In our case, let’s make that “Bats and Mice and Snakes, Oh My!” It is undoubtedly inevitable that when tearing down a house, you will find “things” in the innards. Beneath the drywall, insulation, carpet, and floorboards, we discovered an interesting array of items, including (but not limited to) a shoe, a pair (we think) of socks, a paperback Bible, part of a sponge curler, some coins, a t-shirt, and a do-it-yourself home project manual. As we progress in this blog, you will understand why it’s no surprise that the how-to manual was “lost” somewhere during a previous owner’s attempts to build remodel this place.
And, after uncovering a multitude of peanut shells, scads of mouse cards (under the floors and all throughout the insulation), and a bag of rodent poisoning, we knew there is (or was) an infestation.
We had originally thought maybe we could re-use some of the insulation, but after finding rodent highways and by-ways all throughout–as well as a skeleton here and there–we made the (easy) decision to throw it all out. We wore protective gear, of course.
Since we haven’t seen or heard any live evidence, we’re pretty sure whatever “was” has been eradicated (except for the smell). But there was more.
First a dead bat fell out of a small opening in the garage trim. Then a guy from the electric company came to change our electric meter and found a fried snake inside the box. It had apparently crawled in there to get warm at some point, and, well, ugh. We kept our distance, but the poor guy donned all his gear to perform the extraction, and he informed us that the smell was horrid. Sue, who has a life-long phobia of snakes, has had to wear her big girl pants ever since.
Colbert Repair 