My son and I began the work of clearing the personal belongs left in the trailer (sitting in there since 1974) before we could begin assessing what we had. The owner said to just burn everything, he had no interest in going through any of it. There were boxes and boxes of clothes and fabric (his wife was a seamstress), carpet covering the original flooring, old slipcovers on the dinette couches, food (yes, old petrified food) and hundreds and hundreds of mice nests in the cupboards. It was smelly, nasty work. It took 3 days. But, the more stuff we pulled out and discarded, the more the beauty of the original trailer came through. There were no spiders or other bugs, just mice. The dry climate up there kept the inside in great condition, no mildew or other issues that damp climate can cause.
After emptying it all out, we had a jewel! There were no chips, dings, scrapes or any visible damage at all to the floor, woodwork, appliances, formica, porcelain toilet, porcelain sink, walk-in shower, or furniture. We were just amazed. The windows all worked fine, the screens were perfect, as were the beautiful seafoam green venetian blinds.
My son dropped off the team and my wife joined the clean up phase. She is a CLEANER. We went to Home Depot and loaded up with haz-mat suits, masks, gloves, disinfectant, mice traps, rags, scrapers, and brushes. I will not minimize the mice infestation in this trailer, but fortunately, it was all hidden in the cupboards, no visible chewing or damage. They had so much nesting material and food from the barn and cotton batting under the couches, they just happily nested without having to chew wood. We did find out though, that mouse urine works like paint remover. The areas where they had been needed to be touched up.
While my wife cleaned and scraped up inches of mouse poop from the inside of the cupboards, I removed the tires and took them to Les Schwab. They were split rims, and had I given it much thought, I would have swapped those out for legal rims. In haste, and wanting to keep it all original, I had them powdercoated and new tires put on.
About day 6 or so, we decided to plug the trailer in to see if the wiring was all intact. We both expected a big POP, FIZZ, KABOOM, figuring the mice had decimated the wiring inside, but to our amazement, the lights came right on, the fridge started humming away (light in the fridge worked too) the clock on the stove started moving and the lights glowing against the beautiful wood interior made slogging thru the mice poop all worth it. The smiles on our faces would have made a great photo.
Once things were cleaned up as good as we could get them in a cold barn, with cold water hauled in from the spring down the road, we made a few decisions on some original stuff in and on the trailer. The first to go was the original twin bed mattresses and boxsprings. Even though they were in good condition, they were heavy and smelled OLD. Out to the burn pile. We found a local mattress store that has mattresses made in Portland, so we ordered new ones (no box springs) and I decided to shorten the platform of the bed that jutted into the back door opening. The three inches would make a big difference with the door, and not a big difference in the length of the bed. Five days later, we had new mattresses. The next to go, was the 250 lbs. of cast iron and brass plumbing from underneath the trailer. The trailer was a "park model" so it has no holding tank. We would get it re-plumbed back in CA.
After cleaning up and removing all the stuff in the way of the trailer's exit from the barn, moving day came. It rolled out without a groan or squeak. We were on our way! I'll be posting pictures soon.
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