Worst Jobs Ever 1!
Have you ever watch a scary movie where the damsel in distress is lost somewhere. It’s an up-close view of her face and then behind her she hears something, she whips around only to hear something behind her again. You only see this in a movie for less than a minute; I lived this for over an hour. I had a call out in Cherokee County for possible rodents in the garage; easy enough. This is one of my first rodent jobs all by myself, I was doing an internship with a company at the time and thought I was still in training. However they thought that I needed the experience; fair enough.
I pull up to house to see a mansion and meet the home owner outside. I start my inspection in the garage to see a staircase the leads into an open attic. Sure enough droppings are all over the garage and running up the staircase. I walk up the staircase to attic and catch movement at the corner on my eye and I turn my flashlight to that spot and start my inspection. I then catch something in the other corner of my eye and whip the flashlight over in that spot and start another inspection, I notice millions of droppings on the plywood floor. I have just started the inspection and caught movement on either side of me; I finally get a glimpse of how large this attic space is over that garage. I mean the garage can fit six vehicles in it; it’s beginning to overwhelm me. As a regain my momentum for an inspection I hear scurrying behind me; I whip around to see what caused the movement and there’s nothing. I start moving to the area where I heard the noise and I have more scurrying behind me again. Once again I spin around to hear more scurrying behind me; this is happening over and over again. I cannot handle it anymore in fear that I will be attack, so I quit the inspection with less than half of the attic inspected. I head towards the stairs to step down the first step when a rat ran across my planted foot; in a reaction I leap up to try and find a chair to stand on so I can scream and try to beat that rat with a broom. In mid air I realize that where I am about to land is on the staircase some where; I prepared to use my cat like reflexes and land on a step with my momentum moving forward. Once again I hit another step and move forward until I made a near perfect landing on the bottom of the steps. I was in a daze after; I don’t know if it was the rat or the fact that I only hit two steps on the way down and lived to type about it.
I was sitting on the tail gate of the truck wondering if I go back to the attic will I ever return to my family. In my very limited training I know that it is very unusual to see roof rats during the day, they are a nocturnal species unless it’s a major infestation. I give the homeowner a price and a game plan of what I needed to do to solve her issue of roof rats. I gave her what I thought was a very fair price and a charge on coming back out to re inspect all her traps. I only had six traps in the truck, I baited them up and move back to the attic. Now I am money driven and kind of forgot what was happening above. Once again the scurrying behind me happens instantly and I spin around and aim my flashlight and spot a rat. He just sat there and winked at me, I swear that freaking rat winked at me. That was the rat that ran across my foot; I would put my lifesavings on that. I just stand there wondering what do I do on this show down, will he jump on me and bit my jugular. I did what any smart person would do; I went back down the stairs and sat in the truck. After 20 minutes in the truck I was able to psych myself up and go back into this hostile territory.
I charge up the stairs again and immediately place my first trap and move to the next trap; there is scurrying but I don’t care and set the second trap and move forward. Two traps down and four more to go; third trap is beginning work on. As I am setting the trigger on the third I see a rat from the corner of my eye and move quickly to look and he disappears in the vast darkness. The scurrying behind me is intense, but by now I am on a roll on setting traps, number three and four are set. I am constantly looking all around everywhere; I move forward and the scurrying increases. Trap number five is in the works and SNAP! I jump back and take look at trap five it’s still set and I re inspect the traps, trap two has rat number 1 in it, I use another trap and replace it. I walk with a dead rat in the trap back to the stairs and SNAP! I got rat number 2 and recovered his body, SNAP again! Rat number 3, I released the dead bodies in a nice little pile to go get a grocery bag and came back up to see I got rat number 4 and 5. I believe 5 dead rats on an hour job was really good, I carried the body bag down the steps to hear SNAP, SNAP, once again it was back up the stairs.I felt more confident about being a rat assassin and went to claim the dead, rat number 6 and 7. Rat 6 looked like he just ran across the trap as his back caught all the force, the scurrying never settled.
I put out my arm to recovered rat number 6 when a rat charges up my freaking arm! I lunge back and fall on the floor that is filled with droppings, my scream echoed through the attic. For all I cared rat 6 and 7 where just fine up there until I return the next day. I went into the truck to see that all the blood in my body was slowly draining from my heart. My nerves was shot, my focus on the paper work was in and out. The only thing I can think of was the rat that ran on my arm was the very rat that winked at me that day. I did return the next day with 6 more traps and all the traps full, I caught a total of 19 rats in a week and eventually the scurrying stopped. I was able to fix the entry point that they entered into, I guess people think if you live on 40 acres in Cherokee County that you don’t need to close your garage door. I just suggested that they need to close the garage door everyday. This job was the first job that I took home with me, it gave my nightmares for 3 days, it was mostly rats dragging me away and nipping at my shoes and hair.
My preferred choice of traps can be found at Home Depot, they are the Victor Power Kill Rat Trap. They are effective and easy to set, so no worries about your fingers. My preferred flashlight is the Duracell Daylite, this is the best flashlight I have found in 6 years, the clarity helps me with flawless inspections.
