In Part Two, I described the frustrating and Sisyphean task of eradicating rats from my home. Here I share how this nightmare finally ends and ponder a moral to this story.

You already know how this nightmare ends – the HOA ended up replacing my entire fuse box and wires and 12 weeks after this unnerving tumult began (and Stanley Steamer had cleaned my downstairs area rugs and wooden floors) peace descended upon the land.

But wait! Just when I thought it was safe to go back into my sanity, I had a routine dental appointment a week later. “Hmmmm,” said my dentist stepping back, his dental instruments poised in mid-air like the shower scene from “Psycho.”

“Sharon, have you been under a lot of stress lately?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied meekly. “I’ve been dealing with a major rat infestation in my home.”

“I’m very sorry, because your two front teeth are cracked as well as two molars. Were you wearing your mouth guard?”

“No, because of an eruption of canker sores, removing my mouth guard also removed mouth tissue which was more painful than the canker sores.”

How ironic, I thought, my two front teeth damaged from coping with rats whose front teeth are so strong they can gnaw through most anything – lead and PEX pipes, wood, brick, wires, walls, a reason for living . . .

As of this writing, I can use my dryer and have hot water, heat upstairs and downstairs, a working oven and lights in my bathroom . . . bottom line, appliances and lights that work simultaneously. I want to believe the unwelcome intruders have been totally e-raticated . . . however, again wait for it . . . they apparently migrated to the four other units beyond my unit and gnawed their way through a fresh supply of electrical wiring, pipes, walls and [fill in blank]. The neighbors in the unit where this all started never heard anything inside the their walls and sustained no damage.

The good news: I haven’t heard any scratching in my walls — fingers and toes crossed. The bad news: three dental appointments await. 

The moral to this story? Prepare to roll your eyes . . . Rat happens.