Mrs. Frisby and the Secret of the Rats in my Studio

No, this is not about the beautifully animated movie, or the wonderful children’s book. This is about actual rats trying to invade my actual studio, and the war I’ve been fighting with them. I was just trying to come up with a funny title.

NOTE

I feel like I have to start this with a FIRST OFF NOT LOOKING FOR ADVICE/PLEASE ACTUALLY READ THIS but I feel like I should also put it at the end, so, not sure what to start with here. What’s happening or what steps I’m taking or HOW I AM DOING THIS SAFELY PLEASE DO NOT LECTURE ME ABOUT HANTAVIRUS. Which honestly is why I haven’t talked about it a lot outside of Facebook because the two things I don’t want are lectures and “oh have you tried this.”

SIDE NOTE

I was telling this saga to some friends at dinner last night and before I was even done, was getting “oh have you tried this gadget for repelling them” and “did you know about the diseases that rats carry” so please, let me remind you, I have been on this planet for almost 57 years. I have heard of rats before. I have heard of hantavirus and the bubonic plague. I did not just fall off a turnip truck. I understand suggestions come from a place of caring but unsolicited advice sounds like criticism. I am not asking for suggestions, help, advice, thoughts, or any “have you heard abouts.”

PART THE FIRST

I live in the rural, rural country. Like, get to the ass end of nowhere, turn left, go five more miles. There’s all kind of wildlife out here, some of it awesome, some of it… not so much.

I noticed when we stopped getting rain earlier this year, I had rats at my birdfeeder. Probably looking for grains that weren’t growing because of no rain. All of my friends said to stop putting birdseed in my birdfeeder and I do love my friends but maybe I shouldn’t have listened because soon after I quit adding birdseed, they came inside looking for food (and probably water) (the rats, not the friends). I had managed to live trap a few of the outside ones (at that point I was still trying to be kind and not kill them), and I put them in the aquariums I used to use for my tortoises when they were babies, but I could tell that keeping them long-term was not sustainable (how am I supposed to clean the cage out if I can’t transfer them to a different unit? Also, diseases? Also, I do love rats and they’re so cute but Sweet Zombie Jesus I already have like twelve pets). So they were… disposed of.

Of other outside rats, my somewhat feral cats caught two. My dogs caught three. A couple of them gave themselves heart attacks in the live traps. But when they moved indoors…..?

SIDE NOTE

How to clean rat feces: do not clean it while it’s dry. Dry is dangerous. Moving dry rat feces is what causes dust and bacteria to become airborne, and that’s what causes illness. Spray disinfectant, let that sit for five minutes or so to soak in, cover with wet paper towels or those disinfectant wipes, gently sweep up. Repeat as necessary to get everything up. Then use the same method to either mop or wipe clean, depending on floors or shelves. Bag everything you used. Bag it a second time. Take that bag to an outdoor garbage can (the one you use for pickup, if you have garbage pickup at your house).

PART THE SECOND

Well, I knew I had to nip that shit in the bud, so I started with the electrical current zap traps, and snap traps. And then more snap traps. And then larger snap traps. And then more electric box death traps. And when I got to the point where I thought “surely that’s all of them” I started moving furniture so I could get to where they were nesting, so I could start disinfecting and cleaning.

And that’s when I found what they were using for nesting material. I’m still not ready to talk about that yet, but trust me, everything was bagged or boxed and piled in my trailer and then taken to the dump. I will be hurting about what I lost for a very, very long time.

The three… four?… weeks since that discovery have been constant cleaning, moving things, cleaning, moving things, cleaning, moving things. I’m moving everything in the studio, whether I think the rats have touched it or not, so that I can clean/disinfect everything, just in case. And that’s slow going because everything is heavy and I’m doing this on my own and I know I keep pulling the Sepsis card but I can really only do this for so many hours a day before I’m absolutely beat. I try to rest here and there, but still… I start at about 9 AM and by 2 or 3 I’m absolutely wiped out. And I still need to try to find space/time to make things, to do social media, to work on fixing whatever the fuck the Quickbooks Ai did to my accounting, to blog, to clean my house, to do laundry, to take care of my pets, to go run errands like doctor’s appointments and taking packages to UPS and answering email, and things like eating and showering and sleeping.

I also found (and stuffed full of steel wool) where they were getting in, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s in places that I had told Tim that needed repairs, that he never got to before he died, and then I told Jeff about them, and he never got to them either, so now I have a couple of rotting-through exterior doorframes that I am 100% sure is where the rats got in from. So in addition to sadness, shame, and irritation about the rats, I’m also furious at Men Not Listening To Me. How many times do I have to stand in the middle of the street and scream I FUCKING NEED HELP WITH THIS directly at people before they hear me???? What part of “this needs to be repaired, and it’s not something I can do, please do this for me” is unclear? Does it not sound like I think it sounds? Because I think what I’m saying is this thing here, it needs to be repaired, and that is not a repair I know how to do, but you do, so will you please do that…. but am I really saying, I don’t know, like Charlie Brown Teacher words? Does it sound like wah-wah-wah-WAH-wah when I say it?

SIDE NOTE

Safety first: If you’re doing this in a small enclosed area, open doors for as much fresh air as possible. N95 masks (thanks, Covid, for making these easy to get). Nitrile or latex gloves, depending on your allergies. Disinfectant spray. Disinfectant wet wipes. Paper towels. Trash bags. Do not touch your phone while you’re doing this, for any reason. Do not touch your face while you are doing this, at any time, for any reason (if you have an itch you absolutely have to scratch, take everything off first, wash thoroughly, scratch, put new stuff on). To take gloves off, pull the top of one glove down to your fingers. Use the inside of that glove to grab the other glove, and pull that off,  using the inside of the gloves only to touch the gloves. Do not touch the outside of the gloves. Dispose of the same way you dispose of the cleaning products and feces. Wash your hands with soap and water (for 20 seconds! Thanks again, Covid!). Take your mask off with your clean hands. Dispose of mask the same way you dispose of everything else.

PART THE THIRD

Anyway. It’s been a battle. There’s some furniture I can’t move – heavy shelves Tim built for my ceramic molds – so I’m having to move all the molds off the shelves, clean the molds, clean the shelves, move all the molds back. That’s taking a lot; some of them are very heavy and I probably have 500 molds, if not more. It’s actually taking me a lot longer than I thought it would to do all this; I thought I’d be done in a week, ten days at the max. And I think this is week four. Maybe even week five, I’ve actually kind of lost count. So if I’m slow working, slow restocking, slow answering… I just wanted y’all to know why.

SIDE NOTES

“Why didn’t you just hire an exterminator”. I’m not having any trouble exterminating them. Believe me. My dead rat body count is in the double digits. I started off kind-hearted but when I found where they were nesting the gauntlet was thrown and now I am RUTHLESS. What I’m having trouble with is the aftermath – both the obvious cleaning and the preventative “just in case” cleaning. Did you know exterminators don’t clean? They will set and check traps (which I know how to do) and they find places they come in and block them (which I know how to do). If I need help at all it’s in moving heavy things and cleaning and moving them back. Exterminators don’t help with that. Some wildlife relocation companies will, but did you know most of them don’t do rats? They do opossums and larger mammals (raccoons, etc). I’m not having an opossum problem (I wish I was, the little buggers are cute as fuck and very useful in pest control!). I have a 2200 sq foot studio. Cleaning is taking a WHILE.

“Why don’t you put them in a bucket and drive them 3-5 miles away?” Because (a) I don’t want a bucket of live rats and (b) I don’t want to be in a car on bumpy rural roads with a bucket of live rats and (c) I don’t want to foist my problems off on some other person who also lives in a rural area.

ANYWAY

That’s all I really wanted to say, to let people know what was going on and let people know that when I say I’m tired and overwhelmed, this is part of the Big Why. If there’s an interest (there was on Facebook, where people are following along raptly to this saga) I will write a post about what traps I’m using and how I feel about the different kinds I’ve tried – how well they work or don’t, etc.

Also, I’m so glad I’m not a person who’s afraid of rats. Now, if it was a spider infestation? I’d just set the building on fire and walk away off into the sea.

BEFORE YOU COMMENT please remember that unsolicited advice sounds like criticism. Thank you.