What Lies Beneath...

The leaning Fridge of Pisa

Going into this, we knew we had a bit of a mouse problem, so we decided to head up to the house for three days and clean as much as we could ourselves. Since mouse droppings can carry disease, we planned to be as safe as possible, using respirators, gloves, goggles, and spraying a bleach and water mixture onto droppings before wiping them up with paper towels. Originally I had planned on just vacuuming them up - which the internet informed me is a no-go option, since it can release contaminated water droplets into the air.

The more you know!

My job was going to be to tackle the kitchen, and Josh, kind and wonderful Josh, was going to take on the basement.

The kitchen was a smaller project than the basement, to be sure, but I still got frustrated and overwhelmed. The base cabinets are open and connected inside, and there were mouse droppings throughout, along with at least one significant attempt at plugging a hole with expanding foam. But with the age and state of them, as careful as I tried to be, droppings got stuck in cracks and edges and it started to feel like they'll never actually be clean. 

Under the double basin sink I discovered a leak, and a whole bunch of ammonia cleaning products that made me hesitant to use our water and bleach mixture on the droppings in there.

Before all of this, I had thought we would just try and strip the white paint off the cabinets, get new hardware, maybe build and install some pull out inserts to help utilize such deep cabinets and to just generally preserve them as much as we can. 

I'm not so sure anymore. With the damage from the leak, and the extensive mouse droppings, holes and foam fixes, I'm leaning towards ripping it all out, patching things up properly as needed, and installing a whole new set of cabinets. Which, I know, is a lot pricier endeavor. 

And that was just the kitchen. 

To be clear, there is no judgement in these words, because as you might have gathered, I myself am not a fan of basements. Largely because spiders, but also an overactive imagination I can't always reign in. But, it seemed like, for the 20 years my aunt lived here, she almost entirely ignored having a basement at all. (I feel you, Aunt, I feel you!)

Unfortunately, this meant there was a fair bit of mess. Lots of webs containing my least favorite roommates, mouse droppings and fallen insulation, and just dirt and other bits of detritus. Over the course of his cleaning, Josh filled seven contractor bags and evicted 30-40 of our eight-legged roomies. 

It was quite the job.

He also discovered some things that concerned us. Every support beam but one looked like it may have rot to some degree, some even looking like there might be termite damage (which we learned later aren't really a thing in Maine!).

It also looked like there was significant rot under the jacuzzi tub. Josh touched the area and said it felt like more of a sponge than wood.

Dirt and water appeared to be coming in through the bulkhead, the oil tank was in rough shape, and every basement window had ceased to be much a barrier to the outside world at all. 

It made us wonder how bad things actually are, if we, noobs that we are, noticed these issues and were already concerned.

And so, fearing the worst, we made an appointment with a home inspector. Sometimes, when you know you don't know, the best thing to do is bring in a professional.

I won't say our fears were unfounded, but it wasn't quuuite what we expected. But that's a story for another day!

Until next time,

Sarah