Deep clean in Ambrym

When we leave Ambrym for resupplying in Vila every 6 months or so, we are usually gone from our house for 3-4 weeks at a time.  Upon our return, we typically have new battles with hoards of rats, spiders, mounds of dust and ash, and a bit of mold growing in surprising areas.  Being gone for 3-4 weeks is obviously a drop in the bucket compared to being gone to the US for a full year of furlough.  So Gretchen and I were not looking forward to the job ahead of us in cleaning up a year's worth of rats, spiders, dirt, rust, and mold.

So we were so so grateful that BuildAid went out ahead of us with Houghton to do a HUGE deep-clean of our house.  They washed curtains black with dirt and mold, filthy windows, swept out a year's worth of spiders and bugs, washed every dish and cloth and bedsheet and piece of clothing, scrubbed furniture, floors, and bathrooms, and allowed us to come behind with a much smaller job.  Even after their week of cleaning, there was still a ton to be done, (as you can see from the pictures below), but it was manageable and I think saved me a few melt-downs, to be honest!

 Rats ate all sorts of my plastic containers, baskets, and this dish brush.  Mold is AMAZING here and that's the white stuff that's coating my tongs and these plastic containers.

Even my wooden desk grew a ton of mold!

Because of acid rain and closeness to saltwater, we also have lots of problems with rust here.  Anything with a small spring inside (voice recorders, clocks, toys, etc) rusted completely and lots of our dishes and containers and even our ovens have rust damage.  We get regular reminders here not to store up treasure on earth where moth and rust destroy but to store up treasure in heaven!

Thank God with me for willing servants like BuildAid for their incredible and selfless service to us!

We've tried everything over the years in our battle with rats.  Houghton is always working to further rat-proof the house but there are always weak spots we can't do much about.  We've used normal traps, rigged up water traps, used poison, and in the last few years went with glue traps, which have been the most effective, but make a disgusting mess when they get drug around the house by our enormous rats here.  This time we decided to try a big full trap and I purchased one, but then a friend of ours in Vila offered to give us one of their cats to bring out.  Cats are few and far between in our village and don't seem to last long (kids are rough on animals here).  So far though, our cat (who they named Bluetooth), has done a fantastic job killing every rat to make it in the house and seems to be deterring any others.  In the 3 months we've been out on Ambrym, we've only had 5 or so in the house and he's caught every one (normally we'd have 5 just in the first few days of being back!).  So we're pretty happy with our little guy and hope he continues to stick around with us!