Rats!

So…We have a little issue over here at the Coyote’s den.

I have had few complaints about living here since I moved in in Feb. 2014.  Other than previous tenants who had three obnoxiously noisy teens and were themselves a little oblivious about their own noise (all that separates my suite from the house is your garden variety light bedroom door, and the family room is on the other side of it from here) and the near-miss I had with an illegal rental increase I managed to nip the bud on (go me!) back last fall, I have managed to have a not bad living experience in this little 550 square feet of paradise.  It boasts a full size oven/stove, which is rare in this price range and apartment size and was the main selling point when I came to rent it.  I don’t have parking, a yard, or laundry facilities, but I’ve made it work for me, and it’s near transit and other amenities, too.

But now we have had an invasion – of freakin’ rats!  I first noticed a scuttling noise in my ceiling (which is paneled, like an office building’s) a year ago but even though I complained about it to the landlady, she nonchalantly suggested I stick my cat up there to take care of the problem as it would be cheaper.  She might have been joking.  Or, that’s how I chose to interpret the text she sent this comment in. I knew there had been rats in the house previously because the tenants at the time had told me so.  But then I didn’t hear anything for months – until the wicked winter we had, when there was a lot of scuttling going on.  The landlady blamed my cat food as a rat attractant.  She said the rats were attracted to Juno’s food and I needed to keep it covered except when she was eating.  I actually did this, and it made no difference.  Again, I told the landlady and she gave me the business card of her pest guy.  I then went on holiday to Arizona and when I came back – nothing.  No sounds at all.  Until June.  They were back with a vengeance!

I had a new neighbour at that time who moved in in March, and apparently she and her roommate, a male, were in their crawl space one day last month when they noticed a ton of rat poo in there.  The lady neighbour then had one of her three cats catch a rat in their laundry room!  At the same time I called the pest guy, they called the landlady to complain, and to shorten the story, the pest guy – who was Indian and had terrible English – came by and put 14 traps throughout the house, including two in my ceiling.  He also sealed up all the holes around the outside of the house where the rats could be getting in (the place was a sieve!).

I could go on and on about the drama that ensued after the pest guy left – and believe me, there is a lot to tell, but I don’t have the patience to write about all of it.  Suffice it to say, those neighbours in the house found a place on a Monday and were fully moved out 6 days later – the 15th of July.  The house is now empty.

The rental market in Surrey is the shits – pure and simple.  I pay $630 for this place and that’s cheap as a similar place I know of, though with laundry, went for $800 recently.  I hate moving, and I don’t want to move into another suite in a house because God knows the illegal suite problem in this town a huge issue: landlords are in general quite greedy, the living conditions are, as a rule, iffy at best, and things like laundry, pet friendliness, and full-sized stoves are hard to come by.

There was one rat caught in my ceiling and one empty trap remains.  I have heard no scuttling around in my ceiling or walls since that one rat was trapped.

I am wondering whether to stay or go.  I get a significant raise in Sept. and could afford a bit more rent.  But then there are the aforementioned basement suite issues I might have to put up with if I can’t find a place in an actual apartment building (which are few and far between in this city).

Anyway…I am not sure what my long term prospects are here in Surrey.  I hate this city, and I particularly hate the neighbourhood I live in.  I don’t want to live here forever, but the places I would live in are way too expensive for me in this market.  I am feeling stuck.