My War on Pests

Today was a very, um, interesting day. First of all, I am happy to report that one of the little friends who has been crawling around in my walls is deceased. How do we know this you might ask? The easy answer would be that he followed in his crazy friend's footsteps and come out into the yard to die where we can see him and dispose of him accordingly. Unfortunately, this is not the case. How else can you determine that you have a dead rat? You use your other senses of course. In this case, our sense of smell. Our housekeeper opened the door to the laundry room and had her senses assailed by the intoxicating scent of decomposing rat. It leaves much to be desired I assure you. We promptly got on the horn to the exterminator people to have them come and remove our stinky friend from the attic of the laundry room. As soon as Mr. Helpful exterminator arrived he removed the panel which allows access to the attic and very quickly came to the conclusion that there was no way he could reach said rat. Thank you Mr. Helpful. A quick call later and we had the neighborhood caretaker, Juan, at the door with a ladder to assist Mr. Helpful in the taking off of the laundry room roof to continue the search from above.

In the meantime, the housekeeper, Erika, and I began a different attack in my room, which just happens to be adjacent to the laundry room. I'm sure the vast majority of North Americans have had a chigger bite at one point or another. They're those little red bites you get sometime in the night that itch for a couple days and go away. Obnoxious, but not earth shattering. (I have had a chigger infestation for the last 2 weeks and wake up every morning with at least 5 new bites.) However, I am sure the vast majority of North Americans have never had a flea bite. Flea bites are bright red, the size of a very large mosquito bite, hard, and itch. When I say they itch, I mean they ITCH. It's not an annoying itch, it's a burning, "oh my gosh I'm on fire!" kind of itch that makes you want to gnaw off whatever limb is unfortunate enough to have the bite. I also have fleas. Erika's and my war this afternoon was against these fleas and chiggers. All my clothes and sheets had to be washed, my blankets are being sent to the laundromat, Raid was sprayed in all the corners, and Eucalyptus oil was sprayed on every surface. The room was then locked up for the day to let the fumes do their work. We'll see how it works.

Back to the rat. Finally having got the roof off, Mr. Helpful dropped down into the attic to fetch the rat. He surfaced with no rat in hand, they re-boarded up the roof, and climbed down. This can't be good. Sure enough, there was no dead rat in the attic which means it has died somewhere under the building or in the walls. Our worst fears have been realized. Unless we want to completely rip apart the floor and the walls, there is nothing that can be done and we have 5 more fun filled days of decomposing rat to do laundry to. Lucky us. Thankfully, the smell hasn't reached my room yet and will hopefully stay away, otherwise I'll be moving into the main house for the next few days. Welcome to Chile!