I have a list of goals for 2016. Cleaning out the shed isn’t on it. But with the prospect of four days at home over Easter, I decided it would be very satisfying to sort it out.
The resident possums had kicked down bags and boxes, and spilled small containers of keys, rubber bands and odds and ends. I had kept some oversized pieces of plastic as dust protectors but they were just another layer of mess over the girls’ bikes seats. The shed had become so messy that you couldn’t find or reach what you wanted anymore, or even walk through it. It stinks of possum droppings and wee, and that smell has permeated our travelling bags too. And I knew there were things in there that I hadn’t used or looked at for all of the eleven years we have been living in this house.
On Easter Friday, after a leisurely morning, Steve and I got to work. We pulled everything out and ordered it into piles in the backyard: Rubbish, things to keep and things to be given away or sold. The spare mattress that has been so handy for guests but is now unusable from possum wee went to the rubbish pile, joined by the large suitcase on wheels that we have rarely used and met a similar fate. The coat I cut the material out for and never finished, and now no longer like, was also for the bin. The wooden blinds from the girls’ bedroom after we replaced them with honeycomb blinds went on the pile to give away, joined by a potty, various baby gear, ceramic pot containers, my last bike and spare tyres and so much else. I did a leadlighting course while I was at uni and made a pink glass lamp with white trim which I really liked but never found a place for. I decided to give that away too.
I saw a rat, despite the four packets of rat-sack, and the possum is still there despite our efforts of a few months ago, nesting on my box of glass swans that I imported from Russia when I was 19 and didn’t find a market for. I liked them anyway, but of 200, only a dozen or so are left unbroken. Those sheepskin-lined army boots that I wore over that Russian winter, now a little frayed despite never having been worn in the intervening 23 years, were also for the bin.
Lara and Rhea pottered around the house and played in the garden, happy to be close by. Delight punctuated the afternoon as I showed them a photo of me pre-braces at the age of 12 (I had the X-rays and plaster casts too), or things that I had made:
‘This is a painting I did when I was at school. Should we give it away?
Lara: ‘No! Let’s keep it!’
‘This is a cushion I made. ‘
Lara: ‘Wow! You made it? How did you make it?’
So I kept more than I thought I would, and we extracted and sorted, dusted and carried until the shed was almost empty.
I asked Lara again if she had any ideas of how to get rid of the possum. She said we should take it to the tip. ‘The pwoblem is, it thinks it’s its house.’
A man walking down our short street asked if he could have the cat carrier in the trailer. He wasn’t put off by the possum urine because he was happy to clean it up to transfer his ducks. Steve took two trailer-loads to the tip (minus the cat carrier), whose recycling extends to sorting mattresses, paint areas, usable items, electrical and green waste.
My old bike, tyres, lamp, weights and ceramic pots have already been taken from our verge where we had offered them up. We’ll see what happens to the rest of the stuff there, but someone has even taken a broken mirror once, so I’m expecting most of it to find more appreciative homes. And by 5.30 tonight, with help from both of the girls, we had swept more than a bucket of dust and leaves away and returned everything we wanted to keep, newly-organised, rat-and-possum-proofed via plastic containers. There is now a clear line of access through the middle and we know exactly what is where.
After washing them, I’ll take the glass swans to Vinnies, with some old clothes and material. It’s time they found their own homes now. And that possum will have to find itself another shed too. We’re locking it out tonight.
