Living with mice

So our apartment has had problems since we first moved in.  Our first big thing is that the basement leaks when we get a heavy rain or snow and the carpet gets soaked.  We had set up our bedroom down there until the mold problem.  We were going through some things for a yard sale last year and came across some pretty nasty mold growing in the carpet behind a bookcase.  It looked like someone had taken a pot full of cooked lasgna noodles and dumped them on the floor.  We called maintenance and they came out and cleaned it up but I think the basement has flooded several other times since then.

Next were the spiders.  We have an infestation of brown recluse spiders.  Our landlord came out and sprayed once for them but that was all they were willing to do under the terms of our lease.  We fought with them all summer (the spiders, and the landlord too really).  I think they started coming out that we know o,f in May.  Mom was up here visiting and got bitten but no one at the hospital took her seriously.  We think Jason was bitten twice too while he slept.  We ended up moving our "bedroom" into the living room after the spiders and the mold.  We put down glue traps, fogged the entire house and finally just had to go on spider patrol during the night and kill as many as we could.  We haven't seen any since October, right before Benjamin was born, but that doesn't mean they won't be back in the spring.  Since we can't afford to move, I hope we'll be ready for them.

On a quick side note, our sump pump backed up last year too and flooded the basement with about 2-3 inches of water.  I don't even want to know what's growing behind the walls.  Also, a year or so ago they replaced our roof.  They didn't tarp it well over a weekend and we had a bad storm.  The roof was constructed poorly and the joints didn't meet up.  I went in to check on Matthew that morning and his ceiling had fallen in from all the water leaking into the attic space.  Luckily none ended up on his bed, but that was a nightmare too.

Most recently are the mice.  We've successfully caught and killed one and I think our neighbor has gotten two now.  We still have at least one scampering around our living room at night and it's really very disconcerting.  I have jumped a few times when I see them out of the corner of my eye and I'm usually carrying one of the kids and scared I'll drop them when I get startled.  I've got several traps baited with peanut butter since that seems to work best.  Mom tells me to put out rat poison but I don't want to worry about the kids getting into it.  I was also concerned about the smell when they die although she assures me they dry up and don't get a chance to decompose, but who wants to find dried up mouse carcasses all over the place? 

I'm basically fed up with where we live but resigned to the fact that we'll probably be there through the rest of the year at least.  Pray we stay safe and don't go crazy from all the crap going on.  Argh!!