When a ratsnake ate my bluebird babies a few years ago, I went to the wild bird store to get a baffle or something to stop him. This bluebird house was nailed onto a tree, which I now know is not a good thing, but he gave me a good recommendation. He said the best thing to keep snakes from getting up to the house is to nail carpet tacking strips around the tree. It is quite unsightly, but unless a snake gets in from above the house, there is no way he can slither up the tacking strips.

Coming into this late, but I feel your pain. I'm currently a SAHM with two kids (three and seven) and I'm drowning. But this is what I've learned in the past 8 years with two kids and a DH who didn't know the right end of a vacuum when I married him... Decrease your clutter. I know that this is terribly hard to do, but decrease it. Get what you can, OUT of your house. Bags, boxes, you name it...pack and it and dump it. Goodwill, friends, wherever. As long as it's OUT! Now is the perfect time to weed toys before Christmas. Get a couple of big boxes and have the kids at the same time, put in there things that they do not want. Do not watch them do this. AFTER they go to bed, then YOU go through it, bagging the truly unwanted stuff, and salvaging the precious "I'm saving this for you when you're grown" stuff. Put the latter in a box and stick it in an attic or garage, LABELED. Do not wait or it will turn into another annoying pile. Be tough with yourself about that part. Something from each kid, if ykwim? The rest GOES! Load it into the back of the car, van or truck. Get it immediately out of your house. The next time you pass Goodwill, dump it. Better yet, stick it in your DH's car and make him dump it on his way home from work. He's more likely to do it to get that annoying stuff out of his vehicle. Do this in each room of your house. The kitchen pans you never use. The crap in the garage that has been there for years. Keep dumping. If you are like me, you can fill a box yourself in about 20 minutes. The point of it is, the less you have in your home, the less that you hvae to clean, pick up, wash, dust, clean or pick up. Get large and small stackable plastic bins from Home Depot or wherever. Big ones for the trains...medium ones for the Barbies...are you with me? For frequently used toys used by preschoolers and younger, Home Depot has these big round rubbermaid buckets with white rope handles stick at least one in every room of your home. This is for the little people dumping. A three year old cannot put things away in bins...But a three year old can follow the dirction "grab all of your little trucks and throw them into the big blue bucket in the corner". It's also good for big items like that play weedwhacker, the stick pony, balls, dressup crap that never has a home (unless you have an estate). I can dejunk a floor in that matter (exluding things like board games and other stuff that actualy have to be put back together) in about 10 minutes. Even if it's a large room and trashed. I have a big home. I have three of them near my kitchen, two in the living room, four in the upstiars loft and one in every bedroom, even mine. (Their crap gets in my room too). If you get the kids to dump stuff into the buckets, you can follow behind with the vacuum. Once I figured this out, I had a lot less crap sticking to my feet. When it takes you all day to pick up, you run out of time to do the floors. And then you call Merry Maids or some other service and have them do a ONE TIME deep cleaning. Yes, spend the money. Have them knock the cobwebs, scrub your toilets, strip your beds. Kill the soap scum. While they do this, bang the dirty sheets in the laundry. In about 2 hours YOUR ENTIRE HOUSE WILL BE CLEAN! A clean house is easier to keep relatively clean then the depressing sight of a completely trashed home where you don't know where to start and you don't want to think about how long it's going to take for you to do it. If you really fall in love with this, have them do it every two weeks and maintain it yourself. And get your DH involved. One of the best presents that my DH can do for me at the end of a terrible day is wash my kitchen floor. I hate floors with a total passion. If he does it after I go to bed, I don't even have to watch! LOL And there is nothing better than to wake up to a clean floor...c'mon, you know how cool that would be? Forget roses, scrub something baby! If you really can't swing the Merry Maids, then do the decluttering and have it timed to be finished by Friday. Have your DH take ALL of the kids out for most of the day. I'm talking out to breakfast..then to a discovery museum..then out to lunch...then on errands. Keep them gone as long as possible. The pour the coffee and start banging. This is what I do, because I can't swing the MMs right now. But as soon as our budget will allow it again, I'm going for it. I, too, was raised by one of those 'do it all mothers', but the truth be told, we didn't have a third of the crap back then as our kids and families have now. We used to run the neighborhood because it was safe to do so. Spend most of the day toodling around town on bikes or at the public pool. We didn't have playdates or classes or whatever. We were out having a blast and Mom was ALONE banging the house all day. I had a Barbie and a Ken and a few items of clothing that fit in one tiny box. She drove a Kleenex box, not a covertible. My dd's BarbieS (all zillion of them) has a bus, a car, and a dreamhouse. Are you wtih me? So cut yourself some slack here. She was also powered on two pots of coffee, two packs of cigarettes and hardly slept. She got it done, but beat the everloving out of herself. Hardly a personal goal, if ykwim? So dump the stuff, enlist some help. Get the older kids to take out the garbage, pick up the nitpicky toys or entertain the little ones. Start dumping, and I will tell you a secret....dumping becomes addictive. Eventually you will get frustrated when there is nothing left to dump. And keep up with the Flylady. I'm doing it myslef with varying degress of success. Start from where you are, kwim? And don't have perfect be your everyday goal. You can be perfect or spend time with your children. You can't do both. Better some toys on teh floor and a Mommy that just played dressup, then a Mommy that never has the time. JMO, but words I live by.

DH lived in Turkey for a couple of his military years and began collecting carpets then. He said that in sunny CA and in Turkey they often took them outside and hosed them down, but as you pointed out the weather would prevent that. We've done that only in doggie emergencies, but most often our wonderful carpet cleaner cleaned the orientals too, when necessary. I've taken one to be mended and they cleaned it there, but recently DH became acquainted with a rug dealer who had a couple of our rugs cleaned and I'm quite unhappy with the texture difference. Somehow they became softer and as a result tend to move when you walk on them. I'm not sure what the process was, but I suggest that you make certain that they won't alter the texture when the clean off all of that dirt. FWIW, I love the new bedroom color and the rug in the space!

I'm still working on my organization and even the type of cleaners that I use regularly. I also very much wish to purge much of the "cleaners and cleansers" stuff that I have. I still have 3 packed boxes from my move (U-Haul smalls) with everything from sifter refills to cat deoderizers in them. Much of this stuff I don't use anymore. For instance I don't have the swifter anymore, but I have refills for it :( I find that my "main stuff" is: 1) a bottle of Green Apple Lysol spray cleaner. I use this almost everywhere. 2) a bottle of no-drip Windex. Windows, mirrors, glass. 3) dishwasher detergent 4) hardwood floor cleaner in a spray bottle. I had hardwood floors installed in my new home and this is essential. Don't know what the stuff really is. Probably something "common", but I got it since it was recommended my floorer. I use the microfiber pads that attach to a mop thingee and have several of them. I've gone thru a few and have to put all of this stuff into a "rags" load of laundry. Haven't yet. I also use just clean whites rags and often just paper towels with this stuff too for wiping up spills that happen on the hardwood floors. 5) a sprayer bottle that I keep a mixture of water and clear dish soap. I use this for most spills and spot treatments on my carpets or rugs. For most things this is all I need. Anything more complicated I wick up the spill with clean cotton rags and use the soap mixture and then call Coit for same day service. Okay I'm lame, but I don't like messing up my carpet. A whole cup of full strength espresso got spilled on my carpet at my old condo and while I got a lot out, Coit (a professional carpet cleaner) got most out and if I had them in right away I think it would have all gotten out. 6) clorox wipes. I know lazy perhaps. But I find them way too conveinent. I have containers of them all over the house, even one in my car.. 7) Orange-glo "wood cleaner". This is the slimy stuff. I use a clean rag and then desiginate the rag for only this stuff. I use this to dust and shine up all my wood furniture which is just about everything: dining room table, night stand, chest of drawers, telephone stand, end tables, TV tables, etc, etc. And then other stuff that doesn't get used as often, but has gotten used since I've been in my new house: 1) orange soft scrub (has bleach). use this on the kitchen sink, the bathroom sink, the bathtub and its tiled walls. 2) stainless steel cleaner that came with my new frig. only used there. works like a charm. I'm too afraid to use anything else on the SS frig. I follow the "directions" on this. Is this a sham to sell this stuff? Would good ole Lysol spray cleaner do the trick? 3) disposable toliet cleaner doohickies. I used to just use jonny mops (oh and when I had multiple baths, one in each) and toliet bowl cleaner. but now I use the wand thing and the disposable thing. I think I have the Scrubbing Bubbles kind right now. That's all I can think of right now. I'm sure there's more. But truely if this is all I really seem to be using, when I get around to emptying those 3 boxes, it means I can just purge them. I guess time to freecycle, or something? I guess these could just be tossed? Or I guess put out on the curb when we have our Annual Cleanup done by the City. But I get the impression that these, some of the stuff at least, is considered "haz waste"? Thanks for any advice :) Cheers, --jans