturday my fiance was going to help her mother supervise some work crews at her mother's old house which she is trying to sell off. I got up early to make her breakfast and was planning on getting some cleaning and other chores done while she was gone.
I was in the middle of cooking when she came downstairs, stepped into the living room, and shrieked.
There was a dead mouse on the floor, gored open and killed (but thankfully not eaten) by one or more of our cats. I honestly didn't think much of it. given the age of the building I'm not really surprised that a mouse would show up. SO long as this wasn't the first of many (knock on wood) I wasn't inclined to think it was a problem. I disposed of the carcass.
After my fiance left, I pulled a blanket out of the washing machine and threw it in the dryer, then started another load in the washer. While the washer/dryer were doing their thing, I swept and vacuumed, did the dishes, and got some of the trash emptied. The last remaining major chore was grocery shopping, but around then fiance texted me to say she was finished at her mother's house (they finished a couple hours early) and to please wait before going to the store because she was bringing several trash bags full of soda cans that her brother was too lazy throw out, recycle, or redeem.
OK honey. So I went into the bathroom/laundry room to rotate the laundry.
As I stepped in, I noticed that it smelled pretty bad in there. I briefly thought it might've been a residual smell from when the pipes backed up the week before, but no, that couldn't be right, because it hadn't smelled in there all week after that. Weird....what the hell could it---*opens dryer door*
Me: AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A huge swarm of houseflies flew out of the dryer the moment I opened it, along with a godawful stench. And right there at the front of dryer, wadded up in the blanket, was a dead, maggoty mouse!
I quickly high-tailed it out of there and slammed the door. The bathroom/laundry room is just off the kitchen and I didn't want a swarm of flies in my kitchen.
I grabbed our "tennis racquet" bug zapper and made quick work of the swarm of flies, then I donned some nitrile gloves and wadded up the blanket and dead mouse and took the whole thing directly to the trash barrel.
Then I grabbed the few other items in there (1 hand towel and 1 pair of socks) and found a SECOND dead, maggoty mouse () and threw those out.
Fiance and I picked up some ammonia based disinfecting cleaner (which I read was best for cleaning up these sorts of things) and a new dryer vent hose, as I feared there may have been mice nesting in the old one. That turned out NOT to be the case, but it was just as well that we replaced the hose because the old one was, well....old, and had developed a number of pinhole leaks.
(BTW, if anyone is wondering, the washer and dryer are our responsibility, not the landlord's. A washer/dryer hookup is included in the unit but the washer and dryer stack had been left behind by some previous tenant. The landlord said we were free to use them but any problems were on us.)
I subsequently determined that there was so much lint built up on the exterior vent that it had cause the door flap to be stuck full open. I can only assume that the mice had crawled in through that opening, gotten into the dryer drum through a small tear that's been on the lint filter since before we moved in, then died, and some flies smelled them and laid eggs on them.
Gross gross gross gross gross!!!!!!
So yeah....replaced the hose, cleaned out the whole inside of the dryer twice, and removed/cleaned/reinstalled the exterior vent so the flap could operate properly.
I sincerely hope that will be sufficient to keep the mice out, because I don't want to deal with THAT again.
Then this morning I came downstairs and the cats had found another mouse and chased it behind a radiator. This one I was able to catch alive and release along the fence behind the house.
4 mice in 3 days.......I hope this isn't an infestation.
No, seriously....it's gross.
Last chance!!
OK, if you insist.....
It seems to my fiance and I that life keeps conspiring to prevent us from having a relaxing weekend. Or even just ONE DAY of a weekend. Two weekends ago it was a clogged main drain pipe in the building, which thankfully was caught and fixed before any damage was done; we only had to mop up a puddle and steam clean/disinfect the bathroom floor. Of course, the landlord is probably looking at a pretty large bill since this happened on a Sunday morning, but that's his problem, not mine.
This past weekend it was mice.
Saturday my fiance was going to help her mother supervise some work crews at her mother's old house which she is trying to sell off. I got up early to make her breakfast and was planning on getting some cleaning and other chores done while she was gone.
I was in the middle of cooking when she came downstairs, stepped into the living room, and shrieked.
There was a dead mouse on the floor, gored open and killed (but thankfully not eaten) by one or more of our cats. I honestly didn't think much of it. given the age of the building I'm not really surprised that a mouse would show up. SO long as this wasn't the first of many (knock on wood) I wasn't inclined to think it was a problem. I disposed of the carcass.
After my fiance left, I pulled a blanket out of the washing machine and threw it in the dryer, then started another load in the washer. While the washer/dryer were doing their thing, I swept and vacuumed, did the dishes, and got some of the trash emptied. The last remaining major chore was grocery shopping, but around then fiance texted me to say she was finished at her mother's house (they finished a couple hours early) and to please wait before going to the store because she was bringing several trash bags full of soda cans that her brother was too lazy throw out, recycle, or redeem.
OK honey. So I went into the bathroom/laundry room to rotate the laundry.
As I stepped in, I noticed that it smelled pretty bad in there. I briefly thought it might've been a residual smell from when the pipes backed up the week before, but no, that couldn't be right, because it hadn't smelled in there all week after that. Weird....what the hell could it---*opens dryer door*
Me: AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A huge swarm of houseflies flew out of the dryer the moment I opened it, along with a godawful stench. And right there at the front of dryer, wadded up in the blanket, was a dead, maggoty mouse!
I quickly high-tailed it out of there and slammed the door. The bathroom/laundry room is just off the kitchen and I didn't want a swarm of flies in my kitchen.
I grabbed our "tennis racquet" bug zapper and made quick work of the swarm of flies, then I donned some nitrile gloves and wadded up the blanket and dead mouse and took the whole thing directly to the trash barrel.
Then I grabbed the few other items in there (1 hand towel and 1 pair of socks) and found a SECOND dead, maggoty mouse (
) and threw those out.Fiance and I picked up some ammonia based disinfecting cleaner (which I read was best for cleaning up these sorts of things) and a new dryer vent hose, as I feared there may have been mice nesting in the old one. That turned out NOT to be the case, but it was just as well that we replaced the hose because the old one was, well....old, and had developed a number of pinhole leaks.
(BTW, if anyone is wondering, the washer and dryer are our responsibility, not the landlord's. A washer/dryer hookup is included in the unit but the washer and dryer stack had been left behind by some previous tenant. The landlord said we were free to use them but any problems were on us.)
I subsequently determined that there was so much lint built up on the exterior vent that it had cause the door flap to be stuck full open. I can only assume that the mice had crawled in through that opening, gotten into the dryer drum through a small tear that's been on the lint filter since before we moved in, then died, and some flies smelled them and laid eggs on them.
Gross gross gross gross gross!!!!!!
So yeah....replaced the hose, cleaned out the whole inside of the dryer twice, and removed/cleaned/reinstalled the exterior vent so the flap could operate properly.
I sincerely hope that will be sufficient to keep the mice out, because I don't want to deal with THAT again.
Then this morning I came downstairs and the cats had found another mouse and chased it behind a radiator. This one I was able to catch alive and release along the fence behind the house.
4 mice in 3 days.......I hope this isn't an infestation.
Took them probably an hour to clean up and stop ranting. I'm guessing it turned out to be more than just the ashtray. Have no idea WHY maggots ended up in an ashtray, of all places, nor do I want to know.
I found their entrance point and filled that with steel wool. Hardly a mouse yet--good kitties.
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