the holes under the sink
Caught up on my friends list. Working on moving in. The house hasn't eaten me alive. Yet.
Today I cleaned under the kitchen sink. The cabinet was full of rat droppings. I got the vacuum out and sucked it up, then mopped it down with some windex with vinegar. It still looked like shit under there. I decided to ask Patrick to close up a couple holes with scrap wood before putting the dishes back underneath (the ones clean enough to go back without washing that is.) Patrick decided to pull up a piece of the floor of the cabinet since it was just laid in there. Bad mistake. This is what we found:
He is now at Home Depot and I am vacuuming up the tail end of the debris. Pulling out the 3/4 inch thick rotten particle board revealed a huge rat/mouse nest with tons of shredded bags and napkins and garbage, dust from the particle board, a hole in the wall and base board and ANOTHER hole in the wall and FLOOR. Cleaning out most of the nest revealed a layer of linoleum over a layer of rotten plywood. Pulling all this out reveals that almost nothing is actually holding up our huge old fashioned sink. And to think I stood on it, to place my vases on top of the cabinets for storage. Scariness. I want to rip up all my linoleum now, so as to get out the rotten plywood. But I can't! Thank goodness we are only renting.
And to look on the positive side of things, it will be nice and clean under the sink and I won't have to wonder what is under the contact paper, because there won't be any. Just paint. I hate contact paper. And rats.
UPDATE: I wrote this June 12th, it's now June 14th. We got the wood but the floor hasn't been installed yet. This is what the underneath of the cabinet looks like with the particle board, rat nest and debris, linoleum and plywood removed:
As you can see the holes are extensive. If we owned the house we'd have to rip the whole sink out, but as it is, we're just patching it up- though hopefully better than the last folks.
Today I cleaned under the kitchen sink. The cabinet was full of rat droppings. I got the vacuum out and sucked it up, then mopped it down with some windex with vinegar. It still looked like shit under there. I decided to ask Patrick to close up a couple holes with scrap wood before putting the dishes back underneath (the ones clean enough to go back without washing that is.) Patrick decided to pull up a piece of the floor of the cabinet since it was just laid in there. Bad mistake. This is what we found:
He is now at Home Depot and I am vacuuming up the tail end of the debris. Pulling out the 3/4 inch thick rotten particle board revealed a huge rat/mouse nest with tons of shredded bags and napkins and garbage, dust from the particle board, a hole in the wall and base board and ANOTHER hole in the wall and FLOOR. Cleaning out most of the nest revealed a layer of linoleum over a layer of rotten plywood. Pulling all this out reveals that almost nothing is actually holding up our huge old fashioned sink. And to think I stood on it, to place my vases on top of the cabinets for storage. Scariness. I want to rip up all my linoleum now, so as to get out the rotten plywood. But I can't! Thank goodness we are only renting.
And to look on the positive side of things, it will be nice and clean under the sink and I won't have to wonder what is under the contact paper, because there won't be any. Just paint. I hate contact paper. And rats.
UPDATE: I wrote this June 12th, it's now June 14th. We got the wood but the floor hasn't been installed yet. This is what the underneath of the cabinet looks like with the particle board, rat nest and debris, linoleum and plywood removed:
As you can see the holes are extensive. If we owned the house we'd have to rip the whole sink out, but as it is, we're just patching it up- though hopefully better than the last folks.