Trauma in Paradise

 (this is another excerpt from the personal newsletter about 2021 that I mailed out in Feb. 2022)

        Here is the paradise part.   My current living place is as close to ideal as I could ask for, even allowing that the view from my windows is a neighboring house beyond a fence rather than the Eiffel Tower, that the rent is half my retirement income (though still well under the average for this overpriced city), and the bus that runs past my corner has been all but discontinued, so the nearest bus stop is almost half a mile.  Still, I’ve got a spacious one-bedroom flat to myself, maybe 900 sq. ft., which is more than a single person of such modest means would be able to have in most countries in the world.  My neighbors are pleasant and quiet, and due to the locked doors to the street and alley, we, as well as our packages, are unusually safe.  The building is in a lovely old neighborhood, and within walking distance to buses, shops, restaurants, and several churches.  I bicycle to supermarkets and downtown. 

          But....it is not a new building, and not in perfect condition.  This was the cause of the trouble.  On Sunday evening, October 3^rd, I settled down on the sofa to relax and eat my supper, when my eye was drawn to a movement in the hallway that connects the bedroom and living room.  I glanced over just in time see a Big Rat jump into the linen closet!  Yes, a Rat.  For a couple of days, I’d heard strange sounds when in bed, and wondered if I might have a mouse.  My mother’s home in Eugene had admitted a couple of mice, which she’d had great difficulty getting rid of.  But on the other hand, it might be my imagination.  Well, it wasn’t mice and wasn’t my imagination.  It was a very big rat.

          I telephoned the manager, Rob, and left a message, then went over to my next-door neighbor’s.  She texted him and got a reply that he’d be home soon.  When Rob arrived, he shut the closet door and said he’d bring traps the next day.  For some reason, I feared that the rat might actually be in the bedroom, so I spent the night on the sofa (leaving the hall light on).  This was not the least bit comfortable and not even a marathon of Golden Girls helped me relax.

          Having not really slept, I got up early and turned on the computer.  While posting about this horrid situation on Facebook, the program stopped working.  Odd—but I later learned that this was a worldwide FB outage, not anything I did.  Then I read about rat invasions.  One website assured me that rats will get into even clean houses.  Another explained why one should keep them out:

   Not only do rats carry diseases and have tics that carry diseases, they can do an enormous amount of damage to your home. Rats are champion chewers and can gnaw their way into your house if they can’t find a hole big enough to squeeze through. Some of the damage caused by rats is holes in your drywall, holes in your pantry or in your food containers and electrical and plumbing issues.  http://wildliferemovalusa.com/rat.html

 The advice is to vacuum carpets daily and keep food in tight containers, “But to be honest, this doesn't matter nearly as much as cutting off entry holes into your house.”    Also, a cat or dog is a good deterrent, or you can put some snakes in your yard to eat the rats.  (!) 

          At 10:30, Rob brought over two peanut-butter baited traps, which is placed near the linen closet (we now left the door open, and I managed, sensibly, to close the bedroom door).  I sat at the computer, one ear open for the “ping” which he said would denote an execution.  Finally, I heard it!  Hurrah!  Rob, who of course was working at his day job, came at four o’clock to collect the rat (he admitted that it was larger than he’d expected) and dispose of it. 

          I was too tired to work that evening, but the next day I started in.  I pulled everything out of the bottom shelf of the closet.  This shelf had mostly sewing things (not that I have sewn anything in twenty years) and miscellany.  The only evidence of the rodent was a chewed-up sack of greeting cards.  I tossed almost everything; the wicker sewing basket was old and decrepit already, but I kept the thread spools and put them in a metal box.   I sprayed the shelf and the carpet in that area with vinegar, which is a disinfectant. 

        The following day I had a second doctor’s appointment.  It’s rather complicated to get to the Ambulatory Care Center at U.C. Davis Medical Center from here without a car, one reason I have not kept up with regular checkups.  This day I saw a different doctor, who prescribed an additional prescription medicine.  So whereas I used to be on none, now I am on three prescription drugs: Metformin for diabetes, Atorvastatin for cholesterol, and Lisinopril for blood pressure. 

        Back to the clearing out and cleaning up and disinfecting.  I removed all the sheets and towels from the top shelf of the linen closet.  By the droppings, it looked as though the rat had stayed along the west wall of the closet, and chewed mightily on the molding in an effort to find a way out.  The next day, Thursday, I looked very carefully and found the hole where the rat evidently entered.  You have to lean backwards into the closet to see it.  Where the wall on the hallway side meets the ceiling, there was a small gap, just big enough.  So the rat had been up above, it seems, jumped down into the closet, and then could not get back up.  

          That night the second rat appeared.

          Again, I was on the sofa, and it hopped into the hallway, evidently from the bedroom.  The startled rat ran into the alcove on the east side of the room.  The startled tenant (me) called her manager and left a message and wanted to scream, move out, or just die.

          The rat ran back to the bedroom and I shut the door and again spent the night on the sofa.  Ouch, ouch.  I was too upset to write in my diary, so I can’t attest to the exact order of things, but Rob brought traps back the next morning, and placed them in the hall as before, although now the closet door was shut.  The rat ignored them for a while.  Saturday night I saw the rat in the living room again, so barricaded myself in the bedroom.  The rat went crazy, trying to get into the bedroom, scratching and chewing on the door.  But it evidently got hungry for peanut butter, because around midnight, I heard a thump followed by silence.  A bit later I opened the door and there it was…an executed rat.  Whew!

          Rob came Sunday morning and took away the second rat.  Just in case, he put out more bait.  I had showed him the hole in the closet, and he arranged for a handyman to come repair it. 

          Now I was in a “zone”-of cleaning, tossing, tidying, as I had never been before.  I took armfuls of paper from the filing cabinet and tossed them in the dumpster.  (What?  Well, a couple of them were labeled “To Be Filed.”  Otherwise, I prefer not to remember.  I have an obsession with saving articles and information, and they do accumulate.)  At the drugstore I found a hemp-based stress remedy, which seemed to help me—my heart ceased its pounding.  But all week I was beset by digestive and intestinal miseries.  I thought maybe they were due to stress, but finally I emailed my doctor and informed her that I either had ulcerative colitis, lactic acidosis, irritable bowel syndrome, or colon cancer!  The same day, I read on the Facebook group for newly diagnosed diabetics that a high dose of Metformin (which I’d been put on in late September) can cause the problems I was having, and that many people find relief by switching to the extended relief version.  And in fact, that is what my doctor immediately prescribed.  Actually, I was a bit annoyed: if this problem is well known, why don’t physicians prescribe it to begin with??

          Meanwhile, on Oct. 13^th the handyman came and sealed up the holes and cracks in the closet with sheet rock.  No more rats! 

         In the bedroom closet, I found the reason for rat #2’s frenzy.  It was making a nest of sorts, by tearing up wrapping paper rolls that stood on the floor.  I tossed all of that and cleaned up the mess.  The wall-to-wall closet has almost inaccessible corners at each end, this one with shelves.  Again, I sanitized everything.  By this time, I’d bought some spray anti-bacterial disinfectant at Rite-Aid.  The directions emphasize that it’s for “hard surfaces,” but I used it for everything from shelves to carpet.  Only in January did I get into the north alcove of the living room, which is somewhat blocked, and I sprayed everything that had been on the floor, even books, with the disinfectant.  I also bought a spray made by Woolite, which says it cleans and disinfects after pet accidents. 

          Meanwhile, I found plenty of “stuff” to get rid of.  I’d done a big clear-out in 2015 and more in 2018, mostly taking things by bike to the SPCA shop a half-mile away.  However, it closed in 2018.  This time I placed bags and boxes in the hallway and Rob kindly collected them and took them to the nearest donation center, a Goodwill.  I put out a total of about 16 sacks and boxes of various sorts!  But this doesn’t mean that things are tidier-looking.  Well, only to me.

        All these months later, I still jump at every creak or click.  Well, old buildings do make sounds, and I have an upstairs neighbor, so there are occasional noises.  Every so often I take a flashlight around and search the closets and corners for any little holes.  I won't say I have PTSD, but close to it.  I no longer find rodents of any type, real ones or toys or movie cartoons, cute in the least.  As I have said, if I had money, I'd forget quaint and charming, and instead move into a modern, hermetically sealed, guaranteed rat-proof apartment.