My contractor got married on Saturday and took Sunday and Monday off to honeymoon, so there’s been no change on the destruction/construction front.

When you start a project like this, you know about the big expenses–remodeling projects cost way more than you would ever think reasonable, but you sort of expect that and you rearrange your financial life to accommodate. You even expect budget increases due to the infamous “while we’re at it, we might as well…” syndrome, and then there’s the extra costs of eating out, eating prepared foods, and so on. What you DON’T expect are the sneaky little incidental expenses, viz.:

Plastic crates for the kitchen stuff that needs to remain quasi-accessible for basic survival. $36.

Moving boxes for everything else. Got lucky there: borrowed boxes from friend and office. $0.

New mattress pad and water vinyl mattress case, after cat expresses displeasure at household upheaval. $54.

Dual-burner Coleman camping stove and gallon of white fuel for cooking outside for the next three months. $72.

Having found rat scat all over the insulation where Jon opened up the walls, I now know my rat situation is as bad as I’d feared it was. Jon commented that on a recent job he encountered a foot-long (plus tail) rat so dead and dessicated it had “the consistency of a Cheeto.” His colorful description evoked giggles, shudders, and the memory of having to evict several somethings similar from my crawlspace a few months ago. Ugh. I plan to buy more rat poison refills. $25.