Home Maintenance, Delayed

Well, the time has come on our 30 year old house for some more extensive repairs than we have ever attempted by ourselves before. Our neighbors noticed that our kid/guest bathroom floor between the toilet & bathtub was "spongy" during our vacation. Oh joy. It could be from the toilet, but since we had the toilets replaced about 18 months ago, we are suspecting it is more likely from the hairline cracks which we've noticed around the drain in the fiberglass bathtub. We are pretty certain it is the original fiberglass tub/surround from when the house was built, because the opening of the pocket door would not allow it to fit through. Nope, that puppy has been there since the house was framed in.

When we moved into this house about two years ago, our home inspector noted some chips in the fiberglass bottom of the tub, but he also noted that it did not appear to be leaking in the crawlspace. However, we have noticed since examining the spongy floor area, that the caulk has separated from our vinyl flooring at the tub, and also discolored. We had the flooring replaced about 20 months ago, so this is clearly something that has happened since then. The vinyl has also delaminated slightly around the toilet...so who knows? Maybe it is a leaky toilet...or maybe the toilet has started leaking because the floor is spongy. We won't know until we get into our rodent infested likely rodent afflicted crawlspace to get a good look at the floor under the tub & toilet. I say "we" but I mean "DH", because I have no wish to go crawling around in the fiberglass and feces that is probably the current state of our crawlspace. I'm sure neither does he, but in the assignation of household jobs this one falls squarely into DH's camp.

I am expecting to find some mold, frankly. I am hoping that it is contained to the bathroom, so we can treat it relatively painlessly with bleach, dry it out, and move on with our lives. However, this whole process is going to force dealing with the crawlspace rodent issue, because we can't leave the bathroom open to the crawlspace without inviting a host of mice to crawl in and make themselves at home in our house. I've been there enough times, thank you very much, and I would like to avoid any future problems. Thus we have bought bait and traps, and we will be deploying them post-haste. Furthermore, we will probably have to do what we need to do to keep the little buggers out permanently, which is to get to all crawlspace vents from the inside of the crawlspace and staple fine steel mesh to the inside to keep them out. DH might as well staple up some strapping to our silt-plagued kitchen drain line too, while he's down there, so it doesn't sag between the floor joists.

Actually, there are a whole host of jobs to be done in the crawlspace--the mesh on the vents, the drain line strapping, and also finding and sealing up holes in our heating ducts, as well as making sure they are all properly insulated. With energy prices heading up, up, up, I have no interest in paying extra to heat my crawlspace. We had hoped to do this in the autumn when it's cool, but clearly the rodent issue isn't going to wait. I had just better have plenty of shandy fixings for my DH, I think, plus batteries for the 2 way radios so he can tell me if he gets stuck anywhere. Sorry, remind me again why we bought a 30 year old home?