Can I get an amen?!

Thank goodness! Maybe I'll hold off on full amens and hallelujahs till we get everything signed, but my husband talked to the renters yesterday and they are interested in renewing their lease!

Oh thank goodness!

Things at work are well, let's just say in a state of upheaval, for both of us at the moment and our stress levels are pretty well through the roof. I am so glad that this is not one more thing to worry about!

The thing about renting the condo is - this is an absolute for us. I bought the place 5 years ago at the HEIGHT of the market. When we realized we were outgrowing it and it was actually finally a good time in the market to buy last year, there was just no way we could sell it. We'd lose WAY more money than we have to lose. So we rented it (there are myriad posts from last fall on that little oopsie of renting it before our new place was finalized, but I digress). We figured we'd have to hold it at least a few years - till the price recovered some and/or till we could AT LEAST write off some of the loss.

And we got lucky (OK, maybe not all luck - my husband was great about vetting everyone, but also lucky). We got GREAT renters! Exactly what you want in your renters - quiet, possibly kind of nerdy (I say this as a nerd), young women who not only pay their rent on time but tend to send the checks about a week early!

Yeah, we've been called out to fix some dumb stuff and switch over the thermostat from hot to cold. But really - a small price to pay for otherwise low maintenance renters who pay on time.

But my ever increasing anyway stress levels started to get another shot of adrenaline as I realized that their year lease was almost up. Oh man, what if they don't renew? How will we show the place when they're living there? What if we don't find someone? We can't afford NOT to find someone. And worry, worry, worry.

But my husband called yesterday and they plan to renew. He'll bring over a lease for them to sign next week - and then AMEN and HALLELUJAH!

I don’t want you to lie to me. But I want you to lie to me ABOUT THIS. But I don’t want to know that you lied to me. What’s so hard about that?

When I found the first mouse (silent shiver), I mentioned to my husband that it looked like another trap had been chewed a little. He admitted that he’d noticed that too, but he was “sure” the teeth marks were from the trapped mouse. Yeah, right. He also admitted that they’d pulled a dead mouse out when cleaning the HVAC, but he hadn’t told me.

I admit that these are good things NOT to tell me. I don’t want to know. The thing is when you do tell me – even if you’re just confirming something I’ve noticed on my own – it always adds the silent question in my head, so what else have you noticed? You’ve disposed of a dozen other mice, haven’t you? You’ve seen them running around everywhere? You fought one off that was attacking the baby?!?! OK, we have to move. But I’m Irish Catholic, so I am very good at repressing all this. I have years of experience. So I just pretend that none of those thoughts have occurred to me and move on.

Until it comes up again.

Like yesterday.

I went down to the basement to move clothes and noticed the one bug (cum mouse) trap that had some bite marks in it before seemed to have MORE bite marks in it and it had moved. The three mice I’d found on traps before had all been stuck on pretty well – ok, one wasn’t so WELL stuck – he was trying really hard to free himself, but still. And one was dead. I convinced myself that the second mouse we found must have been the one to put the bite marks on the other trap. So I was feeling in the clear. I hadn’t seen any evidence of mice or found one in a few weeks. I was even getting to the point where I was (somewhat) willing to check the far side of the basement (on my own!) to make sure there were no mice on the traps there.

Now in that checking, I’d noticed some of the insulation pulled out on the ground (a pretty clear sign of mice), but I again convinced myself that it was from the original mice and I just hadn’t checked. It was NOT new mice. (No, I didn’t pick it up. If I bend over to get it, the mice might be laying in wait and attack me! Are you kidding?)

But then I saw the trap with the edge all chewed up that had been moved.

I mentioned this to my husband and, with a sigh, he admitted he’d seen it too. And my imagination went into overdrive on what other signs of mice he’d seen and hadn’t told me about! Cause think about it – the traps had caught the three tiny field mice we’d seen. But this one isn’t being caught by the traps! He’s able to “steal” the bugs stuck to the traps for food (so not really “steal,” as these aren’t “baited” with bugs – they’re just bug traps too.) and not get stuck himself. This must be a mouse on steroids! The king of mice! Mighty mouse! … a rat. Oh crap. And I haven’t found it yet…

And thanks for that new set of nightmares.

What still gives you nightmares as an adult? If you have/had mice, how have you gotten rid of them (I’m thinking of just paving over our whole yard and adding booby traps. I just have to think of a way to get the HOA to go for it.)? Or do you have stories about other pesks?

It’s like wild kingdom in here.

You want to know where the wild things are, Maurice Sendak? Well, I’ll tell you - they are in my basement!

Some of you may remember my story of the snake skin (unfortunately, I can't get the link to work today - basically there was a VERY large black snake skin the basement which we found during walk through. Its owner was likley 6 feet long or longer), when we did the walk through on our house. I refuse to say more on that as I will start convulsing – let’s just say HUMONGOUS and it is amazing we still bought the place and leave it at that. You may also remember (from my constant complaints on the subject) that we have ants. I would say that is enough. We have a baby, a dog, a whole bunch of bugs and the remnants of a snake. That is a full house, my friend. No more.

But apparently not.

Two weeks ago, my husband and I were both home and I went downstairs to move some laundry. He was videotaping the baby doing her little “dance” routine (she turns on the music in her play yard and wobbles about in her unsteady stance and says “dance!” – as first time parents, we think this is the cutest thing in the history of the universe). Midway through the video, I believe you can hear a scream from the distance and my husband yelling – what? Apparently, you can not hear my somewhat quieter – “Mouse!,” as he came running down to see if my arm had been bitten off (by the anacondas that frequent our basement!) only to laugh at my reaction to the tiny little fur ball stuck to the bug trap.

Yeah, let’s go back a minute. So when the exterminator came, he put out ant bait/poison all over the first floor and then put these bigger traps in the basement and garage to figure out what other bugs we might potentially have. Pretty quickly I noticed a few of the hopping spiders (I think they’re actually called spider crickets – they have a bunch of legs, hop about a foot off the ground and will attack you if caught off guard and/or suck out your brains in your sleep. It’s possible I made the last part up. But it’s also possible I didn’t!). OK, good. He could see we had those and figure out what to do about them. Some time passed and I noticed – those hopping spider corpses stuck to the trap didn’t appear to be there anymore… As they likely hadn’t just disintegrated, they’d either found their way off (because they’d been storing their energy laying there for a few weeks waiting to pounce… clearly) or … something bigger had come along and removed them for dinner. Yes, logic told me there was something else going on. But logic is never my friend in these circumstances, so I told logic to take a hike, I prefer ignorant bliss.

But I would go look at the traps periodically. To see if they’d magically reappeared? OK, I’m not that blissfully ignorant. I wanted to know if there were new ones. This particular Monday morning, I looked at the trap and saw something bigger on the other side. Excellent housekeeper that I am, I assumed it was a big piece of lint or dirt (in my defense, this is the unfinished side of the basement). I went to move the trap to see what it was and… it moved! SO YOU CAN SEE WHY I SCREAMED!

Hubby was sent to dispatch with this. We agreed that we couldn’t kill it (dude, it looked at us! I mean, I wasn't inviting it for dinner or anything, but I couldn't personally be the one to kill it), so he went to release it into the woods – all the while threatening that he would take my car to do this – the mouse could ride shotgun. Yeah, and then I’d find a shotgun too… He drove his truck to the wooded area a mile or so away, sang a chorus of “Born Free” and let Mickey go.

I checked the other traps and noticed some distinctive bite marks in one – which my husband insisted must have been from the same mouse (he just doesn’t want me to refuse to go into the basement, as he’d have to do all the laundry!). But then he did admit that, as it turns out, they did pull a mouse out when they cleaned out our ducts. In the ducts? Like they could be anywhere all over the house? I’m sticking my fingers in my ears and shouting IGNORANCE IS EFFING BLISS as we speak!

A few days later I’m back in the basement and take a look at another trap and – yup, Minnie must have been looking for her mate. Oh God help me. Hubby was called in again – with extra force as this one wasn’t stuck on so well and was trying hard to escape (the efforts looked sort of like a little kid trying to learn to jump – you know, when they stand on the ground and try to pull their bodies upward by sheer force of will without bending their knees?). When he came up with the whole trap in a plastic bag – as he didn’t want to get too near it – there wasn’t so much laughing at me this time… (As a side note, no I didn't scream this time - as I was LOOKING for mice and wasn't surprised by it.)

I had been planning on saving mouse traps for a birthday gift for him (later this week – here honey, here’s something for the house…), but decided it could NOT wait. We were off to Home Depot. We started with the sticky strips – these were just like the bug ones, but my husband noted that the bugs ones seemed to be getting too much hair on them (from the mice) to be effective. (Scream suppressed) And one catch and release baited one (which I REFUSE to check as it involves touching it). But we also got these plug in repellant things that my coworker recommended. She lives nearby and said she hasn’t seen a mouse since she put them in several years ago. So far, so good, but we’ll see.

So what about you? Any domestic interloper horror stories in your house? What’s your best remedy for mice? Or, God forbid, snakes? I don’t want to talk about snakes…

Are you going to keep this wallpaper?

Lest there be any doubt on the design of our wallpaper… I had told my husband (before we knew about any other issues) that the kitchen wallpaper just HAD to go before we moved in. It’s yellow with some flowers and berries and is really just very busy – and covers the kitchen and adjoining hallway. I’d sent pictures of the house / the website info to a few different people all of whom sighed in relief when I told them that wallpaper was going. One actually said – thank goodness you said that, as I was going to tell you – friends don’t let friends keep that wallpaper.

But I do have to admit now that we’ve removed the other extensive red toile wallpaper from our entry / stairway and now that the previous owner’s floral furniture is gone, it doesn’t seem quite so egregious to me. I’m not saying I like it! I’m just less repulsed. But clearly I’ve just gotten used to the pain…

Our first weekend, our new neighbors sponsored their church youth group to rake our front lawn as a welcome to the neighborhood present. It was really kind of them (although a little part of me does think that they also just wanted the darn leaves gone! I mean, the place obviously hadn’t been raked all fall and it was covered! We have a lot of trees, so even the front lawn alone resulted in about 25 bags of leaves – God help us in trying to figure out what to do in the back! But that’s not our priority when so much is left to be done on the inside – a fact I think our neighbor’s must have guessed… But anyway - ). When we saw the large group of teens working outside, we brought out some drinks and snacks and told them that they were welcome to use the bathroom (the one on the first floor as no, you can’t not walk on my new carpet in leaf raking shoes!). One girl, who was about 14, was waiting for the bathroom and turned to my husband and said – so, are you going to keep this wallpaper in the kitchen? Hahahaha! He told her, no, I think we’re going to take this down. Why? Do you like it? She responded – no, not particularly. Then she went on to explain that it was a bit much next to the red bathroom (yes, the red toile wallpaper was in there too – but in this case only halfway up to the chair rail molding and the top was painted red.). But then she qualified that she actually sort of liked the bathroom – um, thanks kid, so do I.

Thus far only one person has ‘voted’ in favor of the wallpaper (it’s not my husband or me and this isn’t a democracy!) – even among strangers who’ve come in. I wonder where my wallpaper scorer went…

Now THIS makes me feel old and suburban… (About your tree?)

Day two of home ownership and my husband was at the house trying to get everything done – stripping wallpaper, painting baseboards, dealing with the HVAC guy and chimney sweeps and so on. One of the neighbors came over to say hello. She introduced herself (and checked the place out!) and then said, hey, will you step outside with me? My husband was a little surprised, but said – OK… They got outside and this is the conversation that followed (well, approximately! I wasn’t there):

Neighbor: You know, your property actually extends pretty far over this way (indicating towards her house).
Hubby: oh yes, I know. It’s a big lot (where is she going with this?).
Neighbor: So all these trees are yours.
Hubby: Yes
Neighbor: And they all drop leaves on my lawn.
(Ah, this is where she is going with this…)
Neighbor: I can’t even grow grass because I get no sun.
Hubby: Actually, you know, there’s a type of fescu that is just perfect to grow in shady areas. It has a shallower root base and thicker leaves, so it doesn’t need as much sun.
(Editor’s note here: He made that up. He knows nothing about this. Apparently fescu (however it’s spelled) is a real grass. Maybe it’s good in shade (maybe not). I have no idea why. And more importantly, he has no idea why. He was just trying to redirect – I mean we weren’t even moved in yet!)

The conversation continued…

Neighbor: I think we should landscape it.
(Note – we. We, huh? Lady, landscape your little heart out. I’m pretty busy ripping down wallpaper.)

Finally, Hubby looked at her and said something like – Look, I’ve owned this house TWO DAYS now.

She backed off a little. But then pretty much redeemed herself as a neighbor by saying she would buy the plants if we would plant them.

So I started telling people this story – my Mom, some friends, etc. And suddenly I realized – oh my God, I’m telling stories about my neighbors! I’m having whole conversations regarding the foliage in my yard! I’m like a thousand years old now…