There are rats in my campus apartment. I wish that were some kind of figure of speech, or a joke, or perhaps an indication that it might be time for me to start a successful French restaurant with my new furry friend — but unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Instead, it’s mostly jumping at the noises of the house settling, bleaching every surface and utensil in the kitchen before food touches it, and praying when I open doors into dark rooms that there won’t be a pair of beady little eyes staring back at me from the floor.
We have been fighting over the territory of the apartment since Feb. 7. That was when the first rat emerged, announced by my roommate Caroline, who ran out of our kitchen screaming. The next day, university maintenance patched a hole in our bathroom. The rats, undeterred by being blocked out of a room with no food in it, continued merrily making noise in our pantry, taking a few victims from Caroline’s shelf — rice, split peas, flaxseed and quinoa. On Feb. 10, maintenance filled several more holes in the pantry. Now apparently hooked on their mysteriously gluten-free diet, the rats bided their time until Sunday, when we had relaxed into the idea of no longer sharing our house with plague-bearing interlopers, and struck again, snacking on the only food still left exposed: A box of Nature Valley bars left out by my roommate Jessica, whose only crime was being too hopeful that our problem was solved.
On Monday, a pest control guy came around. After we showed him a hole almost a foot wide that was lurking behind our electrical box, he helpfully informed us that there were still holes in the house. Maintenance then called in the big guns, and on Valentine’s Day they managed to — at least temporarily — banish the rats from our living quarters.
Don’t get me wrong; they’re still here, they’re just trapped in the walls at the moment. We can hear them running around in there. At first the pitter-patter of tiny rat feet made us jump out of our skins. After a while, we got used to it, but then the chewing noises set in. I purchased a bottle of ammonia this weekend to deter them from their usual haunts whenever they do break through. But for the time being, they’re not in my kitchen, so I may still be on edge, but at least I’m not battling Hantavirus.
It’s been an interesting two weeks. You learn a thing or two when your apartment is significantly vermin-infested.
First, you learn an incredible amount about whatever flavor of pest is intruding on your territory. I have come to respect my foe. Rats can reportedly fall from a height of up to 50 feet without being hurt. They can chew through bricks, cinder blocks, aluminum and apparently glass. They can scale smooth painted walls — something the internet assured me was impossible, but which we saw them do with our own eyes. Their ribs hinge at the spine, allowing them and their disgusting, collapsible body to squeeze through holes the size of a quarter. I now know the width of a rat skull in centimeters. (About two, if you’re curious.) They are preternaturally good at avoiding traps — snap traps, sticky traps, poison traps, and otherwise. In fact, for an animal with a brain that weighs two grams, they’re astoundingly smart all around.
Knowing these things will make you feel unsafe. After reading horror stories on disreputable forums about rats crawling into bed with people, I found it difficult to sleep for the week they spent marauding through our apartment. This will remove every scrap of patience you have for the usual prevarications of customer service. We were never irritated with maintenance personnel — their specialty isn’t pest control, so them missing some things the first two times they visited our apartment is understandable, if deeply unfortunate for my roommates and me. They were trying, at least, to fix our problem, and they did a good job in the end.
It was the people answering the phones who we lost patience with. Collectively, during that week where we were having nightly invasions, we called FIXX at least 10 times. This began to get tiring after our third night spent having to barricade the kitchen. We were politely and repeatedly told that there was no one working after 4 p.m. — and although we reluctantly accepted that for the first few nights as inevitable, after a few days of anxiety, it began to seem like an inadequate answer. Even when we were home from class before then, we never heard rats before 4 p.m.. Since they’re nocturnal, that’s to be expected. So every time we realized that the last attempt to fix the problem was unsuccessful, FIXX was ready and waiting to tell us how it was past 4 p.m again.
In the defense of FIXX line operators, most of them were at least apologetic, which made it easier to swallow—but for me, the last straw was Thursday night, when someone hung up on Caroline after she called them to beg them to send someone. She had been instructed by housing to tell them it was an emergency and that they needed to deal with it, but the 4 p.m. rule was apparently stronger.
I have always been firmly against abusing customer service. I have, in the past, thrown away an almost entirely raw McDonald’s burger because I didn’t want to take it up with the cashier. But on Sunday, after six days of rampaging rodents gleefully trampling our bread on their way to the quinoa, I snapped like a suburban mom whose coupon didn’t work at the craft store. I admit it: I could have been nicer. I probably have a note in my file now that says “hostile,” and it’s probably richly deserved, and I’m probably sorry. But it worked. No more fooling around from the operators. Two days later, the efforts of more than nine maintenance workers finally managed to hold the rats at bay.
As much of a nightmare as it has made our lives, the infestation has been a bonding experience for my roommates and me. Our teamwork has improved immeasurably — one of us wields the Swiffer, another one of us provides moral support, and someone else calls FIXX again in hopes of annoying them into sending reinforcements. Not to mention that our kitchen is cleaner than it has ever been, since we’ve learned a valuable lesson about the sort of company leaving dishes in the sink attracts.
So, I’ve gained some things. Detailed knowledge of rat skeletons, for example. Dark bags under my eyes from the last two weeks of being sure some upstart sewer-dweller is going to climb into bed for some impromptu spooning. A real appreciation for university maintenance. The undying ire of the FIXX line operators, some of whom now recognize my voice. The knowledge that being annoying sometimes gets you what you want. Several bottles of weapons-grade cleaning solutions. A battle-tested alliance with my roommates.
But I can never watch "Ratatouille" the same way again.