The other day, we cleaned out the shed. One of the sheds. And by we, I mean Grandma and Aaron. Hannah and I watched while they laboured away in disgustingly hot temperatures. I wasn’t about to get down and dirty because I didn’t know what was lurking in there, waiting to bite me and poison my growing baby. No, count me out, thank you very much. Plus, Grandma wouldn’t let me if I wanted to anyway.
The shed…hmmm…how to describe the shed. Well, the outside is easy: it’s a tinny sort of little shed with a door that’s not actually attached, but rather placed over the doorway and falls off when it’s windy, and there is a tree growing right behind the shed whose branches actually hold the shed down onto the foundation. It’s not attached in any way what so ever and I’m told that one time (before the tree was there), the wind actually picked up the shed and then dropped it again, not quite in the right place. So we like the tree, it’s not going anywhere.
Where was I…oh yeah, the inside. Let’s just say the inside is…interesting. The inside of the shed is (was) filled with boxes of papers and magazines. At least they were boxes. I didn’t actually realise they were boxes because they had been eaten so much by I don’t want to know what, that it pretty much just looked like someone had taken an entire trees worth of papers, and thrown them in a heap inside the shed. The rain gets in the shed, the wind gets in the shed (because the door is not attached, remember?), and the papers have been in there since, well, I’m not really sure, but at least ever since I’ve been on the scene, and that was nearly 10 years ago. You couldn’t actually walk into the shed. No, there was too much crap in there. If you really wanted to, you could stand in the doorway and throw something in there, but I doubt you’d ever see it again. The shed was kind of like that awkward kid in school who rarely bathed and a funk about him/her, you acknowledge that it’s there, but you steer well clear of it. I know, kids are mean.
Aaron and I really wanted to get the shed cleaned out (and by Aaron and me, I mostly mean me) so we can put YaYa’s (Aaron’s mum, not her real name…) stuff that is taking up most of the linen press and the top of Hannah’s closet in sealable plastic tubs and pile said tubs in the shed. That way, we (I…) could actually put things like sheets in the linen press instead of stacked (thrown, I’m way too short to stack) on top of the freestanding wardrobes (closets) in our bedroom. Oh my gosh, so much storage to be had! Plus, none of us were really sure what was living out there, but it couldn’t be good, or healthy, so yeah, it really needed to be cleaned up.
Hannah and I took our front row seats under the shade of the awning in the sand pit (ahem, Hannah was in the sand pit, I, was sitting next to it). As soon as they moved that useless door and started moving boxes of papers, with the boxes crumbling as they picked them up, their contents falling about, I knew I needed to document it. I ran straight inside to get my super-special, malfunctioning digital SLR camera. It thinks it’s on automatic mode no matter what I do, changing it’s f-stop and shutter speed like yesterdays socks. Humph.
I put my feet inside the shed for the very first time. I was amazed at what I saw. Mounds of papers, filth, tiny poo of some description, and chewed bits of paper laying about. I put the camera to my eye.
“What are you doing!!! Don’t take photos of this! Stop!” Grandma, apparently, doesn’t share my love of documenting.
“Who are you going to show this to, no one wants to see this! No one needs to remember this!” She was getting really cranky now.
“Don’t you want to see before and after photos? It will be such an accomplishment!” Um…yes, that’s why I was taking them….
“Yeah, it’ll be good to see before and after photos.” Aaron stuck up for me. He’s great.
“Fine,” Grandma huffed, clearly not in agreement, “but don’t show anyone! And they are NOT going on your blog!” If anyone ever saw the photos, Grandma might die of embarrassment…. Yeah, I’ve been strictly forbidden to put them on my blog. Instead, I’ve drawn you picture:
Humph, that was the only reason I was taking photos. Nope, couldn’t be bothered if I’m not allowed to post them here. I didn’t take anymore. Except for these two, which I was allowed to take, keep, and display. This little gift tag somehow managed to survive the chaos of the shed while everything else was rendered unreadable, pooped on, stuck together, and discoloured.
The papers in dodgy boxes kept piling up on the lawn. There was one pile that had a hole about the circumference of a golf ball chewed straight through it. Like a tunnel. I don’t think I want to know what lived in that tunnel. Luckily it wasn’t there at the time. Not that we saw anyway. After most of the stuff was cleared out, Aaron made a surprise discovery. There in the corner was a chest of drawers. I use that term loosely. I mean what was left of it after being used as dinner for a whole lot of years.
“I’ve found the coackroach den!” Aaron exclaimed. Cockroaches were running around in those drawers by the hundreds. There was a layer of poop (cockroach poop) an inch thick inside the drawer. Oh. My. Gosh. Ew!
When they were done moving all the stuff out, they found a thick layer of cockroach poop covering the floor. Aaron hosed the floor, getting some of it to go out the sides of the shed and onto the grass behind (where no one goes, there is a tree and then a fence there). It was so caked on that he had to get a shovel and manually remove all the poop. He removed so much poop that it filled an entire garbage bag. YUCK!
We were kind of afraid there were be an influx of roaches with nowhere to go entering the house, feasting on tidbits of food we didn’t know were there, running over our feet unexpectedly, and falling onto our heads from the ceiling, completely freaking me out (yeah, that’s happened before), but we have hardly seen any since that fateful day. I think they must have burned up in the hot sun or something when trying to make a break for it when their beloved roachy lair was empty. Or maybe one of the neighbours now has an unexpected roach problem. Hmmm…I hope they don’t read my blog.
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Tags: cleaning, cockroaches, family, grandma, hoarder, humor, humour, life, shed, true story
Mommy Adventures 