THE HORROR

 The nice man from the insulation company came by and gave us a wonderful cheap estimate!  I am so surprised - and stoked!  Maybe this won't be as painful as I thought?  But we still have the plumbing and electrical inspections left to pay for, and God, I know for a fact that the electricity in this joint is janky as hell.  Maybe the plumbing is fine. I know it needs heat tape and tube wrap. That's not horrible.  But the wiring in this place will probably scare the poor inspector shitless and we'll have to pay for his counselling on top of everything else.

One jokes.  Still, in the words of the Bard, "FUUUUUUUUUUUCK."

I went into the attic today, headlamp on, flashlight at the ready, and discovered that the debris problem isn't that big of a deal.  It's just that I absolutely cannot do a damn thing to alleviate the issue. Why?  Because I have lung problems, and our attic is a goddamn biohazard site.  

There are two starling nests the size of exploded hay bales, massive drifts of rat shit old and new, and dust, dust, dust from living in farm country and having no insulation and plenty of gaps for the wind and whatever it carries to blow right on in.  It's like this:  If I had gone up into my attic at high noon on a sunny day?  I would not have needed the headlight or the flashlight.

It's the rats that piss me off the worst. That is a direct result of the animal hoarders who used to live next door.  All those tame and semi-tamed rats of theirs moved right on in to every house on the block after that house went up in flames, and I more than resent that.  I keep a tight goddamn house, and to see all that where it had not been prior to the Rat People moving out...?  Damn. I was really shocked. God help the Rat Person who comes back to the old neighborhood to visit. I will beat that persons ass with an aluminum baseball bat and call up a tattooist buddy of mine to scribe 'SKANKY RAT BASTARD' into his/her forehead.  Nasty, vile, horrible, screwed up, gross, disrespectful and creepy.  To think that I used to try and be a good neighbor to those fuckers and they were maintaining a goddamn Vat Of Plague one city lot away from my fucking kitchen!!!!

I had live traps that I  put up in the attic to catch a raccoon last year.  Apparently, I caught two raccoons.  And apparently, by the horribly suggestive evidence, those raccoons were.... fuck it. They croaked and were eaten by rats.*  

And shit out by rats.  

All the way around every single trap. 

 I found a few scraps of hair.  

So good news - the raccoons didn't lie up there dead and putrefying.  Bad news - their carcasses were eaten by what looks like a whole lotta rats. Right down to the bones. They just pulled the things out through the cages.  And that is fucked UP.

It would be kinda cool if I was 13.  But I am 61 and it is not cool.  It is gross. But this is what happens when you not only live in farm country, but you live in farm country in a pre-statehood house that has no insulation, AND you had animal hoarders living next door for 21 years.

Plus I found a dessicated bat.  It was hanging from the peak of the roof, and I shone my light on it and thought "Aw, poor batty." I like bats.  They are helpful animals.  So being an idiot, I poked at it with a stick I was carrying to swoosh away all the cobwebs, and the bat turned into something like cigarette ashes and fluttered to the ground.

I left the attic at this point.  The prospect of inhaling dessicated bat fragments did not appeal to me in any way, shape or manner.  I'm just weird like that. Snorting bat frag = no.

We may have to hire someone to go up there and clean out the fuckin' attic.  Now could the Biker do this?  Yes, at risk of life and limb.  He is built for comfort, not for speed. And he is 61 too. I don't want him up there in hantavirus central, hell no.

Those dollar signs, they just keep on stacking up.

*Or the rats...no, I won't go there. But probably.