We're back from 10 days up north in Michigan. Summer is so lovely up there, too bad it only lasts for about 2 months with only 10 sunny days. Anyway, while we were gone we turned the air conditioning off in our house. Big Mistake. If you've ever been to North Carolina in the summer it can be like a jungle, steamy, hot, overgrown, and a perfect environment for an explosion in population of unwanted bugs and animals. So, we got home last night and let me give you a quick inventory of what awaited us......
1. Leaking pipes under the kitchen sink, hmmmh, we weren't using them so I don't know what happened there.
2. Mice, my husband heard squeaking, opened cabinet door to find stench, poop and chewed remains that can only be the remnants of a little mouse party. I should have known, Left Eye has been digging against the wall in the dining room, the wall that backs up to the suspect cabinet. Thankfully it's limited to only one cabinet, and I vaguely recall that the previous owner had left that cabinet empty when we looked at the house. Too bad I chose that cabinet for flour, sugar, oatmeal and all that kind of stuff. YUCK!!
3. A leaking refrigerator, just spoke to the repairmen, he can't come until tomorrow though!! The crisper drawers are completely full of water!
4. Camel crickets, ants and cock roaches. Need I say more? To make it even worse the ants moved in to clean up what the mice left behind. I seriously want to cry right now.
5. Odor, smell, stench, aroma, whatever you want to call it, all throughout the house, it took 3 hours for the air conditioning to cool the house down enough to make it go away. It must emanate up from the crawl space, maybe it's the aroma of camel cricket corpses, all I know is that it smells like a combination of vitamins, dirt, peat moss, with a very slight tinge of dog poop. Not enough to make you gag but just enough that it's unpleasant.
On a lighter note, we did jack up the house before we left but I got so wrapped up in the Tour de France I didn't blog about it. The difference is amazing and cracks were very minimal, actually there was only one!! I've got details and pictures, it's pretty amazing although I doubt it would work for everyone the way it did for our house. It's definitely a delicate job.
I'm glad to be home...... I think.
that is such a drag. ugh. feeling for you!
Posted by: mipmup | July 25, 2004 at 08:07 PM
Thanks for the support! Things are looking up, the refrigerator was fixed for under $100 by the "Appliance Dr.," he was actually wearing a white Dr.'s coat! And we've caught two mice. The sink leak fortunately sort of corrected itself. Since we've been home our hard drive crashed, I hope we'll have a little reprieve now!
Posted by: em | July 30, 2004 at 06:55 PM