Ratatouille
Welcome everyone to another fun filled Friday edition of I can’t believe what I just saw. It started out as another, “Help! I’ve got rats!”, kind of call. As I am pulling up, the first thing I’m thinking is I must have a wrong address as this is a three story condo and I can’t say I’ve seen a rat call in a condo until now. And so the adventure begins…
Let me start off with the homeowner taking me on a tour of the condo, showing me where he is hearing scratching in the ceilings, and the best part was the droppings in the exhaust fan in the back bathroom. At this point, needless to say, I am a little more than baffled. I start the exploration process around the condo and nothing is jumping out at me as an egress point. No glaring holes in walls, around windows, obviously it’s a condo so no attic. There is an outdoor closet, which is well sealed, and after an hour I’m still dazed and confused. Then the client gave me the missing piece of the puzzle. It seems his neighbor had been having the same kind of problem for what he said he thought was about a year.
I receive permission to do an inspection of the neighbors unit only to be utterly blown away with what I’m seeing and finding. The neighbor tells me indeed he has had a rat problem for over a year and has had to move out of the condo a couple of times because one had died inside the walls and he couldn’t stand the smell. The back bedroom in the home was by far the worst thing I have ever seen. Hoarder is the term that first comes to mind, squalor is the next. There were rodent droppings all over the floor, the water closet in the bathroom wasn’t there, and voila, there was about a two-inch hole that the rodents had chewed into the bathroom wall. Mystery of the rats in ceilings next door solved.
The sad part is that the rodents managed to destroy the duct system in the adjacent condo, and this poor man is looking at a hefty amount of money for repairs, due to the negligence of others. Remember that outdoor closet that was well sealed in our first condo’s home? Same closet next door with all kinds of holes which were letting the critters in. Random side fact is that water rats are mostly blind and they do everything by smell and touch. They leave a pheromone trail as they walk and it attracts more of their kind. The fact that the water closet next door was gone and open to the sewer system didn’t help matters either, yes rodents live in the sewers as well.
I know you probably don’t think rats when you think Art Plumbing, Air Conditioning & Electric, however we can help if you find yourself with rats in your attic, or in this case your condo. Visit www.artplumbingandac.com, drop me an email at THW@www.artplumbingandac.com or call us at 1-800-475-1504. We Can Fix It!
House Whisperer out!
