In Part One, I described the harrowing beginning of rats invading my home. Here, I continue with the frustrating and Sisyphean task of eradicating them from my home.

HOA plumbers opened the floor access panel to my washing machine plumbing and discovered rat feces everywhere (see photos below). Rats had indeed chewed through the hot water PEX pipes and all the pipe insulation. One of the plumbers turned off the water to my addition and the spewing stopped. Unbeknownst to any of us at the time, the steam emanating from the hot water leak had corroded my fuse box immediately outside my addition.  Not only that, but rats had chewed through the wires in the fuse box plus the wires in a mini-split unit located at the ceiling on the opposite side of my home. That night, with an outside temperature of 5 degrees, the temperature inside my home plummeted to 51 degrees. I had no hot water, no heat and no will to live. I wrapped myself in swaddling blankets so I wouldn’t go feral.

Long story even longer, the Professional Disaster and Recovery Company (that was its literal name which I will shorten to PDRC as in ASAP, SOS, OMG and LOL) was called in to clean up contamination and destruction from a major rat infestation in my home that could have been prevented months earlier. 

As an aside, every year rat infestation in America costs between $19 and $27 billion with residential costs between $300 and $1,000. Even more costly are the psychological manifestations: loss of sanctuary; anxiety and hypervigilance; sleep disturbance; obsessive behaviors and physical symptoms with psychological roots such as unexplained headaches, dizziness, nausea, and in my case, an eruption of painful canker sores in my mouth from all the stress. The physical destruction and subsequent extermination (eight separate visits from Pest Control) and repair in my home would end up costing my HOA approximately $7,000, not including the time invested by the HOA maintenance team. The cost of the impact on my psyche?  Between $19 and $27 billion.

PDRC removed the washer and dryer from my addition and found large holes along the bottom of the outside walls. The flood of hot water had mildewed and destroyed the floor. Beneath the floor, PDRC discovered a large rat nest and yes, a shitload of feces. The entire area was decontaminated, wall holes were repaired with metal, a new floor and baseboards were installed and walls were painted with fungus paint designed to kill and prevent mold, mildew and algae growth.

Meanwhile, HOA maintenance workers went into the crawlspace and replaced my PEX pipes with copper and added electrical tape to prevent the pipes from freezing in winter as well as wire mesh beneath all the pipes to prevent future rattacks.

Ah – FINALLY, I had my home back. But wait! The nightmare wasn’t over. The. Fuse. Box. The asshole Director of Maintenance (now forever a bro-dent) had “forgotten” to order a critical part, so I was now left with several Sophie’s Choices. Because so few undamaged wires remained in the fuse box, did I want the use of my dryer or did I want hot water?  What did I need more? An oven or lights in my bathroom? Heat upstairs or downstairs? Kill bro-dent now or later? The fuse box part was eventually ordered and arrived 10 days later. However . . . wait for it . . . in the category of “I-can’t-make-up-this-rat-feces,” it turned out to be the wrong part. Kill myself now or later?

COMING TOMORROW: Ratastrophe — Part Three: Is the nightmare really over?