El Andalous - Rodent Prevention

Kitten on My Balcony - Feeding on Rodents?

I still occasionally hear mice or rats running about above my kitchen and bathroom. They can’t enter my flat (phew), but on occasion I will hear them squeak and sometimes it sounds as if they are having a bit of a fight. Generally, though, it’s just the noise of their feet scuttling across that I hear. The preferred way of catching them seems to be the use of sticky mats that are laid out on the floor and then if  a rodent comes along, it gets stuck on the glue and can't escape.

When I heard the sound of feet scampering around above my kitchen at night, I called our rat prevention guy a few days running, but although I called him, I knew the rodents weren't being caught.  If they are caught, I usually hear the sticky mat as it's being thrust about as the rodent struggles to get free from it. Alternatively, the trapped rodent may just keep on squeaking intermittently as it's lying flat on the sticky surface, particularly if I start cooking and it can smell the enticing smells (poor thing!). Either way, it’s not very nice. Anyway, I didn't hear any squeals or the thumps of the sticky mat being dragged along the floor, so I gave up calling him every day. Why waste his time and mine?

Anyway, that’s an example of my lack of assertiveness. I told Stephen that I’d given up asking the pest prevention guy to check because I didn’t see what else they could do since they had the sticky mats everywhere but nothing was being caught. They’d said there were no holes for the rodents to get through (although obviously they are getting in from somewhere) or that, if there were holes, they were impossible to block because of the electrical wiring. The rat guy had also claimed it was impossible for the rodents to get above my bathroom (although I could hear them).

So, one day, Stephen came round with the rat guy and told the rat guy that he was useless and that he should lose his job if he can’t actually catch the rodents. This is all true, of course, but I felt embarrassed at seeing the guy being shouted at. It was what was needed though.

The next day the rat guy came round and checked. He asked me not to speak to Stephen again if I had rodents. I explained that it was true that something needed to be done because the rodents weren’t being caught and I was able to hear them above my kitchen every evening. Clearly stressed, Shizu (the rat guy) told me that he might lose his job and that we needed to keep my rat problem a secret between him and me. I again said that the problem nevertheless needed to be solved.

So, despite my initial embarrassment, I have to say that Stephen’s approach worked (thank you, Stephen!). The next day, Shizu went into the area above my bathroom. I have no idea how he got there, but I believe he did go there, because he said the area went right through to the air conditioning in my bedroom. This seems plausible, since when the rats were in my flat when I first arrived in El Andalous over five years ago (see those blogs if you haven't read them), I thought I saw a tail dangling down from my air conditioning unit. In retrospect, though, I do wonder if at that stage I was hallucinating with fear and sheer exhaustion through lack of sleep. Anyway, Shizu said he put some concrete over the areas in that bit above my bathroom where the rodents might be coming in.

He put some more sticky mats down in the area above my kitchen to trap any rodents that may still enter in and then the next day brought some concrete with him to try to block any holes in the area above my kitchen. He even brought his own ladder instead of using mine. Once he had stuck his head through the opening into the area above my kitchen and looked with a torch, he managed to find a hole (with a gasp of surprise) and blocked it. At this point I gave him a baksheesh (tip) for the first time to reward him for possibly actually making a difference. So, hopefully Stephen’s bad cop and my nice cop routine will send the right message.

The rodent noises stopped for a few nights but then I heard one enter from a different direction. I called him again, and he moved all the sticky mats so that they covered that entire area where I now thought they were coming in and then said that if he caught one, he would come back with some concrete and try to block where they were coming from. Unfortunately, I had to go into town the day he was going to come with the concrete and then the next day was my final day, so I’m not sure if he’s actually done that. I’ll no doubt find out when I’m next back in Egypt.

Anyway, this is a good example of what it’s like trying to get things done over here – you get multiple excuses and no action and really, to get stuff done, you need to act very angry. Egyptians are quite loud when they speak to each other and often sound as if they are having arguments, so I think this is possibly the only communication style that is respected by many.