Mice and the Pantry

1/14/2020

Sounds like the beginning of a great story doesn't it? And, if you weren't suffering from little mice that slip in and out of your house, the story would be funny. 

Yesterday, I started cleaning out the pantry. My plan was to take down to the basement, many cans that we had in duplicates, or more!

I picked out one shelf to work on. Not to my surprise, I saw the markings of one mice and/or more, had been inside the pantry. As I've said before, I thought we had a deal. The mice could stay in the garage and eat up any of the dropped kibble, etc.

Just on this one shelf, I was disappointed to see the evidence! At least, on that particular shelf, I had stored can foods only. And, the other good news (I guess you could it that),is when I move to another shelf, that the evidence will be chewed up corners, etc. When I see bits of chewing on a package, I toss the box and contents away. Actually, when you think about it, the mice are giving me a chance to toss out stale cookies, cereal, etc.

This particular chore, will take time and involve Jeff to take the canned foods, into the basement. To be sure, I leave one or two cans behind, so that you don't have to trek downstairs every time you need or want a particular can of, let's say, for instance, soup. 

I did some research today, and apparently mice don't like the smell of mint, cayenne or cloves. They recommend putting a bit of the disliked smells in the corners of your pantry (in my case) to keep the little critters away. Or blocking the corners with steel wool or aluminum. I guess mice aren't in favor of those things either. Actually, we humans are also not a fan of nibbling on aluminum. Ugh.

While it shouldn't matter, but it does, I am tired of people (the children), opening up the pantry and be blown away by the sheer amount of food inside. Of course, if there was ever a disaster, or something like that, the boys et al could come to our house, and not be hungry for quite some time!

I know that this particular project, will take up a large amount of my time. One: taking the food off the shelf; two: cleaning said shelf; and, three deciding how many cans of a particular food I actually need to keep in the kitchen. For instance. I'm pretty confident that keeping the majority of canned fruit (pineapple, etc.) in the pantry will give us unintentional exercise going up and down the stairs!

Wish me luck, over the next few days, as I continue to work on this particular project.

P