Again...

...no more gel printing yet, but maybe tomorrow...

Stuff got in the way. Had a traumatic morning. Will miss out the first bit, or else this will be a short novel...

This morning at 8:10 am I am in bed. Phone lights up. A new person I don't know. But read the text, and it is a plumber.

At my appointment last week a caseworker had called to see if I needed any help. I said I needed help to find a tradesman who was not a rogue. The tap leaks and the toilet flush has given up the ghost. The caseworker said they had an authorised plumber who they trusted and would organise it for me. But it wouldn't be straight away, I might have to wait a bit.

So this Monday morning at 8:10 a text from the plumber. He was taking his child off to school and could call in 20 minutes if it was convenient. I sent text back saying it was convenient, and just give me time to get dressed first. (I don't wear a nightie, so I had to get dressed)

Then I thought oh ****. I had completely forgotten about the mouse playground I had made under the sink. More Heath Robinson than Heath Robinson...

I have been plagued over the last few weeks by mouse or mice. It/they won't go into the human mousetrap which catches live mice so you can release them later. Every bait possible had been tried. Six mousetraps, two different sorts.

But no, they stole my food, ate into packets, cost me a fortune. Then as I threw stuff away, and protected other stuff in tins and jars, this meant their food supply depleted, they went on to chewing my cork wall tiles, chewing live electric cables, chewing up my cleaning materials and sponges....the list was endless.

Trying every remedy possible apart from poison which I don't believe in...

Then read about salt. Sprinkling salt everywhere.

Yes I tried to find their point of entry but to no avail.

There is nothing from the outside of the bungalow visible to lead inside. Everything is uunderground leading into the bungalow.

I am sure you are asking why cat Popeye doesn't catch whatever it/they are. He does ask to be in the kitchen overnight. I cannot leave any doors open leading to the kitchen, they have been firmly shut each time I go in and out of the kitchen.

Popeye lost one of his fang teeth over 20 years ago when he fell out of a 40 foot tree from the top of it. I watched it happen. I thought he was dead, but all that happened was he lost one of those very important killing teeth. Birds he can deal with, but presumably not mice.

The other day the kitchen was a disaster zone in the morning. Whatever it was, presumably a mouse had been within grasp of Popeye and it looked like he had given chase all over and on the kitchen surfaces, hence the disaster zone.

Everyday I have been trying ways to capture these mice/mouse. Everyday I have been cleaning everything in sight in the kitchen.

I was exhausted. But the salt seemed to work over the next couple of days.

I thought I was winning. But I thought too soon.

I went to get a tin off my wooden shelves, and I noticed wood shavings on top of the tins. The little blighter/s were eating away at the wooden shelves creating a pathway up through the shelves towards the ceiling. Looking for food I presume.

I moved everything off all the shelves, cleaned all the tins. Stuffed steel wool in the hole pathway they had created. And wrapped each tin in steel wool. I have no more room in the front room. Half my kitchen contents is already in there...plates, dishes and much more, so that I did not have to clean them daily.

They went on to eat all my dish sponges and cleaning materials.There is no food left for them. They even fished out four wet cleaning scouring sponges out of the washing up bowl, and dragged them on to the kitchen surface and chewed them to bits...

But that same morning I discoveredthat the three miniature Chinese lucky cats that J gave me before he died had been knocked over and the white one had been stolen away by the mouse/mice. I was so upset. This is war...

So I researched on You Tube on things I could make/use since the humane mousetraps that catch live mice were not working.

So, on Sunday, yesterday, I created a mouse playground under the sink unit. Walk the plank which involved a bucket, two planks of wood, a revolving drum with peanut butter on it. The mice try to reach the peanut, the revolving drum moves round, and the mouse falls into bottom of bucket, and in theory cannot climb the straight sides (so in morning you take the bucket of live mice to location of your choice and you let them go). There was also a tube of drain pipe and corner so mice climb into, because they are inquisitive and they slide into bucket, and you can release them in safe place in the morning.There was also some vases with narrow necks and bait in the bottom to attract them. Supposedly they slide in and can't climb out.

So all this was set up, under the sink unit. But then I was worried Popeye might fish the mice out and they escape, so towards that end I fixed some netting, but wide enough for any rodent to climb through. So it was Popeye proof.

So I received that text at 8:10 am this morning. The plumber was coming in 20 minutes...

I got dressed, went into the kitchen...oh flipping heck, the mouse playground, the netting in front of the sink. This was the sink the plumber was going to check for the leaky tap and was probably going to look under the sink as well. What was the plumber going to think...I dismantled the mouse playground in a bare fraction of the time it had taken to build and construct. It was too big to carry into another room...I could see the doorbell flashing. I hadn't put my cochlear processor on yet, so I had no hearing ears.

Finally it was presentable for the plumber to see. And no, it hadn't caught any mice. It I did see some muddy paw prints by the gas meter (which is under the sink as well, but the footprintshad gone no further).

I opened the door, explained I hadn't got my ears on yet so I couldn't hear anything he said. I told him I would be back in a minute. Went into my bedroom, but no hearing aid or cochlear processor in the dry box. Where were they?

I know, I thought, I took them out in bed last night and out them on the bedside table. But they were not on the bedside table. That was not possible. I had to go back to the plumber and had explain all communication from him would have to be pen and paper, and handed him a pad and black biro. It took him a bit of time to get used to communicating in that way. I couldn't lipread him, he had a beard and mustache. I couldn't see any lips...

So then we go to the bathroom to see the toilet that won't flush. Oh dear. This is the view in this photo he saw when he went in. All my bags...

I was giving them an airing and hung them in the back of the bathroom door and over the radiator. There are more you cannot see, including a shopping trolley hanging from the bathroom door handle.

Well I didn't know the plumber was coming this morning...

So, all the while he is asking me questions via pen and paper...he mixes his capital letters with his small letters in one word...

I thought he was was being nosy because he was looking around as he walked out. The front room which he had to walk through is a mess because of the kitchen stuff in it to keep safe from mice.

He wrote down he will communicate with the people that got him in for me, and negotiate a price with them, and then he will text me and tell,e the price and see if I want to go ahead with the repair.

He leaves and I am looking for both the hearing aid and the speech processor. I panic badly. They are nowhere. I know I put them on that bedside table. They are not on the floor either. I am almost in tears.

Then I recall, the plumber was looking around. Maybe he wasn't being nosy. Then a scenario occurs to me.

When I take the hearing aid off, there is no on/off switch. You have to pull the battery compartment partially out to disconnect the connection, and sometime I don't pull it out far enough and it whistles all night and the battery is flat in the morning.

What if that was the reason the plumber was looking around? Could he hear a whistling noise?

I had cat Popeye with me last night. If it was whistling/squeaking then he would have thought 'mouse!' And played with them...

So where had that cat taken them? Because of the magnet on the speech processor, it sticks to the battery of the hearing aid, and both devices stick together.

Aagh...that was still not good...

I cannot hear the whistling to follow the trail. What if that cat had 'killed' both my hearing devices? I am seriously panicking.

Finally I find both hearing devices which are entwined together. And fortunately they are still 'alive'.

It s now several very strong cups of coffee later.

I go out. Get more steel wool. Get bag of ready mix cement. I get home. Those mice have to go. I had remembered earlier that a couple of years ago, just after dog, Meg, had died, my gas pipe from the street was replaced. Everyone's was. They had difficulty doing mine and had to do digging. It didn't pull through or something. So therefore the earth leading to my house was disturbed and loosened.

So that means the entry of the mice is under the base of the kitchen unit where the gas pipe comes in.

I had a 450 gram packet of steel wool. I find three small entry points by that gas pipe. I stuff the steel wool bit by bit into the holes with a long stick. The steel wool kept going in forever...then it stopped.i used every scrap of that huge pack of steel wool. Then I mixed the cement and packed it round over the steel wool from this side.

Have I won? Have I stopped their entry to my kitchen?

I am knackered, utterly. So your photo today is what the plumber saw when he entered my bathroom...

Thank you for everything.
Take care x