The Real Problem Isn’t Even the Mice

Living Without Margin #1
Over the past months, since the cold set in, mice have taken over our camper. On paper, that is a practical problem. An infestation. Dirt. A cleaning operation.
But in our life, nothing is ever purely practical. We bought this specific camper two and a half years ago precisely because of the exceptional storage space. A space measuring 6.5 metres long, 2.5 metres wide and 3.2 metres high, with cabinets so tall I can barely reach them. We chose it consciously. It could carry more than most campers. It felt like capacity. Like preparation.
We turned it into a storage reserve. Not because we wanted a rolling storage unit, but because we believed the road ahead would demand autonomy. For distance from supermarkets. For a slow return into a society that often overwhelms us. We were preparing for freedom.
Instead, that storage became an invitation. The infestation escalated quickly. The smell alone temporarily made it impossible to go inside. Everything had to air out before we could even begin assessing what had been affected.
Most people simply find mice dirty. For two highly sensitive people with severe contamination anxiety, it was not merely unpleasant. It was deeply dysregulating. Breathing in that air for hours while your body is already permanently in survival mode is not something you just “get used to.” Mart became nauseous almost immediately. I felt numb, the kind of numbing that happens when overstimulation arrives faster than emotion.
Almost all stored food had been affected. Packaging gnawed through. Droppings everywhere. The bottoms of crates sticky with accumulated urine. Kitchen paper shredded into nests. Even surfaces that had been left clean and empty did not remain untouched.
Because of my lifelong history with mice, I know what to do. I understand their behaviour. But the scale of this infestation went beyond what we had anticipated.
Under different circumstances, with our own house, our own washing machine and control over time and space, this would have been unpleasant but manageable. A weekend of cleaning. A reset. A story for later.
In our current situation, it became an operation. Contaminated belongings into bags. Multiple car trips. Throwing away food we had carefully collected for years. Something I hate doing. Part of it goes to the garden birds; that feels slightly less painful than the bin.
What hurts most is the loss of momentum. Every hour spent cleaning or replacing contamination is an hour we cannot spend leaving. We can only work on the camper for one or two hours a week, early on Sunday mornings. What costs others a weekend costs us weeks. Not because we are slow. Not because we lack discipline. But because our access to our own future is limited.
We still have not checked the bed or the clothing. That choice is strategic. Our nervous systems are already running at maximum capacity. Washing would mean: thoroughly cleaning a washing machine soaked in cigarette smoke and dog hair from many daycare dogs, limited access, hanging and drying laundry in a tiny space, transporting everything back and forth, all within extremely narrow time windows. Logistically it is almost impossible. Neurologically it is expensive.
What remains is exhaustion. Mental first, physical after. We did everything we normally do on Sundays, but had to lie down and rest several times in between. This is what long-term strain looks like. No drama. Just emptiness.
This is not only about mice. It is about what happens when you live without margin. When there is no buffer: not financially, not spatially and not in time, small problems do not stay small. They grow. They spread. They dysregulate entire systems. For someone with flexibility, an infestation is an inconvenience. For someone already living at capacity, it becomes a structural threat.
We can handle mice. What is harder is having nowhere for the impact to land. Maybe that is the quiet truth beneath all of this: when you are preparing for freedom but living without margin, even storage can turn against you.
If you have ever lived without a buffer, you know how quickly something small can derail everything. Living without margin changes the weight of events. A repair is no longer just a repair. An infestation is no longer just an infestation. It becomes lost time, drained energy, extra distance between you and the life you are trying to build. And in our case: extra distance from the moment we can finally turn the key and leave.
We are still building. More slowly than we want. More cautiously than we would choose. But we are building.
If this touches you not because of the mice, but because of the vulnerability underneath it, then know that your support means more than you think.
Reading. Sharing. Subscribing. It helps. It creates margin. And margin is what turns structural threats back into manageable setbacks.
We do not need pity. We need space. And we are doing everything we can to create it.