Floods, Mice and Finally Getting the Basement in Working Order

The last few days have been a jumble of busyness.  

I'm finally getting the basement back under control for the first time in two years. 

For those of you who haven't been around that long, the basement was one of my favorite parts of the house when we moved in and a little over two years ago I had it perfectly organized.  Then heavy spring rains caused a creek to run through it from one side to the other.  I hurriedly moved everything into the laundry room... and a short while later the sewer backed up, flooding that room too.  

I cleaned and started to regroup.  It was almost done when it happened a second time (first floods and then sewer).  I bleached the floors and disinfected. 

Then there was the ice storm and an army of mice invaded our house and every time I touched a box to move it a mouse jumped out and I was kind of done with the basement.  Or maybe that came before the second flooding.  

It's kind of a jumble of mice and water everywhere in my mind.

Kittyfish moved in and took care of the mice.  I haven't seen a mouse that's alive in our home in ages.  

But I'll admit I was still kind of hesitant to actually touch any of the boxes down in the basement.  Jumping mice will do that to a person I guess.  And around that time we found out I was pregnant with James and then we had a tiny baby and that pretty much brings us to the present.  

In the past two weeks I put on gloves and went down there and found it wasn't actually all that bad.  I've washed things and donated bags of stuff (bags and bags and bags) and thrown out mountains of things nobody needs, all with Kitty prowling around hoping a mouse will dare show its face (no mice... but I have seen five centipedes...).  

And the basement is finally started to become a pleasant place to be again.  

Kitty isn't thrilled with my work.  I think he liked the box jungle.

And the best part of all of this (or one of the best parts) is that this year I caught the sewer backing up when it was still a foot below the floor, before it flooded anything.  And that pretty much had me bouncing around the house for a week thrilled that I'd noticed it before it caused any damage.  

Now to finish up my spring cleaning just as summer arrives!  

James is not impressed with my work these past few weeks.