Rats!

I realized that living here in Florida was going to be different than Minnesota. I was thinking mostly of the weather, and the insects. I didn't realize that instead of the tiny little mice that I randomly saw in MN, I would see huge rats here. I couldn't believe it. I was completely grossed out. I will have to tell you the whole story.

Scott and I decided to rearrange the living room. We cleared all the furniture away from the second patio door. We still don't use this door, because it just doesn't slide right, but it was great to finally have some more light in the livingroom. We absolutely love the new set up. I may just take some pictures to share with you later.

Now that the shades were able to be opened to let the light in, they are. We love being able to sit on the couch and actually see outside. It's great. We were sitting watching a movie one afternoon, and I suddenly screamed. Yes, I screamed. I glanced outside, into our patio and saw something moving. We have our washing machine and dryer in the patio, which is where I saw this huge rat crawling. By the time Scott looked out there, the rat was gone. We sat there staring in disbelief for a couple minutes, and saw two more. I couldn't believe it. Where did they come from? Why were they there? Is this normal here? I hope not!

We called the apartment office, and they said it wasn't an emergency because they were outside. They would have an exterminator come by on Monday. It was Friday, so I was kinda happy that I didn't have to do any laundry for a few days.

On Monday the exterminator stopped by and set some traps. He used the wooden ones that snap. Now, I have used these before, but I used the ones that are like three inches long. The ones that he was setting were about a foot long. I was not going to be the one to check them later, and made sure this guy knew that. He said he would be back on Wednesday to check the traps and take care of anything that was caught in them. He told me how the rats got there in the first place.

We went out of town over Christmas. We didn't use our washer for a couple weeks. Because there was no water running through the pipes, the rats were able to climb up from the sewer, and chew through the rubber hose attached to the drain on the washer. We were wondering where all that water was coming from. ;) We bought a new piece for the hose, this time a metal one.

Monday night, Scott and I were sitting in bed and heard some loud snaps. Guess what? Neither one of us wanted to go out there and check the traps and see if they caught something. Especially not at night. We waited until morning. Scott checked, not me, sure enough there were two dead rats. Yay!! Not that I celebrate when I see dead animals. Please don't report me. I was just happy to see that it was working and soon I would be able to do laundry again. My clothes were starting to pile up.

Wednesday, the exterminator came out again, and checked and disposed of all dead animals. He set the traps again, just to make sure they were all gone. He left, and that night we heard the loud snap again. We still weren't brave enough to venture outside to look. I was actually a little disappointed when Scott told me the next day that one of the traps had a frog. Poor thing! I love frogs.

No more rats as of now. We have the washer hose fixed, and the laundry pile is dwindling. All holes are patched, so we hopefully won't even see frogs or lizards in our patio. I will never forget our experience with rats, and I will never again take a vacation without capping off that pipe.

I regretfully admit that little critters were harmed in this story. Nope, sorry! I have no regrets. I'm glad their gone.