Long drawn-out saga of a cabin mouse infestation and (possible) recovery
We had a cabin, originally 2 separate small buildings with a deck between. I joined them across the deck and had a nicer cabin.
Time went by and we thought we might have a little mouse problem. Occasionally you heard mouse scrabbling and my wife was sure she smelled them. I denied it. I thought I found the problem and plugged one hole. We finally stopped using the cabin because it smelled.
I made an exploratory hole in a wall for the inspection camera. It looked bad, so I pulled down some sheetrock.
It was bad. We had to demolish the whole thing. I started with the connector.
dropping a tree on the roof didn’t help
I cut the walls out of the right-hand room leaving the corners to support the roof.
Then I hooked my tractor winch onto one corner and pulled it over. It sort of came down but it saved me from climbing on the rood and it saved me from doing my ceiling demolition inside where it was raining mouse droppings.
Then I repeated the operation on the other building.
It was a mess to cleanup
By the end of the summer I had the decks cleared off and covered, and the debris hauled away. I used the tractor winch to drag manageable size pieces up the hill so I could load them into my truck.
I plan to rebuild as a single room to include both of the old decks, joined together, making a cabin about 28×12. I’ve got new joists and decking to bring the two old decks together.
Coming up against onset of winter. I will cover the whole thing with a good tarp until spring.
One thing I could do before winter was add bracing to the foundation posts.
To be continued…
