What Next?

Ok, so I’ve already had to contend with large cucarachas in the apartment. Fully hideous but somehow expected (there’s even a Mexxican song “la cucaracha, la cucaracha, ya no puede caminar…”). But I’ve never had to face what I did tonight: a rat! In my little apartment!

I was sitting in the dark typing on my computer when I heard something large and plastic fall. I sort of dismissed it as being something in the dish drainer losing balance. But later as I was sweeping the floor, I noticed a large plastic container had been knocked off a bottom shelf. Hmm, I thought to myself, no way that could move by itself, something big must have moved it. But I sort of dismissed that thought too. I finished sweeping and started mopping next to the fridge, when I saw something large and dark scurry back into the cupboard area. Yikes, that was way larger than even the largest cockroach. After consulting with my friend Juliana over Skype (she had had a possum sized rat in her place), I crawled up on the kitchen counter and used the broom to poke around the shelves. Nothing. But then something made me look under the 4-burner stovetop. I thought I saw a tail but could it be the gas line? I poked the stovetop up higher with a broom and saw it! Not a mouse (which would be scary enough) but a rat.

What to do? I opened my front door and tried to bang on the stovetop with the broom, hoping the thing would run out. No luck. I heard my upstairs neighbor come home and went to ask for her advice. She was even more squeamish than me and asked if I’d looked for the landlord Alberto. She helped me track him down upstairs in the front in the apartment he’s renovating. He seemed reluctant but finally agreed to come down. He chased him from kitchen to the indoor service patio to the bedroom and back out into kitchen again. Then he got tricky and made a little nest with a shirt and some towels in a garbage can and trapped the little guy in there. Once caught, he actually seemed cute but I could see then it was definitely a rat and not a mouse. Not a huge rat but I’d say at least 5 inches of tail and another 5 of body – Eeeewwww! Alberto wanted to put him in a bag and let me do what I wanted to with him. I pleaded for him to take him out into the street and release him. But no one wants a rat, he told me. Finally he let him go in the garden which means there’s a chance he could come back.

Roberto, Alberto’s brother, who is in charge of my apartment is supposed to put screens on my window. But he’s not around till next week. I think I’ll have to take care of it myself. The thing that upset me is that Alberto made a sort of nasty comment to me that I need to accept these things or not live here and that I was being picky by wanting to have screens. But it is funny how he called me “delicata” which I think means “picky” because his brother also said I’m that way, just like his brother Alberto is.

Please don’t tell me an iguana is next!