I smell a rat!

I never gave that phrase much thought until the other night, as we sat in our front room, door firmly closed against the onslaught of rat pee stench, burners alight to fill our haven with the aroma of heavenly autumnal scents, I was playing 'bejewelled' a game, yes, ME playing an online game, which has become my passion, an addiction even because it makes lovely tinkling and crashing sounds and I have to concentrate, not listen out for, or hear any scuffling sounds, no scratching and shuffling, only tinkles and crashes, giddy moments of high scores and victory and on to the next game, no time to stop, or think or listen. Ahhhhh, sanity.
So, I sat here and clicked and crashed and tinkled and right out of the blue I bellowed " I smell a RAT"
I know what they smell like you see, I recognise the smell and I have smelled it when I am out and about and I wonder if I will ever not smell it again.
I don't want to go back and read to when I first started complaining about the awful smell under my stairs, I don't care to work out when the laundry room stopped smelling like fresh laundry and started smelling like dead things, musty old men, who live in squalor and hoard old milk bottles, rotting socks and wet dogs, all mixed together with some sewer and sour milk.
Lovely.
Weeks. Months even. way back in the summer, do you remember me saying "ewwwww I saw a mouse!" That tiny little scuttle thing that we all squealed at and thought we caught? That was the beginning of a living nightmare.
I am all about smells and safety. I love good smells, I strive for clean smells and my home especially must always smell of happy things, clean laundry, good cooked meals, fresh air and all things uplifting and clean. Oh how I love clean.
I live with untidy ( though lately both H and I are almost manic about STUFF ON THE FLOOR!!! Get that STUFF OFF THE FLOOR!) I didn't used to mind crumbs, the odd crumb wasn't a threat to me but now, Oh ho! Crumbs are the ENEMY, clean the CRUMBS!!!
I think it is a testament to H and I that despite the infestation from hell, of RATS, not mice...no-one has been sick ( gah, gremlins ignore last remark, do not jinx me, should take that last remark back really, too late, it's out there, written and seen by the AHA! Send VOMIT gremlins) Bins are emptied so fast the crap hardly has time to settle.
H washes the kitchen floor with more vigour than ever, I scan for ratty tidbits and I sweep them away, do not invite the vermin!
We can scarcely relax in our home, the council man came and he killed and he made stench, oh that smell of dead under the floor rats, will that ever be erased? Will it? I ask as I sit here, staring into the future where clean and fresh surrounds me again.
I am almost loathe to admit just how jittery this has made me, I have tried before and just deleted the few lines I wrote because IT IS NOT OVER.....yet.
Tomorrow the man from Rentokil is coming, he is only going to look and make up an estimate of what it will cost the landlord to rid HIS house of this misery, then we wait to see if he is willing to pay for the service.
Today, a man came to get an estimate for replacing the carpets that are soaked in rat's pee, isn't pee a cute word? Aww, bless little pee. Probably, although I detest the word I ought to write piss, because this is evil rats fluid, it is by far the filthiest smell I can think of, little boys all sweaty and grimy? Lovely smell, armpits make me feel all cosy and safe...Rat's pee is the devil's own stench. The landlord is huffing and puffing, we are calling and waiting and waiting and calling and all the while, the smell. It's by the kitchen, near the cupboard under the stairs, we are masters of breathing out, through our teeth as we leave the kitchen, we walk quickly with food in the hopes that fumes won't settle on whatever we are carrying, we have cooked anything and everything that smells strongly, curries and chili, baked and cooked and the slow cooker RULES because that means GOOD smells ALL DAY LONG!
When we get a snippet of good news, my spirits soar and I see AN END and then we get a call that the Landlord says......and we wait some more and I am getting less and less able to be polite on the phone, I am almost at the stage of cutting the carpet and walking into the agents office and saying SMELL THAT!!!! Eat your lunch with that smell under your nose!! Have your friends over and let them smell that.....hey. go outside for an hour and forget about it and then walk in and OH FOR THE LOVE OF NOSTRILS there is the SMELL!
When the rentokil man comes tomorrow I can see myself throwing myself at his feet and begging him to help me because oh this has been so awful.
I am not exaggerating when I say that I have not spoken to, chatted with, Face booked or called anyone, I can't think of anything but this smell, the rats, the whole deal.
Sophie swears she can still hear them, me? I won't allow myself to hear anything anymore. I can't stand the idea of them still being here and so I don't think of it, apart from making sure, when I walk along the hallway at night, I make noise and I put lights on and wait a while before I walk into the kitchen because if I see another rat I am pretty sure I will lose this teeny little frayed remnant of my sanity. I can't do it anymore, it has been a true and awful nightmare.
Oh the drama, I know, people in other countries would laugh at my horror, I know and I am very grateful that I don't have to live in squalor with cockroaches and rats as my bedmates. I am a big old soft scaredy cat ..so what?!?
I came out of hiding today and had a chat with Jenn and Cathy, oh my lovely friends, who just carry on and are happy when I come out from behind my screen where I have been hiding and cowering, they are right there with a cheery wave and not a word about what I have been not doing....emails and messages from Julie Bo without a single expectation of getting an answer, real friends. Friends here in my town have been just as kind, nothing but a pat on the back and a gentle squeeze of the arm. I think I will be back soon, when I have a house that smells clean, when the granny pee soaked carpets are gone and clean, beige carpet is in it's place, when we breathe in clean paint fumes and skip with glee at the sight of our beautiful house, when holes are boarded up, when I can breathe without the elephants on my chest and I have skin back on my hands, skin that isn't blistered and weeping. I am a wreck but I can almost see an end to it....oh sweet joy.