Nasty Surprises - March 28, 2023

This weekend, we bought a new vacuum cleaner.  It cost more than my first car, a 1978 Pinto, stick shift, no A/C, no radio.  The feature that sold me was an air-cleaning system that is supposed to reduce household allergens and dust.  We have a lot of dust, and perpetually snotty noses.

I put it to work that very afternoon.

The first thing I did was vacuum our mattress.  The saleslady said to use the power bar (or whatever it's called - the thing you use to vacuum the floor).  It vibrates, which supposedly alerts the dust mites in the mattress to come forward to feast, whereupon it yanks them through the fabric and drowns them in the water tank on the unit.  She said the water would look foamy.  Boy, did it ever.  I was ashamed.  We have always used a mattress pad, which gets washed (or at least tumbled in the dryer) on a regular basis.  I don't know where dust mites come from, but I thought I had protected us from them.

The new vacuum cleaner spurred me on to clean the rest of the room.  It has wall-to-wall furniture.  I started with the sewing cabinet left of the bed and worked my way around the room.  There were nasty surprises on the west wall.

First, when I vacuumed the baseboard behind the 6-ft-long, non-working, 1950s stereo cabinet (which belonged to The Husband's grandmother and brings him fond memories), a good-sized chunk of the baseboard got sucked into the vacuum cleaner.  It was powder.  The wood came out, leaving the paint standing.  TERMITES!  OMG!  This was fairly new, for it was not apparent the last time I vacuumed behind the stereo, which, admittedly, was a couple of months ago.

Next, when I scooted the never-used treadmill away from the wall, there was a dead mouse under it.  He couldn't have been there for long, else we would've smelled it.  I said, Oh my god, there's a dead mouse under here! and went to the kitchen for the broom and the dustpan and handed them to The Husband and said, "You gotta do it."  We moved the treadmill a little more and found a big spider under it.  I can't help but wonder if the spider killed the mouse and had been feasting on it.  The Husband said he thinks he got the spider.  I saw some spider legs smushed on the floor while I was mopping up the mouse juice; hopefully, if he ain't dead, he ain't gettin' around too well.

Perhaps it was the power of suggestion, but I woke up the next day without a snotty nose.

Today, the termite man came this morning and sprayed the baseboard and did the outside of the house again.  Gosh, I hate poisons, especially inside the house, but I hate termites, too.

Good thing we have an air-purifier now, eh?