So I’m feeling much better after my dental surgery last week. But, we’ve been dealing with a much more horrendous issue at hand. Rats! Rats, and even worse, their mites. It’s been quite the nightmarish week, discovering rats under the house and getting bitten by mites. The house has been stripped of everything. The laundry has been non stop and everything smells of chemicals, in a house that’s been fine with my more natural products up till now. Of course all of this has my anxiety soaring, but luckily I have a husband who keeps me calm and parents not too far away, to get away from it all for a while. We’re having more pest control people coming over this coming week as well as tree trimmers (to make sure the rats aren’t climbing trees to the roof. It’s been a bit crazy here and I didn’t even think I wanted to write about it in this space, because, come on… gross… rats and bugs…. but, I try to keep it as real as possible and this is as real as it gets unfortunately.
We did have a little bit of fun though this weekend. We got out of the house on Saturday and spent the morning at the Earth Day festival up in Ojai. So I’ll leave you with those happy photos and spare you anymore buggy or ratty details…
summerplayshouse 
Oh no, so sorry about the rats, not fun at all. I hope it all gets worked out.
That Earth Day festival looks like a lot of fun, I am glad you had that to keep your mind off the rats š
Oh my gosh, the exact same thing happened to us several years ago! It was a total nightmare (we couldn’t figure out what was going on until our neighbor started getting bit too), I slept with the light on for quite some time. Hope it resolves quickly, you have my total empathy. The festival does look super fun. š
Did it really? It’s funny, when I tell people what’s going on, I keep hearing horror stories from so many others too. I definitely don’t feel so alone. How did you guys eventually resolve it? I’m thinking we have a handle on it now. We’re not getting bit anymore (I don’t think) and besides dousing ourselves in tea tree oil and peppermint we’ve been working with pest control and gardeners to help control the rats and mites. Ugh. Its been so awful. I’m so sorry to hear you went through it too.
We actually got really lucky. We had been trying to bait the rats with humane traps but then once we discovered there were mites, game over- we set a poison trap. I guess it got him/them on the first try (and thank goodness he didn’t die in our house). But a couple years ago when we had them in this house, we didn’t mess around and went straight for pest control. Once they found the entry point, they haven’t been back since. Good luck, I’m glad it is resolving.
sorry about the mites and rats (rats!!) sounds like pest control needs to intervene, hopefully you will have a wonderful rest of the week.
Thank you Karen. It’s been pretty yucky, but I guess the up side is my house is as spotless as it has ever been. š
Tree guys are coming tomorrow and pest control guys have been here twice.