The weekend's work

 So Saturday was Zoom knitting club, got a bunch more done on the waffle socks.

Today, I was going to work on them more, but after church I wanted to look for something in the storage room (where my cross country skiier also is). Usually I have only gone in there v. early in the morning and left the light off because 5 am is too early to BOTH be exercising and have a light on, so.

Anyway, I noticed, "gee, it looks like there's paper shreds on the floor." I am not the bestest housekeeper ever so that might not catch my attention but....then I found the book (a used landscape ecology book I got for pennies on the dollar, and had never really used). Yeah, something had eaten the spine. Presumably a rodent. Then I started looking around, found some loose yarn (not in storage containers) and part of  a bag of polyfill that had been.....repurposed. It was on the floor of the closet, which I use for storage of things I rarely need. (I should probably just go through and toss a lot of things this summer)

I cussed a little, went and got gloves and a mask (I guess the pandemic was good for something) and grabbed a couple trash bags. 

I found the nest. Thank goodness, no "pinkies" (I am wondering now if it was a critter that got in and was merely bored, not expecting). Spent quite a while - several hours - moving stuff around, cleaning, tossing anything that got remotely close to the "contaminated" area (also unloaded Lysol on it, followed by the mint-based anti-mouse spray I have, and my electric trap has been re-deployed back there). 

I wound up filling the trash can this week (we have big rollcarts, which I was delighted to learn are called "wheelie bins" in the UK) because at some point I just decided "heck it, I'm gonna clean the WHOLE room if I have to do this space over by the closet"

Got out the vacuum to clear up the paper shreds (and, uh, mouse sign). It worked for a while, then there was a pop, and it started smoking.

That's not good. It also stunk, and yes, I am really hoping I do not contract some horrible disease from being close to all that stuff but I tried to be careful and my only other choices would be to leave it, to hire an expert who would judge me and also charge big bucks, or burn the house down. 

So I had a problem. Well, two problems, because our "bulky waste pickup" is currently yard waste only, so I will have to make a separate run to the dump to dump off the dead vacuum (and pay). The other problem was more immediately fixable - turns out Lowe's was having a sale on the midrange Bissells, so I got one for not too much cash, and put it together and did the rest of the vacuuming.

So I have a clean storage room now, kind of against my will. (I also took a long hot shower and washed my hair after, because....gross).

I had cleaned my bedroom yesterday and had a vague idea of tackling one room each day, so maybe when I get home tomorrow I try to do the dining room? I like having a clean house but I didn't love having to deal with mouse nests to get that room cleaned. 

So I hope next week is a little better than today was. It wasn't *terrible* in that the room really needed cleaning, but it was gross, and I lost a couple books and a couple skeins of yarn. (I probably have too much of either any way).