I thought, after the horror tunnel, desiccated mouse carcasses, and other strange things we’ve found while packing up and cleaning away 4 decades of my parents’ stuff in our new home, I would have been beyond getting surprised by things we find.

I was wrong.

I must admit, it’s not so much the contents, but the circumstances of it.

Though we really don’t have the room for it in the growing pile in the dining room intended for the shed, I am just really not happy with having the litter box in the dining room, even if it is in an out of the way corner.  Having cleared everything else away, I decided to move the dresser and the stuff on the wall out of the little nook they’re in, so the litter box can be moved away from where we eat.

After removing the drawers, the first thing I discovered was a scale under the dresser.

Why is there a scale under the dresser?  It’s not like it was accidentally pushed under it.  It was way in the back corner.

Okay.  Fine.

I start moving the now drawerless dresser.

*clatterclatter*

A broken broom handle, with masking tape on the broken end, falls to the floor.

It had been between the dresser and the bit of wall on the bathroom side.  I had noticed that something was there, but forgot about it before moving the dresser.

Okay.  Fine.

I carefully pull the dresser out, hearing all sorts of crunching, grinding noises from the floor.  Oh, dear.  I called for a daughter to help carry it, since it sounded like pulling it along the floor would cause damage.  However, as I maneuvered it out a bit more so a daughter could grab it from the other end, I found it was really, really light, and not making the noise anymore.  So I just moved it myself, down the hall, up the two stairs to the new part of the house, and into the space I’d prepared for it in the dining room.  Then I put the drawers back and went to continue cleaning.

This is what I found.

What on earth?

This is a flash picture; there is no light in this corner, so I really couldn’t see very well, but that plastic container on the floor?  My first guess was that the dregs on the bottom was mouse poison.  And what was all that on the floor?

I moved the scale and that plaque beside it to the pile of stuff for storage.  The plaque?

It was a prayer.

Okay.  Fine.  I can see something like that falling between the dresser and the wall and being forgotten about.  That black piece of plastic?  Probably put there to get it out of the way and forgotten about as well.

I very carefully moved the mirror next.  It was just leaning on the wall, on top of that piece of wood.  The far side of it is a broken edge.

Then I come back to clean up the rest.

That plastic bowl?  Is a glass bowl.  The crud on the floor is ancient cat litter, complete with several desiccated turds.

And a piece of bread.

So, it looks like this area was used for both a cat litter box, and for… cat food? before.  I threw the bowl out, but I’m guessing it’s the remains of some sort of cat food on the bottom.

All of this means that someone took out the litter box, but left the mess behind.  Left the bowl and the bread and added a bathroom scale.

Then put the dresser on top of it all.

Then used the dresser to store extra towels on the bottom drawers.  Above the cat poop and drying food.

Oh, and as I was going back and forth to move things, I found a pile of something that had fallen out from under the dresser as I’d moved it up the two steps.  As I swept it up, I took a closer look.

I’m pretty sure it was a very old mouse nest.

Once clear, I mopped the area with disinfectant cleaner, including the walls, then used a scrub brush in the area (including on the other side, where I got the girls to take the stuff leaning there upstairs), then mopped it again.  The only thing in that corner that still needs to be moved is one last large mirror, which will require a screwdriver to remove.

I don’t have the energy for that anymore.

I also found a shoe tray that I scrubbed; it will go under our litter box when it gets moved.  For now, the entire area is being left to dry.  We will move our litter box in tomorrow.

This just blows me away.  It’s one thing to be in the practice of keeping things that might be useful, and just shoving them somewhere for storage, as is likely the case for most of the things we’ve found.  It’s quite another to deliberately put a dresser on top of cat litter, cat turds and cat food.

And a scale.

I just don’t understand.  Who did this?  I don’t know how long that dresser has been there, but I don’t think either of my parents were strong enough to move it.  Well; maybe my mother, depending no how long ago it was done, but she usually got other people to do that sort of manual labour for her.   So I have no idea.  And why?  Why was it done like this?  I can’t imagine any of my siblings doing this.

I’m at a complete loss.

I think I’m going to take a shower now.

The Re-Farmer