Uninvited Visitors

Friday, 19 August

While we were on our Arctic Voyage in Svalbard, a family — or two — decided to make themselves at home in our condo on wheels! How dare they!!! Especially since they were visitors of the MICE variety!!! Don’t they know that they belong outside and not inside?

When we first learned of our uninvited guests, we looked high and low and found no sign of any nests. Just droppings everywhere — both in the basement and upstairs. Mui tried a variety of traps, making the 34-mile round-trip drive to the storage facility every other day to check on them. Finally, a week later, the tried and true peanut butter and snap-trap caught an adult. Then, following his nose, Mui found the rest of the family nesting inside our sewer hose. He evicted the family without further ado, relocating them to a distant garbage bin.

Then the monitoring started to make sure we were rid of the little critters. With the basement and upstairs vacuumed, Mui made twice-weekly forays to the Phaeton. One more adult caught in a trap; and no more droppings. More monitoring. Finally, three weeks after the first hint of the invasion, there were no more signs of mice in the coach. It was time to declare a tentative victory in the mice war and proceed to the clean up phase.

We had plans to go to a campground last weekend, but they were forestalled by a work project that required my attention both Saturday and Sunday. While I was working, Mui went out to the coach, emptied the basement, and shampooed and disinfected everything. Then, he went to work upstairs, shampooing and disinfecting the carpet and the sofa. Finally, he plugged whatever obvious entry points he could find with copper wool. Thanks to his efforts that weekend, our post-mice clean-up this weekend at Bull Run Regional Park (BRRP) has the makings of being more than just “all-work and no-play.”

It’s pretty much a straight shot from our house to BRRP.

We took off around noon today, picked up the coach, and headed to the campground. Normally, we prefer the electric-only outer loop as it affords a lot of privacy. This time, we knew we were going to need plenty of water, so we opted for a 50-amp, full hook-up site on an inner loop — #113. At a jurisdiction rate of $41.50 (+ tax), BRRP is not inexpensive, but in our neck of the woods, we don’t have many choices for just a weekend outing. Besides, we like it here, and don’t mind coming back. In fact, if the commute from here to work wasn’t such a headache, we’d stay here for a week or two and pretend like we’re already full-timing.

The parallel-to-the-road sites offer a degree of privacy.

By 1:30p, we were hooked up, leveled with the slides deployed, and ready to get going with our cleaning project. With the slides closed, we’d been unable to have a good look-see inside the closet, so that’s where we started. A few droppings; less than we could count on two hands. No less work, though. Everything on the shelves and hangers went into a bag to be washed at home, and I went to work on shampooing the carpet inside the closet.

Next, flashlight in hand, we peered into the mostly-empty overhead cabinets and the tightly-shut drawers. Good; no mice signs there. Using the freshly laundered linens we’d brought from home, we made the bed and put a check mark on getting the bedroom ready for human habitation. From there, I moved on to the bathroom and Mui tackled the tile floor in the living room.

By 5:00p, we were dead tired, but everything was once again shiny clean. With no evidence of mice in any of the overhead cabinets in the kitchen/living area, we decided not to wash everything that was stored in them. But the decision to wash the dishes and silverware anyway led to an unpleasant discovery. Not because we found out the dishwasher wasn’t working, but because there were dead mice — looked to be newborns — behind the single-drawer dishwasher. They were long dead and easy to clean-up — or so says I who wouldn’t touch them with a 10-foot pole. Thanks for being the undertaker, Mui!

An hour later, with the chores finally completed, we went for a walk around the campground. It was hot and humid, and we were tired, so we didn’t stay out long. I did manage to take a photo or two while we were out, though.

The Red-Spotted Purple butterfly is a species of the North American brush-footed family.

Dinner is over; the dishes are washed, dried, and put away. Mui’s surfing the TV channels, but the only one that is not pixelated is Al Jazeera English. Call me crazy, but somehow listening to Qaddafi’s crazy rants, which is all they seem to be reporting on, is not my idea of good entertainment.

For a while it looked like the forecasted rainstorm would be passing above and below us, but the heavens just opened up. It’s really coming down now, but there’s no wind and no dangerous cells nearby, so I’m actually enjoying the rat-a-tat-tat that’s pounding on the roof. A good-weather day is predicted for tomorrow. We still have some chores to do, but we should be able to carve out some time to relax and enjoy ourselves as well.