Mobile Home Makeover

The Before:

Since mom decided to move here and we were given the trailer, there of course are some minor repair work to be done. Since we are dealing with a mobile home we expected some flooring issues. Also, the house smelled like urine… So, with the help of some very great friends, we began to rip up carpet and paint the floor with Kilz to seal off the smell. Which worked well for a friend of mine and her rental. It wasn’t working for us. The bedroom still smelled like urine.  It was awful.  After talking with a friend of Jeffreys, we learned we had unfortunately bought the latex Kilz, not the enamel Kilz.  Enamel base will seal off the smell.   Lesson learned.  Please, please, please learn from our mistakes.

 

Floor Repair

Once we got the right product down in the bedroom, the place began to smell better.  Jeffrey began to tackle the small whole in the floor under the window.  It was about 2 feet wide and 3 feet long.  I totally expected this type of repair for a trailer as old as this one.  Once he got it repaired, we then laid down 1/4 in plywood in the living room and vinyl flooring.  I love the Allure vinyl flooring planks.  They go down so easy and look amazing as well.

 

The Bugs

As we were working over the course of a couple days, I began to notice a strange bug hanging around the kitchen.  It was brown, about a 1/2 inch in length and had long antennas.    I didn’t think too much of it at first.  Then it hit me… “Is that a cockroach?”  Now remember we live in Western Washington.  It doesn’t get that hot here and we get more rain than anywhere else in the country I’m sure.  So, I just wasn’t sure…  I took a piece of trim we had removed from the living room and moved it toward the bug and as quick as a flash, it had moved back into the crack it was peaking at me from!  Oh MY GOSH!!!  We have cockroaches!!

 

I went home that night, got on Pinterest and began doing some research.  Oh man, we have cockroaches.  How can I move my mom into this place with these roaches??!!!

The image above is of German Cockroaches from new born to full adult, which is what we have in the trailer.  I learned way more about cockroaches than I ever cared to that is for sure!  YIKES!!  I learned there are over 4000 species and they are very hard to get rid of.  They lay an egg pouch that has up to 40 babies inside.  YUCK!!  I learned they will travel from one home to another, if they run out of food, which by the way, they can live up to 2 weeks without!

 

I have spent lots of time on the web looking at different ways to get rid of them.  I even went as far as to call an exterminator.  Which we ended up not using because the chemicals are just too toxic.  So, we had to find another way.  With lots of reading and some conversations with a rental property owner we got to work.

How To Kill The “Bugs”

I first made a mixture of brown sugar and borax and put it in little plastic containers with slits in the top.  The roaches of course are drawn to the sugar, eat the borax and are torn up on the inside.  I then sprinkled borax behind the fridge, stove, trim of the carpet and flooring, on top shelves of the kitchen, under the new flooring under the bathroom sink, on the sides of the furnace and all around the trailer outside.  Anywhere there was a crack or open space that I could pour borax I did.

I got these  ideas from a Pinterest post of The Hawthorn Effect. blogspot The recipe calls for powdered sugar, but I didn’t have any and I was in a bit of a panic.  lol

The other thing we did was take the front panel of the dishwasher off.  They live and lay eggs in that panel.  We also replaced the stove.  The exterminator told us they get up inside the back of the stove and lay eggs, because it’s warm and they like that.

One of the main ways to keep these “bugs” away is to be very, very clean.  When we were able to take over the trailer, it had been empty for a few weeks and let me tell you it was rather gross inside.  The food particles left over from the previous owner that hadn’t been wiped up or cleaned was enough to feed an army of “bugs” for a year!

So as the living room floor was being fixed, we also started cleaning and painting the kitchen.  It really needed some TLC.  But I think we have made the place livable again.  The number of “bugs” we are seeing is down to 1-2 a day and they are little ones.  I’m thinking we are winning the battle.  I hope so, because everyday, I make sure all the dishes are clean, there is no food anywhere, the surfaces are all sprayed down with clorox bleach kitchen cleaner, the floors are swept and mopped and the garbage goes out nightly.

Finished Product

 

We are still working on unpacking boxes and putting things away, so the “bugs” could be hiding in the spare room with all the boxes, but we are winning the battle.  The rental owner told me it took 3 months to get rid of the “bugs” with a tenant living in the home, but it can be done.

We still have some work to do, but mom is all moved in and living almost normally.  I’m thankful she is here.  I am so very grateful the Lord provided a place for her to be.  It took some work, but it was well worth it.