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Rats

Dead Rat In Wall

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get rid of rats

 

My apartment smells like sewage, and the maintenance guys for the apartment complex told me it’s probably a dead rat in the wall.  We’ve been having a rat problem outside in our area, which is bad enough, but when the rats get inside the building and then die in the walls, it’s awful.

When I was in high school, a rat died in the wall of my Mom’s house.  It smelled like urine and decay and it was just awful.  It had died inside one of the walls of the downstairs bathroom, and we had to have someone come in and tear up the walls of the bathroom until they found the dead rat and removed it.  So, I know what you’re supposed to do if you have a dead rat inside the wall.

But, the maintenance guys for my apartment complex figured they’d just do something else, something simple.  They came in and re-caulked the top and bottom of the walls and then  left, saying I’d have to just deal with the smell until the rat had decayed enough that it stopped smelling.  Uh, yeah, great idea.  Or not.  Who wants to live with an apartment that smells like sewage and dead rat??  I would think they’d have to check the pipes to see if somehow rats have damaged them, and then go inside the wall to remove the dead rat.  Because, a decomposing rat means that, not only are there nasty smells, but probably lots and lots of bugs, too.

I had a party planned for this weekend, but I’m going to have to cancel it or maybe convince one of my friends to have it at their place.  I can’t even stand to hang out in my front room, which is where the smell is worst, so how can I expect my friends to come over and sit around in that room?

The smell is so bad in that front room that I don’t even relax in there anymore.  I walk inside, holding my breath, go straight to the kitchen to drop my stuff off and get dinner, and then go straight to my bedroom, where I work on the computer and watch TV until it’s time to sleep.  I’m furious the maintenance people won’t do anything about the dead rat in my wall, other than just add a little caulk to “seal out the smell.”  But, I called the property manager, and convinced him to reduce my rent for next month by what it would cost me to get the dead rat removed out of the wall.  That doesn’t help me if there’s a problem with the pipes, but at least it gets the dead rat out of the wall.  One step at a time, I guess.

Rats

Rat in the House

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“Well, of course there’s a rat in the house.  That’s just great.”  I was speaking to myself, of course.  There wasn’t anyone else around at the moment to fully appreciate the resigned and slightly sarcastic tone in my voice.  There were days I loved being a mother of four.  There were days I was so proud my husband was serving in Afghanistan that I didn’t mind being a single parent for another six months.  This was not one of those days.  This had been the kind of day that ends with me sending the kids to bed early and in tears because I was just too sick of their fighting to bear one more minute.  This had been the kind of day that ends with me sitting on my bed, eyes glazed, can of whatever in my hand, and an open bag of some kind of junk food.  This had been that kind of day.

It had started off badly, when I overslept.  I’d stayed up late, because I had a chance to talk briefly with my husband.  His call had been delayed for some reason, but we did finally talk.  I miss him terribly.  I miss my partner.  After our conversation, I stayed up even later, feeling sorry for us and wishing he could come home and stay home forever.

Oversleeping means that the children are late for school.  When I did wake up, chaos began.  I had to yell at Martin for watching television before school, and make him get himself dressed and ready for first grade.  Andrea pretended like she was still asleep, until I threatened to sing our Good Morning song, and then she was up like a shot and whining and complaining that life was sooooo unfair to her.  Cody and Brady fought each other in their sleep, I think, because they woke up angry at each other and didn’t stop fighting all day long.

I got them all off to school, eventually, although Andrea missed her bus and I had to drive her to junior high.  That meant I was late for work at the recreation center, which meant I missed our morning meeting and had to sit in my boss’ office for ten minutes while she told me how important it was to get to work on time.  My boss is fifteen years younger than I am, and feels she has something to prove.

Work didn’t get any better during the day, but I managed to stick it out and make it home in time for the kids to come home.  Helping them with their homework seemed like a special punishment designed for the worst levels of hell.  By the time everyone had finished homework and eaten dinner, I wanted to kill everyone.

I survived another couple of hours while their fighting, bickering and complaining increased, and finally had enough.  They all went to bed early, and I lay on my bed, too dazed to cry.

That’s when I saw the rat in the house.  It stopped in the middle of my bedroom floor and just looked at me.  “Good timing, stupid,” I thought, “I’m just spoiling for a fight!”

Rats

Rat Droppings

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Rat droppings just do not belong in your office’s break room.  I work in a typical office, filled with cubicles littered with pictures that remind each employee why they’re working so hard to bring in a paycheck.  Some hours of the day are fairly quiet, the sound of keyboards clacking and phones ringing fill the air.  Some hours of the day are pretty noisy, as co-workers socialize briefly before passing files onto someone else and sit back down to a fresh stack of their own.  Occasionally, someone tells a pretty raucous joke, or a highly-entertaining story about the weekend, and laughter circulates.  Certain days of the month are more stressful, when business normally picks up and deadlines loom.  Those are the days when people are more likely to snap at each other or pick up an old bickering conversation.  But, most of the time, it’s not a bad way to spend the days, weeks and months in order to pay for homes, cars, groceries and occasional vacations.

Our office doesn’t have an office administrator or office manager.  We’re all expected to keep our workstations clean and pick up after ourselves.  But, when there’s something bigger that needs to be repaired or maintained, the unspoken rule of the office is:  The person who complains is the person who maintains.  So, everyone pretends they don’t notice the air conditioning is broken so they don’t have to be the one to contact the repairman, oversee the work, and submit the paperwork.  Eyes are averted when the office refrigerator is opened, because no one wants to be the one to admit it really needs to be cleaned out.

I just about gagged when I noticed rat droppings in the break room, though.  It was impossible that the three other people who previously occupied the room failed to notice the black, round pellets scattered across the floor and one of the countertops.  I faced a dilemma.  Do I turn a blind eye, and tell myself that someone must have spilled their raisins?  Do I break out the gloves and cleaner and pick up the mess, keeping silent about the problem?  Or, do I take the proverbial bull by the horns, and take on the responsibility for getting a rat exterminator out to the office, getting nothing but paperwork and hassle for my effort?  The boss would probably also make me send an email around to my co-workers letting them know we have now attracted rats to the building, and making them empty food out of their desk drawers.  Yeah, that’d make me real popular.

But, rat droppings!  You can’t just let that slide by and hope the problem goes away.  Rats could be scurrying all through the walls right now, waiting for us to turn off the light so they can scamper out and run all over our desks, spreading diseases and filth.

I sighed as I realized I couldn’t just leave rat droppings in the break room, nor could I ignore the rat problem.  I definitely needed a raise, though!

Rats

Rat Removal

rat removal
What is it about rat removal that makes us humans squeal and squeak like rats ourselves?  One couple had glimpses of a furry body and long tail every now and then, and were determined they would rid their house of the rat.  Rats can have up to 200 offspring in two years, so they could not wait to get the little beastie out of their house!  Determining to corner the creature and get it out of the house is a much braver endeavor than the actual act, however.  They plotted and schemed how to go about the rat removal in normal voices, bravely figuring how they would do it.

When they were reasonably certain the rat was in their bathroom, they would block off the room with a toddler gate, and the man would enter the bathroom with a box and a broom.  Everyone nodded.  This was a good plan.

Rat nibbling on a ladle.
Rat nibbling on a kitchen ladle.
(Artwork by Sharon Davis. Contact us for her contact info.)

A tail was spotted from behind a decorative box on the floor.  Go-time!  The room was blocked off, the box and broom were in hand, and the man stalked into the room.

“EEEEEEEAAAAAA” The woman squealed in a voice only her dog could hear.  “I see it I see it I see it!”

“What, where?”

“I see the tail, I see the tail, right where I saw it before!”

The man tentatively pokes at the decorative box with his broom and the rat leaps out into open view for a second before scurrying to find another hiding place.  “OOOAAAAA, it’s moving!”

In response, the man pokes about with his broom.  The rat flees to the other side of the bathroom.

“EEEEEE, Oh, oh, oh, oh!!”

More poking around with the broom.

“AAAA, he’s jumping, he’s jumping!”

The man wonders just how helpful his wife is, squealing and screaming like that.  She squeaks out a string of expletives before finally crying out, “Holy crap!” as the dog looks at her as if to say, “It’s just a rat.”

The man grabs his trusty box, and, leaning in as far as he dares into the bathroom, drops it squarely on the rat.  Then, just to make sure, he uses the broom to lift the box back up.  Of course, the rat runs out to freedom, as the woman screeches again.  This is not an easy rat removal, but it is a loud one!

Finally, the man is able to drop the box on the rat again, but only then realizes the box is not taped together, and the rat will likely be able to jump right out.

“It’s structurally unsound!” the woman squeals.  She’s been impossible to understand until now, but she uses the term structurally unsound?  The man sighs and places the broom on top of the box in the hopes that it will keep the rat squarely inside until he arrives back on the scene with duct tape.  At least, he can look back on the incident with dignity, having refrained from screaming and sounding like . . . well, his wife.