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| End of Technicolour Weekend - Mourning For My Days of Peace? |
As soon as I was dressed, I went to the security guy at the door to tell him about the rats. He acknowledged it was a big problem and that he would get someone to see to it.
I poured out my cereal and took it to my balcony, only to start eating it and find that it was littered with mouse droppings. Maybe this had been the cause of my recent diarrhoea? I’m not sure how it happened, because the packing didn’t look disturbed. The end result was that it had to be thrown away. It was a horrible brand of cereal anyway, so no great loss.
A knock at the door signalled the arrival of the security guard with some glue traps for mice and rats, which they placed strategically round the flat. I looked on with scepticism, thinking that the rats would be too clever to step on them.
One of them was laid where the rodents had entered and exited the space behind the wardrobe. I gazed at it, thinking that I didn’t really fancy lying in bed at night and listening to a hissing rat as it writhed around stuck on the glue. And what if it was strong enough to get away – then I would have a glue-covered angry rat in my bedroom, which would be even worse. Inwardly, I was freaking out.
I thanked the security guard and his helper, because they were obviously trying their best, and I sat and brooded. I wasn’t sure I could cope with going through another night like I’d just had. The problem was that with my foot in the cast, I couldn’t even make it to the hotel next door to stay there overnight. I just wanted to have a decent night’s sleep.
I stumbled on the great idea of asking Sara if she knew of any empty flats in El Andalous, so I shot off an email to her in the vain hope that maybe I could rent another apartment for a week until my flat was hopefully sorted.
Much of the rest of the day was spent surfing the internet for information on rats, the dangers, the likelihood of them biting you, how to get rid of them, etc. Most sites seemed to agree that the glue traps were not great, and explained that in the majority of cases wild rats do not bite humans unless cornered (they didn’t say what would happen if the rat cornered you, which was my fear).
I already knew that having a pet cat deters rats, but that wasn’t really something I wanted to take on (and where on Earth would I go in Hurghada to find a pet cat?). Snake poo was another option?
Some sites mentioned ultrasonic devices that emit sounds unbearable to rodents, although reports seemed to differ as to their efficacy. Even if this could give me a few days’ sleep, I would be grateful. I searched for places in Hurghada that might stock them, but didn’t find anything, nor could I find an internet site that would deliver them to Egypt.
The most down-to-earth suggestions were the use of peppermint oil, chilli oil, or ammonia to keep the rodents away; apparently they cannot stand these smells. One site claimed that these preventative measures were unproven, and I found no information about whether the rodents can acclimatise to the smell; they apparently can to the ultrasonic devices. I searched through all the cleaning stuff in my flat to see if any of it contained ammonia, but I had no luck.
I also came across a rodent removal specialist in Hurghada.
After some deliberation, I decided to call the specialist. Perhaps they would be able to block all the entrances, wherever they were? To my surprise, the pest specialists were available that very evening. I wasn’t convinced they would help, but at least I felt I was doing something. My experience with Rentokill in Horsham when I had rats there (but not as visible as the ones I have here, so I wasn’t freaked out there) was that they just put poison down, which isn’t an ideal solution.
Before the pest specialists were due to come, I had the weekly owners’ meeting by the pool at 5pm – it was a bit far for me to walk, but I wanted to make it there this week. I’d missed the previous week’s one because my foot was too swollen and I had diarrhoea.
It turned out that the person in the flat above me also had had rats the previous night – she had one crawling down from on top of her wardrobe. Some of the Russians apparently had also suffered. We suspect the rat population grew during the weeks when they’d turned off the electricity and water (and rubbish collection).
The woman above me had fetched security to show them the rat and to get them to get rid of it. In the morning, she’d gone to the manager of the complex to discuss how to solve the problem (I need to find out how to find the manager – I have no idea at the moment).
I asked her if she’d heard me screaming and she said she had; she’d also been screaming, although I hadn’t heard her. However, on my way back from seeing the security guard last night, I’d heard a male yell coming from one of the upper floors that sounded like the male equivalent of a scream. I had wondered at the time if that person too had a rat in his flat, but had decided I was being too obsessive. It seems like a lot of people probably didn’t sleep well last night.
The pest services phoned to say they’d arrived and so I left the meeting. My tactics for the coming night were in their hands!
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