The Garage (a tale of horror)
There comes a time in ones life when, no matter how obsessed with rules or perfection or cleanliness one is, one ends up just letting things pile on to one's detriment. Case in point:
We have a garage (actually, it's a fully enclosed carport, but I digress). Some time ago (read: years) I decided that we could put some items in there that we'd be able to sell later at garage sales, Craigslist, Ebay, etc. These items included the 10' x 10' carpet part we cut out when we originally moved into the house and redid the dining room floor into finished wood.
Over the years, we ended up piling things on top of other things. These things included boxes ("we can use them to make signs for garage sales!"), kids toys ("we'll sell them, really we will!"), and boxes of packing peanuts ("we can't just throw them away, that would be bad for the environment").
Then came the terrible day a few months back when elfs, while moving homemade chicken broth into the deep freezer in the garage, apparently dropped a container of chicken broth onto the garage floor...and didn't clean it up. I wasn't there that week...I was at some convention (I think Macworld in January). I didn't learn about it until after it had dried onto the garage floor. And I made the terrible mistake of deciding that I would clean it up sometime soon...when we cleaned out the garage.
And then a guest moved in.
I'm not certain...he may have actually moved in earlier frankly. But he was absolutely thrilled by the chicken broth. It didn't hurt that we had bags of grass seed on the floor either (not having a working shed in the back made placing our gardening supplies in the garage our only option). But I could tell he was there from the amount of droppings around the garage, the fact that I could see stuffing from the wall spread about, and that I found a nest in one of the cubbies up above, behind a box I moved once. I never saw him.
Which is good. Because when I found him today, I realized just how big he had been.
I decided this afternoon after returning from an event I attended with lisakit that I was going to tackle that damn garage. I started removing all of the boxes and remains of boxes, then toys and other kids stuff that needed to be cleaned and sold. But when I moved a container that held camping equipment, I discovered our guest.
Or, rather, his remains.
It was interesting, actually, to see the whole thing. It was just this huge ball of fluff. At first, I thought it was another nest, albeit smaller. But when I saw the back foot sticking out of it, there was no question. Just in case, I chose not to touch it for a while. I wanted to make sure it was dead.
Also, I'm a weenie, and I wanted Elf to deal with the remains when he got back from taking Kouryou-chan to a friend's birthday party. Yeah, I'll admit that. :)
Anyway, when Elf did remove him, the fluff started to disperse, and we saw how big (and mummified) he was. Long tail. I am happy to report he seems to have been a single guy.
After finishing the removal of everything else from that section of the garage, we then proceeded to spread a mixture of soap and bleach on the floor which I scrubbed, then left to soak for a while. Then Elf invoked his man-self and used the powerwasher to rinse the garage floor. Now we just wait for it to dry to put stuff back in.
Tomorrow: I scrub stuff before it gets put back in. Lots of picture taking too...things that I will put up on Craigslist. I will put links up on my LJ as well, but most of it you all probably aren't interested in (as they are kids' toys/stuff, and even those of you with kids in my area have kids older than these toys/stuff).
We have a garage (actually, it's a fully enclosed carport, but I digress). Some time ago (read: years) I decided that we could put some items in there that we'd be able to sell later at garage sales, Craigslist, Ebay, etc. These items included the 10' x 10' carpet part we cut out when we originally moved into the house and redid the dining room floor into finished wood.
Over the years, we ended up piling things on top of other things. These things included boxes ("we can use them to make signs for garage sales!"), kids toys ("we'll sell them, really we will!"), and boxes of packing peanuts ("we can't just throw them away, that would be bad for the environment").
Then came the terrible day a few months back when elfs, while moving homemade chicken broth into the deep freezer in the garage, apparently dropped a container of chicken broth onto the garage floor...and didn't clean it up. I wasn't there that week...I was at some convention (I think Macworld in January). I didn't learn about it until after it had dried onto the garage floor. And I made the terrible mistake of deciding that I would clean it up sometime soon...when we cleaned out the garage.
And then a guest moved in.
I'm not certain...he may have actually moved in earlier frankly. But he was absolutely thrilled by the chicken broth. It didn't hurt that we had bags of grass seed on the floor either (not having a working shed in the back made placing our gardening supplies in the garage our only option). But I could tell he was there from the amount of droppings around the garage, the fact that I could see stuffing from the wall spread about, and that I found a nest in one of the cubbies up above, behind a box I moved once. I never saw him.
Which is good. Because when I found him today, I realized just how big he had been.
I decided this afternoon after returning from an event I attended with lisakit that I was going to tackle that damn garage. I started removing all of the boxes and remains of boxes, then toys and other kids stuff that needed to be cleaned and sold. But when I moved a container that held camping equipment, I discovered our guest.
Or, rather, his remains.
It was interesting, actually, to see the whole thing. It was just this huge ball of fluff. At first, I thought it was another nest, albeit smaller. But when I saw the back foot sticking out of it, there was no question. Just in case, I chose not to touch it for a while. I wanted to make sure it was dead.
Also, I'm a weenie, and I wanted Elf to deal with the remains when he got back from taking Kouryou-chan to a friend's birthday party. Yeah, I'll admit that. :)
Anyway, when Elf did remove him, the fluff started to disperse, and we saw how big (and mummified) he was. Long tail. I am happy to report he seems to have been a single guy.
After finishing the removal of everything else from that section of the garage, we then proceeded to spread a mixture of soap and bleach on the floor which I scrubbed, then left to soak for a while. Then Elf invoked his man-self and used the powerwasher to rinse the garage floor. Now we just wait for it to dry to put stuff back in.
Tomorrow: I scrub stuff before it gets put back in. Lots of picture taking too...things that I will put up on Craigslist. I will put links up on my LJ as well, but most of it you all probably aren't interested in (as they are kids' toys/stuff, and even those of you with kids in my area have kids older than these toys/stuff).