De-Mousing the Foundation – Part 3

In May 2019 I started de-mousing our foundation.  I got as far as doing the right side of the stoop and part of the front wall of the house while Darwin helped:

       

In December 2019 I did the left side of the stoop:

       

But I got too cold to start the front, even though something had dug a hole.  As a temporary solution I stapled a piece of hardware cloth over the hole and laid a brick against it:

       

In March I noticed something had dug a hole UNDER the brick [and presumably under the piece of hardware cloth]:

I don’t think it’s mice, I think it’s something bigger.  The ground was still too cold to dig up the front of the stoop to install the rest of the hardware cloth, so I let it go.

I ended up putting off this project until this month because I didn’t like how the hardware cloth looked.  Drab.  Uneven.  I knew I’d be tearing up what I’d already done and spray painting the wire before being able to continue.

On June 10th I finally got started.  I pulled the staples from the wire on the right side of the stoop, spray painted it off-white, and let it dry overnight:

       

       

On June 11th I trimmed it so it would all the be the same height [another thing I didn’t like about my original job], reattached it with my staple gun and filled the dirt back in:

       

So much nicer!  You don’t even notice it anymore:

Then I pulled the wire from the left side:

The foundation wood is a little rotted, but it won’t matter for right now.  It’ll still take a staple:

       

I spray painted the wire and let it dry overnight:

On June 12th I stapled it back to the left side of the stoop:

       

The front corner was tricky because of rocks under the dirt that were too big to dig up.  I had to cut the hardware cloth to match the incline:

       

Then filled in that side with dirt.  Much better:

       

By this point a new hole had appeared in front of the stoop beside the hardware cloth patch I’d installed last December:

I removed the patch, then dug out the front of the stoop so I could install hardware cloth along the whole length:

       

I measured and cut the pieces, then spray painted them:

       

On June 13th I stapled them to the front of the stoop, then filled it in with dirt:

       

At this point I decided to dig another hole along the left side of the stoop so we could finally bury our rats Killy & Winston.  We also spread General Bonker’s ashes in the same hole.  We covered them over and put granite blocks down with flowers on top:

       

Rest in peace Killy [who we lost last Septemer], Winston [who we lost April 3rd]:

       

And General Bonkers who we lost December 1st, 2017, and still miss every day:

       

       

The de-mousing the foundation project is now DONE!  I’m glad I painted the wire white, and cut it so it was all even.  It blends it very well to the front stoop and house:

       

Hopefully this will keep things from digging into the basement!