RATS!!!

My house at St. Teresa's has...how do you say...a little bit of a rat problem. To put it bluntly, my ceiling is infested with many, many rats! I didn't just find this out today. In fact, I knew this before I even left the States...and yes I still came here. I suppose there must be a greater power working inside me. Every night while I am lying in bed I can hear what sounds like hippos playing shuffleboard on pogosticks across my ceiling. Okay, maybe I exaggerated a little, but you get the point. They're loud!!! The good news is that they are not, I repeat, NOT in the house. But please don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I'm more amused by it than anything. Somehow they find, or chew, a hole into the roof outside and then they make themselves at home in my ceiling.

Up until now I was just hearing them, but today was the first day that I actually saw a rat. In fact I saw many rats...

There wasn't much going on today after work so I sat reading in the sitting room. The front door was open for the breeze. I looked up from my book (C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce) when I started to hear the pitter-patter of something running through the rain gutters. That's when I saw them through my door. They weren't that big, but still they were big enough and were followed by their long and thick, hairless tails. This is when I began to investigate. While outside, the rats were nowhere to be seen. I took a walk around the courtyard and found what looked like a hornet's nest hanging from one corner of the roof, made of red soil. This is when I though it would be a good idea to knock it down. The last thing I need is hornets in my courtyard. So I grabbed a long mop handle from the house and began hitting the nest to break it apart. Pieces of dried red soil began to fall to the ground and revealed a hole leading into the roof. This was when along with the soil many baby rats began falling out of the roof as well. They kept coming until there where at least five or six of them. It was pretty disgusting. They were only babies and they couldn't run away so I swept them up and took them out in a field far far away. I hope that is the last I will see of them. But as for their parents, who are still in the ceiling, they will be feasting on rat poison very soon.

UPDATE
I have since had rat poison put into my ceiling and I have seen my first victim. The poison I am using is called Storm and it's pretty brilliant. When ingested the rats become very thristy and come out of the roof to find water. Shortly after they find themselves "belly-up" outside, and not in my ceiling. Poor buggers!!!