The ongoing battle

I'm new to peppermint oil so I don't know how often it needs to be replenished. I suppose as the scent fades. I've been told cotton balls soaked in the stuff are a good way to go.

The good news is I'm pretty sure the mouse left my sewing room. The bad news is that I found the big hole it likely exited through in the back of my storage closet, behind one of the plastic tubs I keep fabric in. It was in a place I thought was up against the concrete foundation of that room, so I didn't think critters could get there to chew a hole. There's steel wool shoved in there right now; this summer I may have to remove everything from the room (whimper) and replace the baseboards with, I don't know, do they MAKE metal baseboards?

As soon as my new supply of peppermint oil comes, a bunch of it is going back in that closet.

I rarely curse on here but, damn. I'm getting really sick of fighting mice. It seems like when I plug one opening they come in, they find another. Or make another.

Added later: A quick check of other areas of the closet baseboard (well, the ones easily accessible without moving stacks of storage tubs) fail to turn up any other holes. I suppose it's possible the mouse found that spot (it was an open spot) and managed to MAKE a hole in the day or two it was shut up in there, and used it as an emergency exit. I hope. I had never ever seen any "mouse sign" in the closet before but I saw it this morning when I went in there - and I had been in there before I saw the mouse in the sewing room. Maybe I scared the thing enough (I did chase it when it first ran in there) that it just wanted to be OUT and GONE from this crazy woman's house. I hope. (I really don't want to resort to what someone else suggested as a repellent: bobcat urine. Which apparently you can buy at some garden centers.)

Added still later: I'm sufficiently obsessive that I decided to go and check the rest of the closet. No other holes I could find. And the one I plugged looked like it was made from INSIDE the closet going out, rather that under the house coming up (based on the direction and angle of the "chiseling.") Or at least that's what I'm telling myself. So maybe I've chased them away for now, and if I continue to be diligent, I can keep them out.

I know I obsess about this but part of it is that critters in the house (whether they're mice or ants or "waterbugs") brings out all of my anxieties about "you're a slovenly housekeeper." Even though I say I'm obsessed with cleaning, I don't always get all of it done that I could. And I do have quite a hoard of quilt fabric stored in that closet, and while the few minutes of those shows on pathological hoarding I've seen tell me that my fabric stash =/= the piles of useless stuff some people acquire, I still get twitchy about it. (One reason why I'd be uncomfortable bringing an exterminator in - the whole reaction I anticipate to my stored supplies). It's probably partly a throwback to the "Too many books" issue back when I lived in the apartment - I think I've talked about that on here - the apartments I lived in my first couple years here were HUD eligible and as part of that, they had to be inspected annually. Because my apartment was close to the management office, it always got picked to be inspected (even though I was not a candidate for assistance). I had a lot of books, but I had them on shelves. One year, the inspector (who had apparently never seen that many books in a private residence before) complained that there were "too many books" and they "posed a fire hazard."

The manager threatened to fine me, then told me that I could rent a storage unit from them for my books. (Uh-huh. I had a bunch of books ruined in a storage unit when I was in college; the place got a leak and the management didn't tell anyone.)

So I have issues with feeling "judged" by other people for stuff I own.

I have an afternoon meeting today (the pre-semester faculty meeting) and I need to go in and do a few things so I don't think I'm going to empty the closet today to check the rest of the wall. I'm just going to fervently hope that the mice have all exited and that this last hole was a desperation measure by a mouse trapped in the house after I closed up the other holes it may have entered by.