Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Another One


hydrangea
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry
Well, the RatZapper killed its first rat and this one was even bigger than the previous two, who were huge, so if this trend continues soon the rats in my kitchen will be the size of grizzly bears. This is hopeless. This is horrible. I can't believe that I have killed three rats in my kitchen in the last week and I want to move out immediately - failing that, I want to sit down and cry forever. The dogs are afraid to go into the kitchen now - fat lot of help they are. Why do I own the two wussiest dogs in the whole fucking world? My old dog Toby killed rats (and squirrels, which did cause the occasional trauma in the park but oh well, what can you do) in Baltimore routinely with no fuss or difficulty. One shake and gone. But these dogs are totally useless and, as an aside, in a moment of madness (they were giving away a DVD of classic Lassie episodes and I couldn't resist the lure of the prize inside!) I bought the farting dogfood again so by tonight not only will I own paranoid, fat, useless dogs, they'll be paranoid, fat, useless FARTING dogs from hell who are cowering under my bed and filling the air with their noxious gases while the rats make merry sport sacrificing one another to the RatZapper. Oh god, oh god.

They're not the only ones who are afraid to go into the kitchen though. I can barely bring myself to cross the threshold now even in daylight and after dark I'm just too terrified to go in there. I can't stand this. I know the refrigerator has to be moved and the holes found (the traps next to the fridge are the ones getting all the action) but I can't move the fridge myself. Not only can I not move it alone, but if I move it and there's, like, a rat king in there I will die, I tell you, I will just fucking die right then and there and then my useless dogs will be left homeless, not to mention my son, if he ever comes back from the apparently completely alluring mid Atlantic region and, also, the QOB will have to find someone else to schedule her doctor's appointments, so, you see, it's not a terribly convenient time for me to shuffle off this mortal coil.

I feel like an idiot and a wimp but I also feel like I need some help here. What I need is an army of big tough macho spitting men with bats and maces and pointed sticks and maybe elephant guns and shit to go into the garage and pull everything out and kill the army of rats who my paranoid self is sure will cascade out of every box and rubbermaid container out there. The very thought makes me nearly hysterical so I'm thinking about advertising on Craigslist for some mercenaries or temporarily unemployed members of the French Foreign Legion to come over and deal with these rats. Which probably won't work either. Oh god, oh god.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Asheville rat terrier, free to good home:

http://asheville.craigslist.org/pet/702997988.html

Anonymous said...

I thought one upside of renting is that you can call your landlord for pest control.

mygothlaundry said...

No, Haskell, no more dogs. Particularly no terriers. Yargh.

Yeah, I finally caved and called the landlord. My many years of experience renting has taught me that the more you call the landlord, the faster he throws you out on your ass. This is not supposed to be legal, but, amazingly, it happens all the time - has happened to me, actually. Once the lease expires and you're going month to month, as I am right now, you're basically like an at-will employee and you can be tossed with no reason given and only 30 days notice. That's what I'm trying desperately to avoid - almost as desperately as I'm trying to avoid signing another year lease, since I really want to be out of this house in the next 3 months.

My landlord is a really nice guy, though, so perhaps he will be different.

Anonymous said...

You have to get your landlord to take care of this for you. that is his/her job!! They can't throw you out. The landlord needs to call you a professional exterminator and PAY FOR IT!!