My most faithful blog reader has e-mailed me that she is eagerly anticipating reading about the day I had on Friday, so I guess I'll get right to it. This is gonna be a long one. Get a snack and a soda. Go on. I'll wait.
Ok. I had the whole day off and Dishwasher Repair Guy was slated to arrive between 12:00 and 5:00. I actually managed to get up early on a day off, with the anticipation of taking the kid to school (daycare, but she gets so offended if you don't call it school), but then it dawned on me that if DRG didn't come until about 5:00, I wouldn't be able to pick her up on time, so I pawned her off on my folks for the day. She really is such a good little helper, but the fact of the matter is that I can't really seriously get anything done when she is there.
I had actually gotten quite a bit of laundry and cleaning done by the time DRG called about 2:30 to say he'd be there in 30 minutes or so. He actually did show up in 30 minutes, too. I was impressed.
I led him to the dishwasher and explained what it was and wasn't doing. He turned it on, listened, and set about unscrewing the panel at the bottom. I went in the living room to get out of his way.
Now. I was truly just being facetious at the time. I didn't actually believe this could/would be the case, but you may remember this little bit from the entry in which I initially talked about the broken dishwasher:
I am just praying that the problem with the dishwasher isn't something rat-related. You know how they like to chew things and just basically fuck things up, and I know they were below my sink because they ate some poison from there. shudder shudder
I think you know now where this story is headed.
Once DRG got the cover off the dishwasher, he made his diagnosis in about 2 seconds. "Ma'am," he said, backing away from the dishwasher. "A rat has eaten through your motor pump assembly. And it's still there."
He looked at me expectantly.
I stood there with my hand over my open mouth, in horror. "Well, is it dead?" I asked from behind my hand.
"Oh, yes, ma'am, it's dead. But I'm not going to remove it and I really can't do anything with it there." He continued to look at me expectantly.
Apparently big burly DRG expected lil ol' ME to dispose of the rat so he could continue. I told him in no uncertain terms that I would not be removing the rat. I totally don't blame him for not wanting to dispose of it himself, though.
I could not get in touch with my uncle, and I am certain that he had no fewer than 37 missed calls from me on his phone when he got around to checking it.
I called Mom to see if she had seen him. She said no, and I tersely told her I needed him, NOW. She said ok, she would try to call too. She called back in a bit and said she couldn't reach him either and that Dad wanted to know if something was really wrong like I needed the cops, or if it was "just" a rat or something.
Well if I needed the cops, wouldn't I just call the cops? But thank you for your concern.
I told her it had to do with a rat, though I don't consider it "just" a rat, and that I had to go.
DRG waited patiently through all of this, making some calls to his home base and to my home warranty company, who advised that this problem would not be covered by my home warranty. Surprise, surprise.
Eventually DRG said there was nothing more he could do today anyway as he did not have the parts to fix it, etc. etc. and not to worry about trying to have the rat removed immediately for his benefit.
Do you know that DRG actually intended on leaving without even propping the panel cover back up on the dishwasher? Oh no no no no NO. I have dogs, remember? Dogs who may come back in the house and drag the rat out from under there. I told him he was at least putting 1 screw back on the thing to hold it in place.
DRG did tell me that I should not be humiliated and mortified because this is actually a VERY common problem. Apparently, when rats eat poison they get dehydrated and very thirsty, and will do anything to get at water. He said sometimes they chew through refrigerator lines too.
My eyes widened at that. "So, how would I know if they may have done that too?"
He told me I would know because there would be water all over my floor. Well, that at least is comforting, I think, because that hasn't been a problem.
Oh, but there's more. So very, very much more. Are you ready, or should I make you wait because I am kind of tired of typing? Ah, what the hell. Intermission. Take a potty break (the last one you may ever take in peace), refresh your soda and come on back.
Ok. So, I was on the phone within 5 minutes of DRG's departure, and about 45 minutes later, this was parked across the street from my house:
You may recognize that as the Truly Nolen car. Rat Ridders Extraordinare, there to do a free initial inspection. If only the real things were as cute as their little car, I would have no problem. They'd become pets, I'd name them and give them chew toys so they wouldn't chew other stuff, and bowls of water so they'd stop chewing my appliances, and we'd all cohabitate in peace and harmony. But alas, they are nasty and oooky and it is not to be. The car is cute, though. And believe it or not, they said I was not the first person ever to ask to take a picture of it.
Anyway. Back to the Truly Nolen Guys. There were 2 of them, very nice and quite sympathetic to my problem. Of course, it's their job to be sympathetic, I suppose, they ARE there to try to make a sale, but they were oh so kind as to remove the rat from the dishwasher for me. I was secretly hoping they would, but since the inspection was "free" I hesitated to ask. But, they offered and I certainly wasn't going to refuse. I got them a Wal-Mart bag and they whisked it away. He did say that it had been there for several days and I probably would have started to smell it in a day or two. Wheeee.
They examined the rest of the kitchen, asked some questions about where I had heard noises, walked the parameter of the house outside, and eventually went out into the garage and ventured up into the attic.
In pretty short order, the younger of the two men, seemingly still in training, came in from the garage and asked me for another bag. Specifically, a much larger bag than the Wal-Mart bag.
I somehow found the words to ask if this was just a larger rat or if there was more than one of them.
"There's probably gonna be more than one, yes ma'am."
He took the bag and went back out. I sat on my couch and started to cry.
Eventually they both came back in, busting me wiping away the last of my tears. I looked up pitifully and asked, "Can I just move?"
The younger guy headed out the front door with the bag. It didn't look too full, though I purposely didn't take a good look at it, but apparently they had only located one corpse after all. I wasn't sure if that was good or bad.
What followed was like a nightmare come true. A description of the 4 different ways they were getting into the attic and house. A more detailed explanation of poison's effects on rats and why that is bad. Far more about rats than I ever wanted to know. For instance:
- Did you know that they shit 60 to 70 pellets per day?
- Did you know they can hold their breath under water for 45 seconds?
- Did you know that you have plumbing running up into your attic, specifically a pipe that goes down to your commode. This pipe is not capped because it needs air at the end of it to allow the commode to flush.
- And most importantly, DID YOU KNOW that rats can crawl down that pipe and get into your house right through your commode bowl?????????
I got to hear 2 stories of rat entrances via commodes. The first involved a lady raising the lid, the rat jumping up on the rim of the seat, shaking itself like a dog, then streaking off into her house. The second involved a lady actually feeling a nibble on her butt as she was sitting.
I would die like Elvis - of a heart attack in my bathroom with my pants around my ankles. Yep, that's how'd they'd find me. Probably with that rat nibbling at my remains.
No more books and magazines in the bathroom for me. No more time sitting there than is absolutely necessary to get the job done.
In case you were wondering, the lady whose butt got nibbled flushed her rat away. Lucky for her it didn't clog her toilet, considering it came through the in pipe voluntarily and no doubt went out the out pipe involuntarily.
But anyway. I was pretty much sold on whatever it was gonna take to get rid of these things before these guys even set foot in my house, but I am sure that all of that information would have completed any convincing I might have still needed at that point.
So. Truly Nolen is coming back this afternoon to repair 2 holes the rats managed to chew their way into the attic through, cap the plumbing pipes with caps with a a strong screen in them, and a few other things to prevent any more outside rats from coming in. Then, they will set traps in the attic and elsewhere (glue traps in the house. I don't want to imagine a glue trap big enough to hold a rat. God help me). They will return to my house every 10 days (or within 24 hours if I call them cuz I hear a rat screaming from a glue trap) and check said traps, dispose of bodies, and reset traps, for as long as it takes them to stop finding trapped bodies when they visit. Then they will come back and check things out every 90 days, for a year.
You don't even want to know what all of that is going to cost. The good news is that it also includes prevention and treatment for other critters, such as spiders and insects and them flying roaches I was talking about before, for a whole year.
And anyway, can you really put a price on peace of mind?
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