"Hole"y Moly!!

(from Whitney)

Our company had an owner of an estate call regarding a house she was renting out to an elderly woman and her mentally handicapped granddaughter. The house was not in a bad area. It was actually located in a nice, little neighborhood in Kansas City, MO. The owner was concerned about the state that the inside of the house was in and particularly concerned about the health of the granddaughter. This call came in the early years of our particular company. The owner was one of the only technicians that would run the service calls. He was the "lucky" one to go out to this home for the service call and inspection. The owner of our company is always very respectful of people's homes. He always removes his shoes and does the interior inspection in his socks alone. He knocked on the door of this home and as he walked into the house, he saw rats scattering all over the floor. At this point, he returned to his truck and placed booties on his shoes to protect his own shoes from whatever might be on the floor of this house.

He went back into the house and watched as the daughter sat at the kitchen table and actually fed the rats as they sat on the kitchen table. I do believe she was actually feeding the rats part of her own rice crispy treat! They would have Meals on Wheels deliver food to the two women and the rats would eat straight through the packaged meals before the women could get to them. There were holes all over the house where the rats had eaten through the walls to enter and exit the house. There were holes up by the counters, all behind the refrigerator, along the base boards of the floor, and around the back door. There were holes through the bottoms of every bedroom door allowing complete access for the rats throughout the entire house. The owner of our company continued his inspection to the basement. As he walked down the stairs he flashed his flashlight around the basement and along the ledge of the basement, many pairs of rat eyes stared back at him. Our company has a Padderdale Terrier dog that works for us. He assists in pin pointing where rodents are or sniffing out dead odors. The owner would not even allow his dog in this house, in fear that the rats would take him over!

Our company set rat snap traps in the basement and then had to live trap the rats in the upstairs, since the grand daughter had befriended these "pets". We ended up trapping about 120 rats out of the house. Come to find out, the only real entry point the rats had were from an open sewer drain located in the basement. They had gained access and basically took over the entire house. Everyone check to make sure your sewer drains are covered!!!