New Evidence

CHAPTER 13

It's been three weeks now, and no more crunching. Our upstairs neighbor is most surely no longer with us in spirit, although unfortunately most likely in body somewhere up there. 

But as we try to purge the creepy memories of its presence in our attic, we discovered the other day fascinating new evidence at its interest in our home. On our way out the front door, we discovered on the outside windowsill the undeniable paw prints of a tiny creature that had seen something it liked through the window. The sill is quite close to the vine that Trevor surmised was our unwanted guest's likely entry and exit point.

Were these the tracks of our neighbor before it discovered the vine, and ultimately our attic? Or, perhaps, were these the tracks of our neighbor's friends who had been invited to party upstairs, only to be turned away at the "door" when Trevor sealed the last vent in? We may never know, but the paw prints are enough to keep our neighbor's memory alive.

Worst-case scenario

CHAPTER 12

There was always a worst-case scenario and it was this: Eventually we would just stop hearing our upstairs neighbor but never find any remains in the traps. Such a scenario could only mean two things. One was that the rat is dead, but in a deep, dark corner of the attic, unreachable by human hands. Two was that it went away, never to return, until, say, a month or a year or two years from now when it reminisced on its torturous days in our home and decided to come back for more.

And now, it would appear, we are at our worst-case scenario.

Trevor arrived with his ladder and his flashlight and dutifully scaled the steps for the fourth time in our house since our friend arrived. As Trevor's body ascended through the attic door, my hopes were high. But instead...

"Nope, it's not in the trap," came the word from above.

Trevor poked his head back through and gave me a defeated look. I started to walk through the possibilities.

"So, is it possible it's dead up there but not in the traps?"

"Sure, that's possible."

"So, is it possible that if it's dead, we might smell some funk at some later point?"

"Sure, it's possible."

"So, is it possible that if it's dead that we may never smell any funk?"

"Sure, it's possible because you've got good ventilation up there. You may never smell it."

"So, is it possible it somehow got out and just couldn't find its way back?"

"I don't see how that's possible."

Aha! At least we were narrowing things down.

"I don't understand why it hasn't gone for the trap," Trevor said, "but it's good that you haven't heard it for a few days. That means it's probably dead."

There was a comfortable silence after that and then, unexpectedly, Trevor opened up his vulnerable side.

"When you called, I was like this," he said, showing me his crossed fingers, "hoping you were going to say that you hadn't heard anything for a while. Because I honestly didn't know what else to tell you if you said you were still hearing it."

It was nice seeing the softer side of Trevor, but still, I was hoping even more to see him come down with a bag full of rat.

And with that we cut a deal upon his recommendation. One more week of keeping the trap up there -- just in case. And if we hear and smell nothing after that? Then our upstairs neighbor may be playing the cruelest trick of all. He may just be with us for good.

No sounds, no funk

CHAPTER 11

Niki has been gone for two days now on a business trip and I am left alone in our house. With my thoughts. And with, perhaps, our upstairs neighbor still lurking about.

But it has been four days of silence. Odd silence. There has also been no funk -- and we are past the three-day window now that Trevor so matter-0f-factly laid out for us. Could the three-day window be a summer window? Could the winter window be five days? Six days? Could our unwelcome neighbor be ready for removal right now? Or could it be playing with us, tip-toeing about only to crunch again?

Our next date with Trevor is set, but what happens if he pops the attic door, disappears halfway up the attic, only to discover an empty trap?

It's getting cold at night. But our heater, housed at the ready in our attic, remains off. We will not give our friend the satisfaction.

What now?

CHAPTER 10

Sure enough, not exactly increased activity, but unusual activity followed that night. At about 2 a.m., our neighbor was back at it. And then in different parts of the house. Near the traps!

But then, the next night...

Crunch, CRUNCH, crunch. Crunch.

But that was three nights ago now. Three nights. No sound of traps, no sound of rats, no smell of funk. What happens now?

Theory No. 3

CHAPTER 9

Once more, it was time for Trevor.

It had now been two weeks since our last effort to seal the last openings -- and nearly a month since the first sounds of our upstairs neighbor. And now Trevor was back.

"I have looked over every square foot of this house," he said. "I don't know what I'm missing. But let's look again."

Around we went, inspecting the north side, then our east-facing backyard, then the south and back out to the west and the front of the house when Trevor offered this: "You have to be kidding me." It had become a familiar refrain.

Only this time, Trevor was staring at a vine that runs up the front of our house, bunching near the roof. "I bet there's a vent back there," he said.

And up he went. "Yup, there's a hole in the vent," he said, making a circle with his fingers. About the size of a quarter.

Trevor offered up THEORY No. 3: It has been coming and going through this vent and now, we have finally sealed off its last entry or exit. As he sealed the vent, Trevor looked pained on his face.

"Are you OK?"

"Yeah, just a little sore. I'm training to be an ultimate fighter."

Aha! Oh, we may not come from the same place, Trevor and I, but we can connect on something. Oh, I may be too weak to pop my own attic door and even look to see if a trap is set (something Niki has had no problem doing during this ordeal by the way since the false trap event) and I may be too weak to even comprehend how someone would want to do this job, but I do work at a sports magazine and we do have a story on ultimate fighting coming up. I shared this bit of information with him and we talked for a moment about TV ratings and arena attendance until Trevor snapped me back to reality.

"OK, here's the deal. You're going to hear increased activity over the next few days. Prepare for it. And then, in two or three days, it will have no choice but to go for my food on the traps." We were back to the three rules: Listen, smell, call.

Thinking of funk

CHAPTER 8

It was with some trepidation that we opened the door upon our return from Thanksgiving. 

"Ready for some funk?" I asked Niki.

We were both ready.

But alas, our house smelled like a house. A little musty perhaps from several days of inactivity, but not exactly funky.

"I think I might smell some funk," Niki suggested. After the false trap episode, I was skeptical.

"Here's the new rule," I suggested. "Unless you are 100 percent sure you have heard a sound or smelled some funk, don't think you've done either. We need to be 100 percent or I won't be able to take the letdown."

Unsure, we went to sleep. And then...

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

"You have got to be kidding me," we said at nearly the same time.

The sound of feet

CHAPTER 7 

Days went on, and nearly every night, the crunching.

Crunch, crunch, crunch. Crunch.

During one session, our rat began to develop super-rat qualities, I was convinced. The nosie I was hearing sounded more and more like it was coming from two legs. With feet. Not paws mind you, feet. I had started to take sleeping pills just to get through the night. They helped. And then, it seemed our upstairs neighbor began adapting to our schedule. 3 a.m. became 4 a.m. became closer to 6 a.m. Was he/it/they trying to make us feel better about this situation? Could we possibly go another week with this?

Well, not really. In a few days, we would be leaving for Colorado for the long Thanksgiving weekend. What if the trap goes the day we leave and the funk sets in? Will we be able to handle it when we open the door? And will the rat, or rats, find their way into our house to have their way with our foodstuffs? What then? What in the world do we do if giant tree rats are having their way in our house when we get back. What then?

Ritz for raccoons

CHAPTER 6

The next night, more crunching.

And then the next night after that.

And the next night after that.

"This is ridiculous," I said to Niki at one point, during our neighbor's regular 3 a.m. routine. At least it was keeping a regular schedule. 

"Trevor needs to just go up there and grab it with his hands already," she said.

"Yup." It was all I could say.

When a week passed with no sound, and no funk, we called Trevor. He arrived and examined the traps. Whatever Niki thought she heard the other night was something else. The traps had not been tripped. 

"It must be getting in from the vents in the crawl space," Trevor said, initiating THEORY No. 2. "There's no other explanation. It can't last a week up there without food, so it has to be coming and going, and the only way in and out is this vent. I'll seal up the vents down here and we'll reset the traps in the attic. Eventually, it's got to go for the food on my trap."

Great, but 'eventually' wasn't the timetable we were going for. While Trevor set the trap, we started grilling him on the question that had been bugging me since our first meeting: How does someone like Trevor purposefully apply for a job like this? How could someone see an ad needing someone to scour attics for rodents and say, I'd like to do this?

The answer, as often happens, is one of relativity. Trevor had been working a night shift at a grocery store when his friend who owned the business asked him to come be a partner. He went from bagging Ritz crackers to bagging raccoons in a heartbeat.

The most disgusting thing he's seen, Niki wanted to know? That would be the skunk that got smashed with a forklift, something he could smell from 2 miles away. 

The hardest part of the job, Niki wanted to know? That would be going under houses to retrieve already dead animals. I won't go into the other details.

"I've got some raccoons in the trunk if you want to see them?" he offered.

No thanks.

"Um, let's say we catch the rat in the trap, but we don't hear it," I asked. "How many days till we start smelling some funk?"

Trevor looked me in the eyes: "You've got three days. Three days."

And then, he was off again.

It's over. Or is it?

CHAPTER 5

Crunch, crunch.

It was 3 a.m. the next morning, and our upstairs neighbor was back.

"What is he eating up there?" I asked Niki. "There's only insulation and wiring. Honestly."

"Just try to go back to sleep," she said.

"OK."

But it wasn't happening. With every move it made, I was fine-tuning my image of its hairy back, its long tail, its menacing face. 

Crunch, crunch...CRUNCH, crunch.

How is Niki sleeping through this?

Eventually, mostly from pure exhaustion, I fell asleep.

When I woke up, Niki greeted me with wonderful words: "Well, it's over." Seems she heard the trap, heard a "yelp" and that was that. My shoulders instantly retreated. It was over. No more worrying about a rat eating up the inside of our roof. No more wondering if it could get into our crawl space, or into our house. Over.

That day at work, it was a relief. And that night before heading to sleep, it was an even bigger relief. Tomorrow we would call Trevor, utilizing Rule No. 1 -- the sound -- and it would be over.

Sleep fell over me. And then...

Crunch, crunch, crunch...

A rat. Or rats.

CHAPTER 4

The bravest man in the world came the next day. Niki was meeting some friends that morning and had told me to make sure the man came when she was there, I imagine so she could fulfill her official role of overseeing bug and/or animal removal. But when he called saying he could come in 15 minutes, I told him to get here as soon as he could.

Trevor arrived 15 minutes later and I began retelling the story: The crunching, the silence, the crunching, I heard him over here, then over here. Eventually, it was time to pop the attic door and take a look around.

"Do you think whatever it is is still up there?" I asked, meekly.

"Probably," Trevor said, with a casualness that only comes with being a professional animal catcher. "Let's take a look." And up he went.

Well, at least half his body. He poked around and about a minute later produced a tiny speck of something in his hand before uttering words that would play in my head for weeks: "You've got a rat. Or rats."

He then proceeded to show off the tiniest rat dropping probably ever produced. How he found it among the piles of tiny rocks and tar from our old roof I'll never know. "It's not infested, but there's something up there. I'll go get some traps and I'll set them up there." Down he came, and there I stood, frozen.

The attic door was open. I was convinced that while Trevor returned to his van, a parade of rats would instantly be marching lock-step down from the open hatch and into our house. What was taking Trevor so long? Where is he! He said they're still up there. They'll be coming down any second now! What will we do then?!!

Foot steps. He was returning. In he came with his traps, and up he went again. He sealed the door and gave me our instructions, which consisted of this:

1. If you hear the traps go, call me.

2. If you don't hear the traps, but you smell some funk, call me.

3. If a week goes by, no sound, no funk, call me and we'll reset the trap.

I chuckled at the words 'smell some funk' but Trevor said: "Don't laugh. You'll know."

Trevor then took a look around outside and presented THEORY No. 1: When the roof was redone, there was a vent that wasn't screened, a small one, but "rats only need a hole the size of a quarter to squeeze through," he said. A quarter!! So, he sealed up the vent. But, he noted, there were at least three vents to the crawl space that looked suspect.

"You mean, it could have crawled underneath the house, up the wall and into the attic?" I asked, trying to remain calm.

"It's possible. Not likely, but I've seen rats get up harder stuff than a wall."

Not what I wanted to hear. His suggestion: If we catch it soon, then it got in through the roof.

And then, he was gone.

Calling in help

CHAPTER 3

When Niki and I were married, we had a deal: She will kill the bugs. It's not that I don't want to kill the bugs, but, well, I don't want to kill the bugs. Don't deal well with them and never have. But an animal in our attic? We had to call someone.

"I'll call Orkin in the morning and someone will come out," Niki said.

I had a feeling this would be a more significant job. But the notion that Niki would call put me at ease. As the day went on, though, Niki was tied up at work and all I could think about was our noise. Whatever it was had gerth. It had to be an opposum. We've seen them in the backyard. But how did it get there?

Over the course of the day I began looking online (side note: If you have something living in your attic and you can't identify it, don't look online, you will only get more freaked out...) to see what it might be and who might be employable to remove it. After a few searches, I took it on myself to call the first company I could find that specialized in animal removal.

At the end of the day, they called back. Someone could come out tomorrow.

Reality sinks in

CHAPTER 2

It was milliseconds after Niki awoke that I told her what I heard.

"There's something up there," I told her, hovering over her sleeping head. I replayed the creepy crunching I had heard, crunch by crunch. Maybe I was just hearing something, she wondered. A reasonable thought. No, whatever it was, it was moving.

We decided to wait another night to see if we heard it again. Nights went past, though, and nothing. Could I have been hearing things?

And then, a few nights later, this time right over our bedroom...

Crunch, crunch...crunch. Crunch.

"I heard that," Niki said. It was 3 a.m. She looked over at me. Oh, I was awake all right. I heard it too.

"How in the world are we going to get that out?" I wondered. 

Crunch, CRUNCH, crunch...crunch.

It was time for professional help.

It began one night...

CHAPTER 1

Crunch, crunch.

That's how it began. It was 3 a.m. and I was up for no apparent reason. Out to the living room I went to see if anything was on television. And then I heard it.

Crunch, crunch.

Huh, sounds like something's on the roof. Oh well. Minutes passed, channels were surfed, nothing was on. And then...

Crunch, crunch, crunch...crunch.

Panic set in immediately. Oh that wasn't on the roof. That was in the roof. My brain immediately started to triage the situation.

1. Maybe I was just hearing it.

2. No, you definitely weren't just hearing it.

3. Why was it crunching? Oh yes, when we had our rock roof replaced with shingles, thousands of little bits and pieces of rock were left on the attic floor. Whatever it is, it's crunching on those rocks.

4. Can it get out of the attic and into our home?

5. CAN IT GET OUT OF THE ATTIC AND INTO OUR HOME?

6. I need to wake up Niki right now and tell her of this development.

7. Don't wake up Niki right now and tell her of this development.

8. What in the world are we going to do about this?

9. I mean, honestly, how are we going to deal with this?

10. Maybe I was just hearing it.

So, I put the television on mute and began listening again. Minutes passed. Nothing. And then...

Crunch, crunch.

Oh, there's something there.