If you give a mouse a.....

I woke up this morning with high hopes of catching up with some of the cleaning challenges that I have been trying to follow.  

I wanted to clean my windows this week as part of Toni's weekly challenge, but the weather wouldn't get above 35 degrees and we had so much rain.  Today it did not rain and it started to warm up, but we had 30-45 mile wind gusts and there was no way I could open the windows to get the outsides of them done. 

So I turned my attention to Iheartorganizings 30 in 30 days challenge.  My living room is very minimal, but we did have a mess where our Wii items are stored.  My son did go through the games and choose 2 to sell on eBay.  I also got rid of some candle holders that I bought at Dollar General years ago.  The paint keeps flaking off of them and I'm no longer in love with them.

I then went into the kitchen to work on the awkward cupboard.  Instead of the doors being on the front of the cupboard they open from the side which faces our eating area.  It's a nice size cupboard, but awkward to get to.  So I store the dog and cat's food, placemats, and infrequently used kitchen items.  It looks liked this-



This is really hideous.  There were even dark black soot marks on the shelves.  Really needs a complete overhaul.



This top shelf held mostly placemats and kitchen items that rarely got used.  My organization tool was the shove method.  I just shoved stuff wherever I could.  Lovely isn't it?



The bottom shelf held the dog and cat's food, treats and medicines.  The bucket holds cat food as I feed Chester and the outdoor strays.  It's easier to tote around outside in the pail.

As I started to remove the items from the shelves, I was horrified to see this....

What you can't see it?  Let's get a little closer shall we.

Ummm..yah.  It's what you think it is.  Mouse droppings!!  Chester has been poking around the cupboard a lot, but I thought it was for the food.  Well, I guess I wasn't completely wrong.  Just a different food choice than his normal dry cat food. 

I emptied out the cupboard on the floor as I didn't want to put anything on the counters or table.





This is the side view of the cupboard.  If you sat on that yellow chair, you would face the doors of the cupboard.

  



As you can see, this was a very frequent visitor to the cupboard.  He/she was probably using the exposed hole (it's been there since we moved in- it has the pipes that go to our upstairs toilet). 







Horrifying!  Look at all the dirt and doodoo!

 






Disgusting and embarrassing!

 



I think it was storing food in this corner for return visits!!

This hole is on our to do lists for this week.  After I scrubbed the shelves and walls, I went and found some metal screening and super fine steel wool. 






Before

 




After- I hope this works!

 

I'm hoping that the metal will deter the little mouse from trying to come back to the cupboard until Jeff can seal it up better.  Because today is Palm Sunday and we were having my dad over for his birthday dinner, I had to put back the items that I wanted to keep storing in this cupboard.  I washed all the linens and washed all the platters and other kitchen items and found them new homes in the the dining room cupboards.

Even though this cupboard opens up in a really odd area, it is nice and large and holds so much.  I just don't want it to hold any critters!!

Jeff's solution was to get a mouse trap.  But I can't do that.  I had a mouse as a pet when I was in college and I am hoping that he/she will just leave.  I don't think I have the heart to kill it.