[saltymalty]

Well, I've been through a lot of unpleasant stuff in my wise old age...but this one beats all. This morning we woke up to a pile of wood shavings under my basement door (leads down a set of stairs to the unfinished basement). We have a laundry/utility area down there which includes what I call the Worker's potty...we didn't get a portapotty while we did our renovations, they used the toilet in the basement. Any way, I went down to investigate thinking it might be some kind of critter (like a squirrel) to find droppings and a complete disgusting mess in and around the toilet, which had no water in it. Apparently a rat had crawled up the sewer line and out of the toilet last night. The plumber has already come and removed the toilet and capped the line and the exterminator has put down a lot of rat poision (in child and pet proof packs). Now there is no way for it to come back into the house. Thank goodness...but how disgusting is that? I have totally bleached my kitchen...top to bottom and I have thrown out all packaged food in my pantry. I just don't want to take the risk it got into the food, although there was no evidence of it. The exterminator didn't leave any poision in the kitchen, only in the basement. I stress that the dog, and the children are never ever down there. Has this ever happened to anyone else? The exterminator said this is one of the hazards of living so close to the water. He went on to tell me about all of my neighbors and their midnight visitors as well.

 

[saltymalty]

Not to be totally disgusting here...but when I related what happened to my mother, her response was "I guess my nothing larger than can be flushed rule has to be modified." That was always her answer whenever we would ask for a pet. The cleanup crew just left. We called in professionals to disinfect our basement. They also washed all the kitchen surfaces including the cabinet doors and wiped down inside all the cabinets. They said that since my dishwasher has a sani-cycle, I should rewash all my dishes and pots/pans, etc. I'm on my 4th load (thank goodness I put in two dishwashers). I can't even begin to tell you how creeped out I was last night. I kept thinking I was hearing rodent noises all night long. I'm just glad that it's all cleaned and disinfected now.