Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Round and Round

Everyone who was awakened at 2:30 this morning to the sound of rats chewing things in their attic, please raise your hands.





What, I can't be the ONLY one!

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhh. What a great night's sleep! When they chew loud enough to wake you from the dead of sleep, life is GOOD. I got up several times over the next hour or so to smack the ceiling with a broom handle. It seemed to quiet him/them down for a few minutes and then they'd start right up again. Lord only knows what they were chewing. At one point it sounded like they were moving furniture up there. Some friends posited that they might be rehearsing a musical production...

So it was another fun-filled day. Took the pooch to the vet to have some new growths checked out (if you're a new reader, I accidentally gave my dog cancer last year and now have to feel her up pretty regularly looking for new growths. This is as advanced as veterinary medicine has gotten in cancer detection). Good news for the day is that one tumor is a fatty deposit and the other is an infected sweat gland that may or may not get worse and need removal. But no nasty malignant tumors. Whew!

While I was at the vet, Rat Boy (the exterminator) was at my house installing rat bait stations. This confused me thoroughly because I thought we were putting them in the attic, under the house, and in the garage. Two of those locations would have required my presence. No, no, silly me. The bait stations are OUTSIDE. Not helping my dog + poison = horrific death paranoia. But after a sleepless night listening to the dulcet tones of the Ratatouille choir, I bit the bullet and went with the bait. And boy, did I ever. When I got home, Rat Boy went up to the attic and just started flinging blocks of rat poison around. Now I know there's no way the dog will come in direct contact with the poison, I'm just concerned the rats aren't the neatest eaters in the world and will dribble bits of poison out in the yard -- where Bodhi can often be found eating grass in an effort to stave off fits of puking...

Anyway, Rat Boy was also going to put up something to cover two big honkin' open window/vent/thingies at each end of the attic. Not surprisingly, his company was going to charge too much to do it, but I wasn't really dying to do it myself. Have I mentioned the attic isn't finished? I also discovered a gas exhaust pipe had broken apart and was unsure if it needed to be fixed by someone who knew what he was doing (as opposed to me). So I called Vagina Man.

Still with me?

How Vagina Man earned his name is a pretty amusing story, but you'll have to wait for another day, my friends.

Vagina Man came over, fixed the pipe, and advised me on what to get to close off the open windows. Fortunately, he hung around long enough to sense how pitiful I am and asked if I wanted him to just do it. Bingo! So off he went to Home Depot and within an hour everything was all better. There is now -- hopefully -- no way for the rats to get in the attic.

But you know what that means, right?

If there were some rats upstairs while the attic was being sealed off, THEY'RE UP THERE RIGHT NOW AND CAN'T GET OUT.

And guess what I'm hearing?

Welcome to Norfolkville Horror. If I emerge from my house with shocking white hair tomorrow, please direct my psych unit doctors to this blog before they make their final diagnosis.

Sweet dreams everyone.

1 comment:

Bert said...

I lived in a basement studio apartment for 10 years (longer than a person with a job should have...but I became very close with my landlord and I was fortunate enough to be there for him in his declining years). No mice for ~5 years. Then a man moved in next door & started raising roosters in his back yard (cock fighting was my guess...what would your nickname be for him AJ? ;^). That first winter, I killed 27 mice. They would wake me at night romping above the drop ceiling.

Big mistake: glue traps. They would get stuck and then start flip-flopping. I would have to get out of bed at 3 a.m., remove a ceiling tile, get the glue trap & mouse down, take him outside and smash him with a hammer. Well, I guess I didn't have to use the hammer, but if you wake me up at 3 a.m., you get the hammer.

I wouldn't worry too much about crumbs or droppings in the back yard AJ - I don't thin Bodhi would be able to get a high enough dose to do anything. But if she gets hold of and eats a dead rat, that could be a problem. Sorry that is gross, but that is part of the problem with poison. The rats will NORMALLY leave the house to go to water and die there. But birds and other animals will eat the dead rat then they die.

Sorry for rambling. I am on a conference call so I have a little time on my hands.

Anyway, I will take mice over rats every time.

Merry Christmas and a rat-free New Year AJ!