Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Laundry night derailed

(Warning... kind of gross photo below)

I watched Lost tonight, then got ready to do laundry.

My laundry set-up is a bit unusual. The water from the first rinse is pumped into an adjacent sink, where it is stored and can be pumped back into the washer for a second load. If it's not needed, there is a little pump that pumps the water up into the outflow pipe out to the septic system.

On Monday I did one load of laundry, and left the unused water sitting in the sink for the past couple days.

Tonight I went down, saw the gray water and decided I didn't want to reuse it after two days, so I flicked on the little motor and the sink started to drain as I sorted clothes. After a couple minutes, I heard the suction sound that indicated the sink was empty, went to flick off the pump and saw, to my horror...

















Nooooo! 

I knew there were mice in the basement - they had scarfed up some spilled dog food before I had a chance to clean it up, and thwarted my attempts to catch them in a live trap. I wanted them out... but not like this. My used laundry water became a water-filled pit of doom.

So I've hit the brakes on laundry night, and I'm stalling and stalling going back down there to deal with the carcass. I know it's just a mouse, but I'm squeamish about these things. I'm about to go out to the garage and assess my garden tools to see what might be the least-gross way to get this thing out of the house. Garden shovel into a box into the trash container outside is the likely choice.

I'll never be able to look at the laundry tub the same way again.

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