i lost track of time a little this week because i got sidetracked by something.
as i indicated i was doing, i spent the middle of last week sealing the furnace room, and cleaning the bottom of the carpeted side entrance and the tiled hallway between it and the kitchen, with the intent of moving some small furniture items in place in that part of the apartment. once the hallway had been vacuumed, scrubbed, vacuumed again, steam mopped and vacuumed one more time, i put the furniture in place, moved the items that belong on the shelf on to the shelf and started focusing on clearing things off and around the couch, in order to pull it away from the wall. i was about ready to take some pictures.
i think that what happened is that a small rat escaped from the furnace room when i had the door open and was in there cleaning. as mentioned, i cannot seal that space. i had been hearing something try to get in from upstairs for a few weeks, but there was no sign of entry anywhere, and no sign of activity anywhere, after i sealed up the cardboard the last time a few weeks ago and i after i cleaned up the little bit of activity in the laundry. it was only after i opened the door that i noticed anything. unfortunately, when i moved the couch out from the wall, it became clear that there was something under it and had been for a few days at most. there were only a small number of droppings, but they were fresh.
i reacted by doing two things:
1. setting up baitless traps against the wall. rodents are nearly blind. i don't want to feed it, i'm hoping it just trips on it.
2. dumping powdered bleach everywhere near the couch so that it would necessarily track through it
the idea with the bleach is that i'm hoping the rat will walk through it and get it on it's feet and legs or on it's body. rats spend a lot of time grooming. a rat with powdered bleach on it's body is likely to remove it by licking it off. it would not take much bleach to kill a juvenile rat, the hard part is getting it to eat the bleach.
i then let it sit and instead spent a few days in the bathroom cleaning myself while i waited.
over the next few days, i checked everywhere in the apartment several times and i found nothing - no droppings, no rat. i have not heard anything, either. it disappeared without a trace and without a sound. i don't know how it might have got out and suspect it didn't but i haven't found it yet. my best guess is it's under the pile of boxes blocking the side door and is probably dead in there. at the least, it's no longer running around in here and no longer leaving droppings but i'll have to keep looking for it.
what i've done since i got back to working on the space is
- removed everything on the stairwell to the side entrance (but not on the top landing in front of the door yet)
- vacuumed, scrubbed with carpet cleaner, vacuumed, scrubbed with cleaner again and then again vacuumed the carpeted steps. it's looking pretty clean.
- sealed the stairwell and the baseboards at the bottom of the landing
- installed two lights in the area, one 800 lumen and one 1500 lumen, and upgraded the pot light to 1500 lumen.
- sealed the window, including putting a blackout curtain in place
- revacuumed, rescrubbed with lysol, revacuumed, re steam mopped and revacuumed the hallway
- washed all of my winter jackets, rain jackets, hooded sweaters, toques, face masks, scarves, gloves, etc and put them on the coat rack or the hat and glove holder. it's ready for the winter, or for the rainy season.
- set up a shoe rack and put all of the shoes that don't need to be fixed on it. the rest are in the garage.
- put all of my various bags up on the racks or on the wall
- placed some art on the wall
- further sealed up the ceiling under the stairs (on top of the carpet) to address some water leaks from upstairs
- further sealed the furnace room door
- moved the old tv stand in front of the furnace room door and put boxes for kitchen items on it (for now)
- moved the coffee table that's too big for the listening room in the hallway and put sealed containers of spices, a bag of plastic bags and a number of reusable containers, some with bottle caps, on it
- moved the three tier console table back into the hallway, but on the other side of the hall. put an electrical splitter behind it. will move further small appliances (pop machine, etc) to top of console table. unused kitchen items and old appliances on bottom of console table.
- sealed up pot lights to keep flies from upstairs out. step one. step two to come.
- vacuumed, scrubbed with lysol, vacuumed, steam mopped, vacuumed tile under couch
- moved couch back to where it belongs. vacuumed couch.
- sealed up cold air returns to keep vermin out and to block draft.
- put up floating shelf for networking devices on wall (modem, firewall, several daisy chained wired and wireless routers, switches) near cable in. moved devices to shelf.
- put legs on remaining studio tables (big keyboard table, small antique table)
- caulked remaining wall behind computer desk (for 3 studio pcs, studio chromebook, potential studio mac, etc)
- vacuumed, scrubbed with lysol, vacuumed, steam mopped, vacuumed tile under computer desk
- picked all boxes and pcs in studio up off the floor and put on table or desk
- picked all boxes in bedroom up off floor
- started putting cardboard up on ceiling in kitchen. ordered more sealing tape (oddly slow to come in).
- moved smelly old couch out of garage and outside to the curb.
- set up steel mesh over vent into furnace room (from outside, where i built the brick wall a few months ago)
i started again on saturday and stopped on monday afternoon to let the floor behind the desk dry, slept in the evening and then spent most of tuesday (which was warm here) in the bathroom, before getting the couch out in the afternoon.
what's left to do before i shift back to the great cleanup and then to typing in the bedroom?
- i have enough cardboard broken down and ready to go to finish the bottom layer in the kitchen as soon as the tape gets here, so i should get the aluminum up by the end of the week. that was a primary goal.
- i have a very small amount of caulking left to do on the stairway down from the side entrance and i'd like to do another vacuum run of the carpet and floors there before i move on.
- once i get the cardboard up, i have a two-tired coffee table to move to beside the couch (parallel to the console table) that will be a side coffee table for the couch. i'll need to vacuum that space and it will probably be rescrubbed and relysoled.
- i want to finally finish installing the shelving in the kitchen and get the items that belong on the shelves on to the shelves.
- there's a small number of amazon haul items to finish with, but i mostly did that the previous week (all of my pots and pans are finally up on the wall)
- i need to move the rest of the furniture in the studio out to in front of the stereo before i can clean the rest of the floors and then move it back
- while the studio will remain uninstalled for a while, i can take things out of boxes and clean them and generally tidy the space up to prevent anything from living in there
- i am going to set up the drum kit because i need to in order to understand the best way to use the space
- finish cleaning around the removed couch in the garage
- set up the bike rack
- move the three bicycles currently in the unit into the garage and lock them to the rack
- tidy up further in the garage (tools, shoes, fans, electronics that need to be fixed, etc)
- a second waterproofing run over the brick wall and around the bottom of the wall
- another concrete run
- clean floors in front entrance
- clean floors between stereo and couch
- clean floors in kitchen and bathroom
- clean bedroom floors
- clean sheets
some items i'm looking to purchase in different areas -
side entrance:
- couch at bottom of stairs with computer system
- second video doorbell
- standalone mailbox
kitchen:
- small appliances
- step two for pot lights (extenders, reseal)
- needs more caulking and sealing (need a little bit more caulk)
- install light over stove
- update youtube laptop (needs new os and battery, update account access from koc)
listening room:
- small coffee table
- shelf for pi
- wall mounted monitor for pi
- wireless mouse and keyboard
- small ups or battery backup
- mini standalone exercise bike (not stationary)
library:
- set up shelves (need glue, masking tape)
- get tall, skinny shelf
- security pc setup peripherals
studio:
- update further items as per use and journal. need old guitar analogs. set up mini tele (hannah montana guitar), find solution for ibanez replacement.
- may need to replace some electronics due to previous damage
- 486 pc is initial project (may go in garage)
- update shelving to get lingering items out of boxes.
- need to update power bars (need to get a ups for studio, long overdue)
bedroom:
- new filing cabinet
- fix celestions
- bluray for digital media
- tablet for sleeping
- peripherals for tying pc (offline multimedia presentation)