The Rat Situation is NOT GOOD

Y'all. I keep a clean house. Seriously. I keep a very clean house. Sometimes I do not vacuum the cat hair every two days and let it go 4 days or 7 but I keep my house vacuumed and dusted and I keep the toilets clean and I put baking soda and vinegar in the drains on then pour in hot water and the litter boxes are cleaned every two days at a minimum and my house is CLEAN. I am not anal retentive or obsessive about this but I have a FUCKING CLEAN HOUSE. And yet it seems I have rats. Rats in the attic (I have pull down stairs since 2003 which allows me only to store suitcases, Christmas ornaments and cat carriers up there). Rats in the crawl space (I go under every couple of months to change out the whole house water filter and furnace filter).

Rat guy came today and went up in the attic and told me he was kind of surprised because he has only seen this kind of rat activity in houses that have sat empty on the bad housing market for many months. I mentioned (sheepishly) the year in TYO and the past 5 months in Santiago and he kind of nodded and said that would do it. So yet another "invisible"cost of international travel.

$2753.00. On my fucking Visa card which even though it is a very low percentage rate I will pay about $22,000 for this problem by the time I pay it off in 2048.

Needless to say there will be no totally cool renovation projects around here to bring to you for at least 18 months and likely longer. But this is a part of home ownership and when I go to bed tonight I know I own my own home and I have taken care of a problem.

I am so fucking depressed.