More unwanted visiters! in The View from the Terrace

A few weeks ago I noticed some fine powder on the shelf of my medicine cabinet. My first thought was that something had been spilled but I couldn’t work out what. It was when I examined it more closely that I noticed some ominous little holes, woodworm. This cabinet is one of a pair of bedside cabinets that belonged to my parents. When Mum moved from Sussex to Herefordshire to be nearer us she took over our mobile home and we moved here. Mum didn’t have room for much furniture so we had a lot of her stuff including these 2 cabinets. I have always loved them, not just for themselves, although they are very smart, a dark carved oak, but also because they reminded me of my childhood. My parents ran a pub and Mum suffered with her feet and often rested on the bed after the pub closed in the late afternoon and we read together.

As I have mentioned before, we have a lot of clutter in our house so it has taken a while to clear stuff and empty the cabinet but finally today I felt able to takle taking it out and treating it. I got Hubby to lift it and take it into the next rooom and was horrified to find that it wasn’t just a few holes, as I had thought, the back and the side to the wall was riddled with holes. After a lot of thought and looking up advice on the internet I decided I have to throw it out

It has gone now. Hubby has taken it outside and will burn it. I feel sad. I still have the other one which looks fine but I am worried about what I may find behind the clutter. This cabinet had only a few holes in the front so is the chest of drawers that stood next to it infested too? I can’t see anything in the front nor in any of the other furniture but I havn’t the stregnth to get them out today

It is all getting me down a bit, first discovering the state of the walls when Tony started renovating his bedroom then more recently the rats, and now I am worried about woodworm. I guess the positive side is that we are finally sorting out and clearing a lot of the stuff we have collected over the years. Hubby is a hoarder and I never kept on top of it when the children were young. Bringing up three children, one with autism, though I didn’t know that then, and having a husband who just wanted to keep everything and collect more meant the house just filled up. I only hope I manage to keep going until it is all sorted.