Location: New Orleans. I live in an old factory building that has been turned into apartments. For the past 2+ years, I have had a few bugs every now and then, but nothing that wasn’t an easy fix. I live in the apartment directly above the refuse collection room – basically my bedroom’s got this entire building’s trash shoot on the one side, and the room where all of that trash from 4 floors of apartments’ ends up before the porters take it to the dumpster. I’ve never had any issues with rodents here – that is until Feb. of this year. FIRST, let me say that I am not a slob with food everywhere: there aren’t open bags of chips in my bed, or plates of half eaten food strewn about my furniture. For the most part have been pretty consciences about food waste, but have been increasingly OCD about it as these past 6 months have gone on.
First it was a rat in February. I was in my bathroom getting ready for work – I have to think that my guardian angel had my back that morning because I closed my then 16 month old pup out of the bathroom – if I hadn’t have closed him out, I for sure would’ve had a full blown heart attack instead of the regular heart attack I had that morning when my puppy was playing with a now dead RAT. I was beside myself – I took the trashcan from my bathrm, and flipped it over the rat and then I found the heaviest books I could get to and stacked them on the upside down trashcan – just incase the dead rat miraculously revived itself. I didn’t go to work that day. I called the apt office and got the AI answering service – I put a work order in saying pest control and explained the rat being deadin apt. The rat sat under that can for hours until a friend came to dispose of it. I have been very sure to not invite any more vermin in, or so I thought. I never heard from a human, instead Jena, the AI, let me know that my work order had been resolved a cpl of days after.
I assumed that the rat was a one time thing especially bc I have never had this kind of issue here but, boy, was I wrong. I would say just a cpl of month after that my dog was waking me up in the middle of the night and it was freaking me out – I could tell that he knew that we weren’t alone in the apartment. Although this gave me a serious case of the creepy crawlies, I didn’t see any signs of anything, and I figured he was being weird or it was some bad dreams. Then one night he woke me up by going berserk in my closet and then I heard the loud and distinct squeak of a mouse or rat. The blood drained from my body and I yelled for my dog and then freaked out bc I couldn’t see him and didn’t know if he had a rat in his mouth – he didn’t. I quickly closed my closet door and ran back to my bed. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night and just didn’t want to face the aftermath of what I heard happen in my closet. I opened the closet door and there was no blood, no dead rodent – I didn’t see anything like that. I moved a few things around and noticed that there was rat crap all over everything. That winter, I had all of my warmer weather clothes folded in bins and stored under my bed – and for the past few weeks, I was so busy I kept them out and didn’t really go into my closet for anything. I have never seen so much rodent waste in my life. I left another message with Jena and nothing happened again. It took me forever to clean. They had gotten into and on everything as close to the bedside table on the empty side of my bed. I found some cracker wrappers and a few granola bar wrappers from a trip I had previously taken and forgot they were in a bag. All of those rodents who made all of that mess in my apartment over some airplane snacks?!? I have been so good about checking that there’s no food in anything left in my room since. Cleaning/washing/bleaching literally every single clothing and non-clothing item I own was a long, tedious and daunting task Not to mention the potential health hazards for my PSD and me – it was a nightmare, and the office said and did nothing.
About 2 weeks ago, my roommate saw a mouse in his room. I put in a written work order request (the fired AI Jena) and requested that someone come to look for where they are getting in – where are the entry points? Someone did and he found one big hole behind the oven – I had already patched up the 2 holes in my closet that I noticed after the major infestation. This time, I looked hard for signs, but didn’t see any until 3 nights ago. I saw a mouse run into my bedroom and straight for my bed. I banged my foot on the floor and it turned around and got under a shoe rack. By the time I had the guts to get up, the mouse was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t sleep. I wrote a work order request and threw random pennie’s at the places I thought I heard something. From the closet, a long loud squeak had me jump out of my skin. No sleep and nothing was in the closet. I did find some poop around, though. After church Sunday, I stopped and bought 4 of the plastic snapping jaws looking traps. That night I set up two and started cleaning in areas where there was poop. Snap! The trap snapped at 2:30 AM and I take a pic. It’s a young rat. I saw a mouse the night before and now there’s a baby rat in my trap. I went from delirious to determined real fast. I looked around and found about 5/6 additional entry points – most of which are in my master bathroom. So, I added a note to my work order request and said that I have found holes and I need these holes fixed properly but that I am running out of Brillo pads to stuff into these spots. I sent a pic of the rodent, I took pics of all the poop, I used my UV nail curing lamp to look at my bathroom walls and there are trails of urine splatter all over – I took the best pics I could. By 3:30 in the afternoon I still hadn’t heard from the office and maintenance still didn’t come get the now horribly stinking rat and throw it away for me, so I went to the office.
Here’s the kicker, my manager acted like it l’s due to the heat and is just something I have to live with and that it’s totally normal – not only in NOLA, but everywhere. He said to keep filling holes with Brillo and that he would send someone to help and provide more brillo. Excuse me?!? Two summers in a row in this summer and nothing; Ever since Feb. Rats and mice nonstop. It’s not the heat. This morning another one of my traps snagged another rodent, and I could tell by the loud thumping that it was a rat. I wasn’t wrong. 3 different rodents for 3 nights in a row. I haven’t slept but for maybe 2 hrs Sunday into Monday. I can tell that I’m probably going to pass out again from exhaustion, but I’m also terrified that a rat is going to crawl on me while I sleep, so that’s keeping me awake for now.
I can’t live like this. I pay about $1100 and my roommates and I pay a few dollars short of $3k a month to live here. Whatever basic pest control contract my apt has ain’t cutting it. As a matter of fact, they were here in May. They spray for bugs – that’s all I saw.
What can I do? Moving out isn’t a feasible option. I need help. This is going to kill me. The dead rat from tonight isn’t in my closet like the one from the previous day – it’s feet from my bed. It’s by the shoe rack the mouse ran under 3 nights ago. Shouldn’t they offer to clean my walls and have me stay somewhere clean and safe to breathe in until this rodent problem is taken care of or something? This is so nasty and the conditions are unsafe for living. My bathroom walls lit up. I haven’t done my bedroom. If I find another rat turd, I’m going to lose it. I’m paranoid (and rightly so) that every little sound is a rodent coming for me. I can’t sleep and I start work again Friday (I teach). Please help me understand what rights (if any) I have in this situation. Even if it’s something to say or email to management to get this taken care of instead of being told it’s just the heat even though It was just as hot but for longer than this last summer and the 1st rodent incident in this apt in 2+ years happened February when it’s cold.