Raincharm’s Weblog

Or hopefully, just Rat.

Work, physical work, by somebody other than Carl or me has started.

More demolition, but by a guy that could be our kid (except he has a german accent), and is happy to be working in the outdoors. The first bit is demolishing the concrete walk on the backside of the house. Next will be digging for the side sewer.

A portion of the side sewer must be relocated. Because the foundation at the end of the kitchen is being relocated, and will be too close to the new end of the house.

Earlier yesterday the contractor was here with a plumber to more definitively locate the side sewer by snaking up the pipe from inside, and using the locator on the outside to sense where the snake was. This should limit useless digging in the wrong place.

I also had him undo the plug from our floor drain. (Don’t ask – I think I was addled by sewer fumes when I allowed a previous plumber to plug the drain to keep sewer fumes from entering the basement. Definitely a treat the symptom, not the problem.)

All this activity apparently disturbed a sewer rat.

When Carl was brushing his teeth last night he called out that there was a “mouse” in the toilet.
It was not a mouse. It was a small or young rat. Not in very good shape.

The floor drain in the basement was still open, so I put its cover back on. (We had a family of rats enter this way before. The cover is now covered with 1/4″ hardware cloth.)
But after a short thought I realized the rat had come up through the toilet.
This is not that unusual.
The sewer pipes are not full of water, and there is only a short bit of underwater work to get from the wet pipe to the dry house.

HINT: This is one reason to keep your toilet lid closed. The light reflecting through the water in the  toilet shows the rats where they will be able to get out.

Carl trapped it in an old peanut jar (Costco). This morning I disposed of it in the back of the back yard. Life cycle – I am guessing either a crow or raccoon will be happy to find a morsel. (This sounds very cold, but it was not done without some drama.)

I started the morning doing some physical work so he could do his part. Moving a pile of bricks, and other assorted debris from the digging area. And disposing of the dead bodies – which is usually done after you dig the hole.

Last night I cut down the rose bush. It was a lovely rose bush, and we never did anything to keep it going. My kind of plant.  I did not dig up the main plant, but it is in an area of construction. There is some chance that it will be able to regrow next year. Maybe.

And later today the trash haulers are supposed to be here.
I don’t know how much this is going to cost, but it has to be better than many trips to the dump.
Sometimes you just have to let others make their living.

Before the Great Haul

After – I think the ground underneath the house is rebounding

We just about filled their truck

This entry was posted on May 2, 2013 at 11:23 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.