One Thing : The Laundry Shelves

The cold wet weather has brought with it a few visitors of the four legged variety. It seems they like our cosy warm house much more inviting than the wet and wilds of the great outdoors. As per our marriage contract (love, honour, and deal with creepy crawlies), Country Boy sets traps, catches the mice, and then disposes of them. I have learnt not to squeal like a three year old whose lolly has been stolen every time I see a mouse, but they are still not welcome in the house!

On Friday night, I wandered into the laundry just in time to see a mouse scampering around, and I knew I could no longer procrastinate. I needed to clear off and reorganise the storage shelves so that they were clean, and that any unopened food packets were in mouse proof containers. I had been putting off sorting out those shelves for about six months because it is a dusty, awkward, thankless task, but the mouse galvanised me into action.

So on Saturday afternoon, with the rain still hammering on the roof, and with Toby as a self-appointed “helper” (use that term very loosely), I pulled everything off those shelves and piled them on the sun room floor. There was a nice mix of cleaning materials, bulk food containers that we have no where else to keep, and miscellaneous bits and pieces, some of which I didn’t even know we still owned.

Stashed up on the top shelf I had found our old vapouriser that we used when the kids were little and got croup (I’d completely forgotten about them getting croup till I found it), a small step stool, and about 40 old egg cartons that we had collected from family. They were all cleared away, along with some random empty packages, and other bits and pieces.

I gave the shelves a good vacuum, followed by a wipe with a damp cloth. Once the shelves were dried, I sorted the gear. Toilet paper, and cleaning supplies on one shelf in buckets according to type and spare food packets on another. My suspicions about our 4 legged visitors were confirmed when I found nibble holes on some packets of flour. I chucked the packets out, and the other packets of flour were wrapped in a plastic bag. Next time we go to town, I’m going to get a plastic container to pop them in.

It took me maybe 40 minutes to do the whole job, even with a small “helper” who insisted on handing me everything using a squash racket as one of his hands. The shelf is looking a lot less chaotic, and I’m hopeful that our “visitors” won’t find any reason to linger up there. The laundry still needs a paint, and a total reconfiguration, but at least there is nothing in there that shouldn’t be there, and everything is clean and organised.

With our extension moving ever closer (*rubs hands in glee and anticipation), I’m often tempted to put off some of these jobs because I know that we will be up for some major clearing and rearranging in the near future, but every time I do another #onething, I’m always ridiculously pleased with the results.