The Mouse Issue

When I had the house inspection done prior to buying the house, the inspector said there was ‘mouse activity’ in multiple places… and I guess I should have looked further into it at the time! But to be honest, there wasn’t going to be much stopping me from buying this house! My family and friends will tell you that I say often that I feel that I was supposed to find this house and I still feel that is true!

It really is country living in the city – I can step onto my back deck and not see any other house either beside me or across the river; I can walk out my back door and directly onto my paddle board or kayak; I walk out my front door to connect into three different 1-hour+ nature walking paths; and I have an amazing variety of wildlife all around me! And yet within a 20-minute walk (or a 5-minute drive) I can get to 2 grocery stores, 2 pharmacies, a pub, pizza place (and other restaurants), Tim Horton’s, etc. and a farmer’s market in the summer. It feels like it is the best of both country and city living 😊

So, back to the mice…

I didn’t think it was too bad initially, until I started putting out traps and they just kept coming… and then winter came, and I could feel the cold air coming through under the dishwasher – literally a steady stream of freezing cold air. So, the dishwasher was pulled out, and the shelving and bottom of the base cabinet to the right of it was removed, and there were holes which seemed to go straight to the outdoors!

I shoved steel wool and spray foam insulation in the holes and made it work for the time being.

I had planned to fix up the basement as a family/TV room and had torn up the carpet that was there when I moved in with the plan to paint the floor in the short term before doing the main renovation. I also wanted to put in new ceiling tiles, because it looked damaged and tired.

Remember again that I knew there was ‘mouse activity’… so on January 11, 2020, I suited up to tackle taking down the ceiling tiles.

And got one tile down and realized that this was not a feat I was prepared to complete! Now, I’m not a squeamish person, and mouse droppings are not something I fear (birds… that is another story!). But this was not a task for a mere mortal such as myself! There was significant mouse activity, so I ended up calling in a remediation company to remove the tiles, and in the process found out that there was a significant number of mouse nests in much of the wall insulation...

as well as a fair amount of damage to the electrical wires...

So, in February 2020, in addition to removing all the ceiling tiles – the insulation on all the exterior walls at the front and north side of the house were removed and replaced.

This is also when I found out that there had been a chimney fire, as the framing was obviously cut and the lower part replaced as if there had been a flood (the house sits above the flood plain, so it wasn’t from that). I was able to confirm this with the previous owners that it was water damage when the fire was put out.

So, all of this to say that one of my goals of renovating the house is to make sure that there are no more entry holes for the mice!