Death. I seem to be surrounded by a lot of it lately. Whether it is a post on Facebook letting me know that some rock legend died or someone's loved one. It seems a lot of people are experiencing loss. While that tends to give me anxiety, wondering when it will strike me personally, it also should make me feel like my problems are insignificant in comparison. Losing someone is hard. And I don't want to downplay that, mock that or hurt anyone when I say this, but you know what else is hard? Smelling death.
For those of you keeping up with all the drama surrounding my life over the past few months, and let's be honest, you can't avoid it, I'm kind of talking about it a lot, you know that there is something amiss at our new home. We believe something is dead under the house.
When we originally looked at the house on the first of December, we knew it had been vacant for about six months. We were told an "old man" lived here previously. He then no longer lived here and the house was sold. Did he move? Did he die? We don't know. At any rate, someone else purchased the property for an investment and placed it with a property management company to handle the renting and upkeep. Anyway, when we first looked at it, it was clean, in good repair and seemed good enough. Upon moving in, again, decent, no issues.
About a week or so after moving in, while settling in and unpacking everything, I noticed a smell under the bathroom sink in the master bath. It smelled a little like urine. I was like, I wonder if someone had a litter box under here before...? The smell continued to intensify. I wiped it down with 409, then Febreezed it, multiple times, put air freshener under there, three at once, and even some coffee grounds. It's bad under there, like, can't breathe, nothing helped. No evidence of mice inside, totally dry, no leaks. WTF? I complained about it daily, you know, so Shark Bait could fully understand there was a problem, because without complaining, he was oblivious. Ok, let's be honest, even with complaining, he was oblivious.
A couple weeks later, I started to notice a new smell. Apparently, it was only a smell that I was able to detect, like spidey senses or something. Shark Bait was unable to detect it. Every day, I was like, damn, that stinks, but the more time I spent in the house, apparently I grew used to it and proceeded to live my life. Fast forward to a week ago when we came home to a note on the door from the water company telling us we likely had a leak based on the meter readings. Receiving this notification, apparently is what it took to unlock Shark Bait's spidey senses. Suddenly he could smell this rotting smell, kind of like over-cooked broccoli. Like, you had boiled it to death and then put it in the sun. It was bad. Shark Bait started sniffing around like he was a hound dog. We narrowed down the most intense smell to the cubbards that were in front of the wall where the water heater is housed. We went outside and opened the water heater compartment expecting to see a leak and the root of the smell. Instead, we saw a perfectly functioning water heater with pile of insulation sitting on top. Apparently, a mouse or rat had made their own personal palace. We know this was not there when we moved in because Shark Bait had opened it up to turn up the water heater.
Armed with this new knowledge, we knew we had a problem. We further investigated one of the other openings to the crawl space and found a heavily leaking sewer line. Well, that explains part of the problem. The property management company sent out a plumber the very next day. He fixed the leak and looked around a little bit to see if he could find the smell. Now, truth be told, he didn't look hard and he certainly didn't feel it was in his jurisdiction to handle this. I can't say as I blame him, but dang. He said he had once crawled under a home and pulled an elbow joint out of some plumbing and a rat with maggots on it fell out on his chest. This is not a visual I was prepared to handle. I felt the chunks rising in my throat.
The next morning, Shark Bait and I heard something scampering under the house, or in the walls. I am certain, based on the amount of noise, it is an R.O.U.S. (Princess Bride reference people, come on! ROUS stands for Rodents Of Unusual Size). So, the live ROUS is clearly not the odor problem, but one of it's relatives might just be. Shark Bait and I went and purchased traps and poison to kill current residents that same day.
So, here we are, the pipes are fixed, but the smell is so bad that as soon as you walk through the door, you get a one-two punch to the face. I get sick to my stomach not long after arriving home and nothing sounds good. Food production is down at the White house. You'd think this is a great weight loss plan, but it isn't. I come home each night, light the candles and turn on my Scentsy warming lamps. The longer I'm in here, the more used to it I get, I guess, but it lingers. It's the first thing I smell when I open my eyes and become fully awake in the morning. It's so depressing. I've come home in tears almost every night. We've called the leasing company again and are waiting for them to come back out, but the maintenance dude is not optimistic. He says, "Well, if it's in the wall, I don't know what we can do...but we'll send someone out to look."
Well, that is mother trucking fan-fucking-tastic. I mean, no worries, we'll just continue to smell death and decay every mother trucking day until the next thing you know we are DEAD. Just put us under the house with all the other fermenting rodents, we'll decompose at some point, right? Who knows, maybe the "old man" that used to live here is under there? My personal opinion is, if you are gonna do away with a body, you should take it to the woods, because, hello, carnivores and coverage. I'm not saying I've thought about it, I'm just saying it's a safe bet.
I mean, is it safe to smell death and rotting bodies? We moved out of the cabin because it wasn't safe (among other reasons), but is this any safer? Are we going to get an incurable respiratory disease? Are we going to be asleep at night and maggots are going to appear and crawl inside of us and start eating our insides out? I mean, I'll be all, "look at me losing weight! Finally!" Oh, wait, my intestines are gone and my butt hole is the size of a dinner plate as maggots eat their way out. But hey, skinny jeans! Victory! And then I die. I guess at least I'll die skinny.
My question is, if they can't find it, then what? I mean, we just smell it until it shrivels up into a fossil? What if it is the old man? How long does it take a body to totally decompose. Should we go buy worms to move it along? What if the rodent is dead and stuck up in the insulation? I mean, kind of preserved? What if the poison we used killed a bunch of others? Because I'm pretty sure they are having a party under there.
What if I start exhibiting rat like behavior? Suddenly I'm scampering from the light and trying to find small places to take a shit that normal people don't (unless we are talking about some of my co-workers and their bathroom habits...shit, maybe that's why?!!!) I start pooping little pellets all over and piss at will. What if I start putting shavings in the bed in place of my fleece sheets? What if I start going through everyone's trash on trash pick-up day and shredding paper with my teeth? What if my eyes get kind of pink and I start "ratting" people out at work all the time, "John did it, I saw him!" Sweet Maryanne. You guys don't know. I need to Google long term affects of smelling death. Hold on, going right now...
Holy Shit. I'm not even joking! http://southernnevadahealthdistrict.org/health-topics/hantavirus.php
We are as good as dead.
I guess I'd better hope it is a human body:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_risks_from_dead_bodies
Look, I don't mean to get all dramatic, but it could happen. You know, when the whole thing with the cabin happened and we had to move and we were searching for the "why" behind the need to move, we thought it was so we'd be safer, because 2016 was going to be so much better. But, now, now I know. It's because we have been lead to the slaughter. Death by rats.
#Deathvalley
#Deadgirlwalking
#rats!
#SnuffingRatDeath
#cantbuymeair
#gonnamissyouguys
#rememberthetitans
#fml
#rememberthegoodtimes
#ihaterats
#someonecleanoutmybedsidetablebeforemomsees
For those of you keeping up with all the drama surrounding my life over the past few months, and let's be honest, you can't avoid it, I'm kind of talking about it a lot, you know that there is something amiss at our new home. We believe something is dead under the house.
When we originally looked at the house on the first of December, we knew it had been vacant for about six months. We were told an "old man" lived here previously. He then no longer lived here and the house was sold. Did he move? Did he die? We don't know. At any rate, someone else purchased the property for an investment and placed it with a property management company to handle the renting and upkeep. Anyway, when we first looked at it, it was clean, in good repair and seemed good enough. Upon moving in, again, decent, no issues.
About a week or so after moving in, while settling in and unpacking everything, I noticed a smell under the bathroom sink in the master bath. It smelled a little like urine. I was like, I wonder if someone had a litter box under here before...? The smell continued to intensify. I wiped it down with 409, then Febreezed it, multiple times, put air freshener under there, three at once, and even some coffee grounds. It's bad under there, like, can't breathe, nothing helped. No evidence of mice inside, totally dry, no leaks. WTF? I complained about it daily, you know, so Shark Bait could fully understand there was a problem, because without complaining, he was oblivious. Ok, let's be honest, even with complaining, he was oblivious.
A couple weeks later, I started to notice a new smell. Apparently, it was only a smell that I was able to detect, like spidey senses or something. Shark Bait was unable to detect it. Every day, I was like, damn, that stinks, but the more time I spent in the house, apparently I grew used to it and proceeded to live my life. Fast forward to a week ago when we came home to a note on the door from the water company telling us we likely had a leak based on the meter readings. Receiving this notification, apparently is what it took to unlock Shark Bait's spidey senses. Suddenly he could smell this rotting smell, kind of like over-cooked broccoli. Like, you had boiled it to death and then put it in the sun. It was bad. Shark Bait started sniffing around like he was a hound dog. We narrowed down the most intense smell to the cubbards that were in front of the wall where the water heater is housed. We went outside and opened the water heater compartment expecting to see a leak and the root of the smell. Instead, we saw a perfectly functioning water heater with pile of insulation sitting on top. Apparently, a mouse or rat had made their own personal palace. We know this was not there when we moved in because Shark Bait had opened it up to turn up the water heater.
Armed with this new knowledge, we knew we had a problem. We further investigated one of the other openings to the crawl space and found a heavily leaking sewer line. Well, that explains part of the problem. The property management company sent out a plumber the very next day. He fixed the leak and looked around a little bit to see if he could find the smell. Now, truth be told, he didn't look hard and he certainly didn't feel it was in his jurisdiction to handle this. I can't say as I blame him, but dang. He said he had once crawled under a home and pulled an elbow joint out of some plumbing and a rat with maggots on it fell out on his chest. This is not a visual I was prepared to handle. I felt the chunks rising in my throat.
The next morning, Shark Bait and I heard something scampering under the house, or in the walls. I am certain, based on the amount of noise, it is an R.O.U.S. (Princess Bride reference people, come on! ROUS stands for Rodents Of Unusual Size). So, the live ROUS is clearly not the odor problem, but one of it's relatives might just be. Shark Bait and I went and purchased traps and poison to kill current residents that same day.
So, here we are, the pipes are fixed, but the smell is so bad that as soon as you walk through the door, you get a one-two punch to the face. I get sick to my stomach not long after arriving home and nothing sounds good. Food production is down at the White house. You'd think this is a great weight loss plan, but it isn't. I come home each night, light the candles and turn on my Scentsy warming lamps. The longer I'm in here, the more used to it I get, I guess, but it lingers. It's the first thing I smell when I open my eyes and become fully awake in the morning. It's so depressing. I've come home in tears almost every night. We've called the leasing company again and are waiting for them to come back out, but the maintenance dude is not optimistic. He says, "Well, if it's in the wall, I don't know what we can do...but we'll send someone out to look."
Well, that is mother trucking fan-fucking-tastic. I mean, no worries, we'll just continue to smell death and decay every mother trucking day until the next thing you know we are DEAD. Just put us under the house with all the other fermenting rodents, we'll decompose at some point, right? Who knows, maybe the "old man" that used to live here is under there? My personal opinion is, if you are gonna do away with a body, you should take it to the woods, because, hello, carnivores and coverage. I'm not saying I've thought about it, I'm just saying it's a safe bet.
I mean, is it safe to smell death and rotting bodies? We moved out of the cabin because it wasn't safe (among other reasons), but is this any safer? Are we going to get an incurable respiratory disease? Are we going to be asleep at night and maggots are going to appear and crawl inside of us and start eating our insides out? I mean, I'll be all, "look at me losing weight! Finally!" Oh, wait, my intestines are gone and my butt hole is the size of a dinner plate as maggots eat their way out. But hey, skinny jeans! Victory! And then I die. I guess at least I'll die skinny.
My question is, if they can't find it, then what? I mean, we just smell it until it shrivels up into a fossil? What if it is the old man? How long does it take a body to totally decompose. Should we go buy worms to move it along? What if the rodent is dead and stuck up in the insulation? I mean, kind of preserved? What if the poison we used killed a bunch of others? Because I'm pretty sure they are having a party under there.
What if I start exhibiting rat like behavior? Suddenly I'm scampering from the light and trying to find small places to take a shit that normal people don't (unless we are talking about some of my co-workers and their bathroom habits...shit, maybe that's why?!!!) I start pooping little pellets all over and piss at will. What if I start putting shavings in the bed in place of my fleece sheets? What if I start going through everyone's trash on trash pick-up day and shredding paper with my teeth? What if my eyes get kind of pink and I start "ratting" people out at work all the time, "John did it, I saw him!" Sweet Maryanne. You guys don't know. I need to Google long term affects of smelling death. Hold on, going right now...
Holy Shit. I'm not even joking! http://southernnevadahealthdistrict.org/health-topics/hantavirus.php
We are as good as dead.
What are the symptoms?
People who are sick from HPS
may at first think they have the flu. The difference is that with this
virus the breathing problems become worse, the lungs fill with fluid
which may cause the breathing to stop and the person to die. The
fatality rate is approximately 50 percent.
Early symptoms include:
- Fatigue (got it)
- Fever (not yet)
- Muscle aches (especially in the thighs, hips, back and sometimes the shoulders) (totally got this)
About half of HPS patients also experience the following symptoms:
- Nausea (got it)
- Vomiting
- Diarrhea (totally the other day)
- Abdominal pain (totally this morning)
- Headache ( yes, every day!)
- Dizziness
- Chills (have been cold at home)
Late symptoms begin four to 10 days after initial phase of illness and include:
- Coughing
- Shortness of breath
- Tightness around chest (yes, at times)
Less common symptoms include:
- Earache
- Sore throat
- Runny nose (yes)
- Rash
How soon do symptoms appear?
The incubation period is not
well known due to the small number of HPS cases. Based on limited
information, it appears symptoms may develop between one and five weeks
after exposure.
What is the treatment for Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome?
There is no specific
treatment, cure or vaccine for HPS. Persons with severe breathing
problems are often placed on oxygen and a ventilator. If a person has
been around rodents and have symptoms of fever, deep muscle aches and
severe shortness of breath they should see a doctor immediately.
I guess I'd better hope it is a human body:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_risks_from_dead_bodies
Look, I don't mean to get all dramatic, but it could happen. You know, when the whole thing with the cabin happened and we had to move and we were searching for the "why" behind the need to move, we thought it was so we'd be safer, because 2016 was going to be so much better. But, now, now I know. It's because we have been lead to the slaughter. Death by rats.
#Deathvalley
#Deadgirlwalking
#rats!
#SnuffingRatDeath
#cantbuymeair
#gonnamissyouguys
#rememberthetitans
#fml
#rememberthegoodtimes
#ihaterats
#someonecleanoutmybedsidetablebeforemomsees
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