concerned about were damp, spiders and mice.
Four years ago the cottage was festooned with webs, great brown bellying
curtains of them, hanging from every window, across the stairwell, from
the low ceiling beams.
I feared they might be one seasons worth - but I've never found the
cottage to need more than two de-webbing session a year, and then I am
only wiping away the very smallest wisps of white from window frames and
keyholes (it's the draught - it carries small insects through the gap,
into the waiting spidey jaws)
Of course this could be the result of the all conker-ing horsechestnut
eco-friendly spider repellent - I've only sprayed the windows twice in 2
years, but who knows.
The first day I visited my new cottage I found a poisoned mouse expiring
on the doorstep (the same doorstep the adder was sunbathing on last
week). As I cleaned I found little splayed out mouse skeletons in hard
to reach places. And later, when I first lived in the cottage full
time, I just managed their presence - keeping them out of food supplies,
using peppermint oil to deter them, wiping down and sweeping daily,
never allowing food or equipment to come into contact with unwashed
surfaces...
They disappeared entirely 18 months ago, when the cottage was left
uninhabitable by floods, and weasels and owls moved in. And they have
yet to move back in...
The damp?
Well, it's a different place now, I open the door, warm fresh air
streams out, biscuits stay crisp, sugar pours, the bed is dry and aired.
But it is summer, and the winter was a dry one, so I have my fingers
crossed for the months to come.
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