RATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, so there is no creature I dislike more than the RAT. I'm not that fond of snakes or spiders but they both seem to serve some purpose in the food chain of life so I'll tolerate their existance. The rat, however, serves no useful purpose and spreads disease, destroys stuff and poops alot!! Why am I telling you my opinion of these ugly creatures? Because my garage is apparently infested with them - that is why! First my car starts acting funny so we take it in only to discover rodents have eaten into my fuel injector and spark plug wires. $400 later and my wires are repaired. I try to convince myself that the rodents came from all of our many trips to Paris in December and January and must have attacked my car then. The alternative was to face that I might have rats at home. I wasn't ready for this reality. Then dear hubby decides a few Saturday's ago that we should spring clean the garage and try to find room for his truck to park inside again. We planned to take everything out of the garage, purge, clean and return the items in a much more organized fashion. Imagine our surprise when this little project turned into 8 hours of cleaning rat poo and urine off of every surface, toy, tool, shoe, etc. in our garage!!! UGH! I have never felt so dirty in my life. I mopped my garage floor with bleach. I wiped down all shelving w/ straight bleach. I cleaned everything else with Clorox wipes (love those things). We threw away a lot more than we planned because there was no way I was keeping items the rats had 'nested' in. So travel bags, baskets, Monopoly, shoes, toys - were all tossed to the curb. DH then went to Home Depot and picked up traps and poison trays to set around the garage. Even after everything was cleaned and moved back into the garage - it still feels like a scary dirty place and I have to admit I think twice before going out there alone!!

Fast forward 9 days: Hubby leaves at 5am to catch a flight to Louisiana for business. It's Presidents Day so I have the day off but A has school. I am trying to get the two kids out the door and into the truck (we swapped vehicles for the week) when we spot a dead rat in the middle of the garage floor. I scream, A screams, E is wonderfully oblivious as a 3 yr old should be. I shuttle them into the truck and scoop the rat in a shovel and throw him into a tall flower bed along the driveway. I meant to go back and throw him in the trash that evening but forgot. When I was taking out the trash the next morning, I remember to go get the rat. HE's GONE!!!!! So now I have guilt over the idea that I've possibly contributed to the death of someone's cat. I hate guilt.

So that is my life right now.....consumed by rats and scared of my garage!!!