Ratted-out

My blogging is a bit behind and I'm going to spend some time catching up. Here are a few things we've been up to and some stories I'm finally ready to share.

About a month after Andrew's birth we started to notice a rodent smell in our garage. Because I was still in a haze of newborn fatigue I chose to ignore it. The smell only worsened. Yet I was still trying my best to ignore it.

One Saturday afternoon when Matt came home from work, we both were in the garage attempting to clean out my kid bus. Matt pointed out an area were the smell was especially strong. I pulled out my clear tub full of fall decor and a HUGE fat RAT jumped out at me! I screamed from So Cal to NYC and ran onto our driveway. Matt chased the rat through the garage while I screamed some more. Well, it got away. Still hidden somewhere in our garage.

We all went out and bought some heavy duty rat traps and set them up. I couldn't sleep all night knowing that disgusting, filthy creature had taken up residence in my garage. Didn't he know the kids and I are in the garage all the time. All I could think about was my food storage and how that nasty rat had most likely gotten into it.

The next morning we got up and I had Matt immediately check the traps. I was convinced we'd caught him. Nope. He was a little smarter than we thought.

Monday morning I called our pest control man to come out. Ruben and I have become BFF's since we moved to Camarillo. Between wasps nests and a single roach on my kitchen floor, he's my new hero. Ruben set up more traps and helped me locate the rats nest. (Which was in that tub of fall decor, that quickly found it's way to the trash.) Ruben also helped me clean out all my food storage where Mr. Rat was feasting daily. That darn rat somehow managed to get into EVERYTHING in my garage. My storage container of Karissa's school projects, baby memorabilia from both girls, most of which had to be thrown away. (Sniff, Sniff)

That afternoon as instructed, I shut the garage, turned off the light and waited. I tried to go on like Mr. Rat wasn't there at all and go about my regularly scheduled activities. After picking up my nieces from school we decided to try and look to see if Mr. Rat had been caught. Somehow I bribed my niece, Ellie, to check the traps. Sure enough she said Mr. Rat had been caught. Since Ellie is a sweet Catholic school girl I asked her to do the sign of the cross to promise she was telling the truth, and she did. So me, Karissa, Addi and Kayley all went to check out the dead rat. There he was, totally dead. Whew!

Lucky me it was a day where Matt had school immediately after work! Therefore it was all on me to get rid of Mr. Rat. Luckily Ellie's Dad, my brother, Matt, has exposed his children to many a dead animal as he is an avid hunter and gopher killer. Ellie hoisted the rat into the trash using a pitch-fork rake we somehow had in our garage.

The clean-up was entirely grotesque. I'm gagging just thinking about it. I couldn't bring myself to take any pictures. It was clear that Mr. Rat had been living there for quite sometime (like a month) and there was an incredible amount of rat urine and feces to clean up. Sick and wrong. I think I went through 2 jumbo tubes of Clorox wipes leaving everything with a lemon scent. At least the garage is now clean.