It was seven
Her: We need to stay at a hotel.
Me: What are we, made of money? We just have one more to go.
When the exterminator didn’t show up, I texted him. This is what he wrote me.
I had so many questions – both about his business sense and his parenting skills.
But I didn’t have time to mess around as Sara was at the limits of her patience.
Her: OK, we can get a two-bedroom in midtown for essentially what this place is worth and there’s also a wraparound…
Me: (interrupting) I’m working on it, baby. I’m working on it.
In the past, I’d used AlleyCat Pest Control – who were here last in 2021, and we literally didn’t have a lick of trouble until this time – and I really liked the owner as he was both really good at his job and a great guy.
But he couldn’t make it.
Don (the owner of AlleyCat): You know I’d love to help you, but I’m swamped and I’m also covering for someone else.
Me: Oh crap.
Him: (continuing) But six rats in 12 hours usually means you have a serious infestation. Still, based on everything you’re telling me, it could well be as you think – that when the construction workers next door took down all their stuff, the rats hiding and living in their stuff just ran into your building and set up camp.
Me: That’s what I’m hoping.
Another tenant in my building suggested Chelsea Pest Control, so I rang them up.
They sent someone within two hours that same day (!).
The guy that came, Sammy A., went through my entire apartment and did a bang-up job sealing the pad but couldn’t find the last rat.
Him: I assume he ran out. But your apartment’s totally sealed now; I think a pregnant rat got into your place and had her litter here. Because you definitely have signs of rats but not like a colony.
Me: Well, at least there’s that.
It turns out that, for every rat you see, you have 10-20 hidden behind the walls.
That means that if I had SEVEN rats – the mother, the five I killed, and the one missing one – which could have conceivably been up to 140 rats in my building (gross).
But both Sammy and Don said the tenants would be losing their minds with the scratching and the squeaking the walls and would have definitely seen something.
Here, literally no one had a single problem – including me – until the past Sunday.
Both Sammy and I assumed that the mother was dead in the wall, because flies started coming out from under my radiator (vomit) but, luckily, I had a bug zapper, so they didn’t make it far.
By Friday, we hadn’t seen the last live rat, so we assumed it was gone.
Because of this, I cleaned the entire apartment a second time, which – again – took almost the entire day.
Feeling satisfied with my job well done, I stopped to make tea and heard something in the cupboard.
Opening it, there it was.
I yelped and slammed the door shut.
Running into the bedroom, I geared up in my sweater, jeans, sneakers and got some thick gloves. I was ready for yet another rat battle.
Her: You know you look ridiculous, right? Why are you wearing a SWEATER?! It’s 100% degrees!
Me: OK, do you wanna go grab the rat?
Her:
Me: Yeah, I thought so!
There was only one hole in that cabinet for the power cable to my microwave. It was so small. I still have no clue how the rat got through the hole.
I stuck my hand into the cabinet and sealed the hole with some Gorilla Tape. I did try to grab the rat but I was worried that I’d let it escape if I kept trying.
So, instead, I sealed the cabinet doors and called Chelsea again.
They had a different guy come out literally 40 mins later. He came in, grabbed the live rat, and shoved it into a bucket.
Sara: Did you get it?
Him: (grinning broadly, holds up the bucket, and answers in a thick Slavic accent) Ya!
So, I then cleaned the entire kitchen and bathroom a THIRD goddamn time.
The moral of the story?
We should stop making goddamn tea in the house.
Location: my rat- and mouse-free home.
Mood: still exhausted but also still grossed out
Music: They don’t push, don’t crowd. Congregate until they’re much too loud (Spotify)
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