I moved to Leith four months ago, but my gorgeous new home has been invaded
Nobody’s property can be perfect
The first few months of living in a new house are the honeymoon phase.
We have been absolutely smitten by our new place in Leith.
It’s taken until now, four months in, for the scales to fall slightly from our eyes.
Well, caveat emptor and all that. Nothing is going to be perfect, especially as the foibles of a building always start to slowly reveal themselves in winter.
Firstly, the cold. Well, it’s a Victorian gaff, so we anticipated a bit of a chill. I don’t much like new builds, so warmth wasn’t ever going to be a deciding factor on whether we bought this place or not. Also, we are tightwads who hardly ever put the heating on, because we’d rather sit here complaining while tucking our thermal vests tightly into our undercrackers and wearing our puffer coats indoors.
Over the last weeks, we’ve become very acquainted with the draughts and where they emanate. I often wonder if you can still buy those stuffed sausage dogs, to put at the bottom of doors.
Secondly, there’s the condensation. There are two sash and case windows upstairs that stream with water. We’ve invested in one of those handheld vacuum gadgets that coughs up the dew. I sing a little bit of George Formby, as I do that task, four or five times on a very cold day.
“If you could see what I could see,” on repeat. It’s getting ridiculous.
I don’t know how we’re creating so much moisture. We must be like hot hippos emerging from the Nile.
The third problem is the weird noises. Anyone would think this place is haunted. It cracks, sighs and groans, and clicks like the crepitus in my hips. If a bus goes by, it lurches.
I was in the house alone the other night, and felt on my last nerve, as I followed the sounds and peeked round doors.
However, the thing that’s really made us go ‘eek’, is the recent appearance of mice, who must’ve come in from the cold.
I haven’t seen any, but my husband has had three sightings. So, a mischief of meeces then.
He says that the first one came sneaking out of the Edinburgh press, from between copies of the Silver Spoon and something on taxidermy.
It crept across the floor, saw my husband, then freaked out and sprinted towards another cupboard, but underestimated the height of the door and cracked its furry head off the bottom, before doing the limbo to get underneath.
There have been two other individual sightings in the kitchen.
Again, one of them was horrified at the sight of my husband, and zig-zagged across the floor, like it was practicing some sort of military manoeuvre to evade enemy fire.
Then it wedged itself flat beside the cooker. It may still be there, slowly toasting like a Pop Tart.
The last one seems to be the only mouse to have more than one brain cell, and quickly turned on its pink heels and made itself scarce.
Perhaps I haven’t seen any of them because I am heavy-footed, so they get the whole ‘fee-fi-fo-fum’ effect on my approach.
We have been here before. In our last flat, there were a couple of spottings, so we tightened up our crumb game and plugged the floorboard gaps with wire wool that had been dusted with cayenne pepper.
It seemed to work, as we didn’t see them again.
Then there was the rented flat in Hillside, which was totally riddled with the guys.
We weren’t really there for long enough to get to grips with the problem.
However, it was pretty bad. There was a sofa bed there, and you could hear them bouncing around on the internal springs, like it was some sort of trampoline centre.
These beasties are hard to avoid in a city.
At least it’s not rats. I have seen a few of those heavy-set dudes, one of which was ginger, on Leith Links, and I’m hoping they won’t find their way along the road.
I think they deserve to be alive as much as the next creature, but I don’t want one coming into my kitchen and eating my Weetabix.
Never mind that, these furry Leithers were probably big enough to operate a corkscrew and a tin opener.
We have discussed traps for the invaders, though it’d have to be a humane one.
Not the sticky paper or the poison.
After all, I am the sort of person who feels bad about killing a fruit fly.
However, if you catch a mouse in one of the less cruel alternatives, you then have to take the captive far-far away, or they will make their way back to base.
You can also put a blindfold on them, and spin them round a few times, to ensure that they never come back. Make them a little backpack, with a teaspoon of peanut butter, a tiny cardigan and a Dairylea cheese triangle in it, and they’re set for a new itinerant lifestyle.
I’d probably even feel a bit bad about that. I’m a mouse ally because I once had a pet one, when I was a student, and her name was Rosemary.
She was white with pink eyes, just like a sugared version.
These standard brown house mice aren’t quite as sweet.
Thus, we shall be brutally evicting them, and they’re welcome to take the cold, condensation and creepy noises with them.
Read more: “I knew clearing out my Edinburgh flat would be tough, but I didn’t expect it to be so embarrassing”
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