Rats in the Attic

Coudray Valley, Newfoundland

We open a drawer and a little furry brown mouse scurries away. We open more drawers and see evidence of many mice.

We hear scurrying sounds in the roof. When we turn on the A/C, pieces of Mrs. Phred's clothing blow out of the vents. We pitch all the clothing they've eaten holes into and wash the rest.

Mice and squirrels like to chew on wires, so it's possible that the failed rear video camera and tow vehicle wiring might have succumbed to the predations of mice. I made a cod fish deep fried in beer batter last night. It was very good. We bought it right off the dock.

We place dryer sheets (the kind you add to the dry cycle for soft clothing) behind all the drawers. Mice don't like the smell and they are less obnoxious than moth balls. Mrs. Phred is upset. She's soaking all the silverware and dishes in bleach. We buy glue traps and standard mousetraps to bait with peanut butter.

We'll also leave out peanuts to see if they've gone away. One pair of mice can produce 15,000 offspring in a year. Closer inspection also reveals a large bird's nest under the RV.

It's a big maintenance day. We wash both vehicles and all our clothing and silverware (none of it is silver, really) because of the mouse turds. When you listen to the natives here, you keep hearing how the seals are eating all the cod and should be killed back. The seals themselves are underweight and subject to an exploding population because man has killed off the Orcas.

The ferry is having problems and our noon departure tomorrow has been pushed back to 7:30 PM, which will put us back in North Sydney about 1 A.M.

We've had back-to-back lovely days with blue skies and about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Our Italian washer/dryer failed to drain today. I read the manual and found how to disassemble the machine and check for a drain blockage. I found three dollars and sixty-three cents in American coins blocking the drain. It's not that often these days that I can make big money fixing a problem.