Visitors

A few weeks ago, Evan thought he heard some crinkling noises in the laundry room.  At first, he just looked for what could be rustling (possibly from air coming out of the vent or something).  A few days later he was convinced there was an animal crawling around and scratching.  I never heard these sounds, but I went along with it and looked for traces of animal visiting.  But nothing.  No presents left behind, nothing chewed, clawed, or scratched.  I was starting to think it was part of a plan Evan was cooking to keep me out of the laundry room.  But I couldn't for the life of me figure out why he would do that.  Unless he was hiding my Christmas presents in there, but he hadn't started shopping yet so I ruled that out pretty quick.

Yesterday I was baking up some cupcakes for our ward party and heard a strange noise.  I turned my music off and realized there was SQUEAKING coming from the laundry room.  I ran to get Evan and told him to go find it.  I don't know what I expected him to do with it when he found it (especially considering the roach he found was simply relocated outside our apartment and will no doubt be back later this winter), but I didn't want to be the one to find it alone and I wasn't about to ignore it.  Well, by the time Evan put shoes on and armed himself (with a wooden tennis racket.  "I'm not gonna use my nice one!") the creature had disappeared.  And still, no sign that a visitor had been there.  We can't find any 'evidence' to speak of.

This morning,  I was just eating my breakfast and listening to Christmas music (this seems to be the one thing that guarantees he comes out) and I heard it laughing at me.  Maniacally.  So, I opened the laundry room door, stood on the step ladder and started yelling at it.  This does not encourage the thing to come out where you can see it.  Nor does it stop it from reentering.  So, I barricaded the doorway, but left the door open, turned the lights out and finished my breakfast in the dark, waiting for a chance to get a picture.

My trap.  With the tennis racket just in case it tries to get me.

See, Evan is convinced that we cannot call the landlord without proof. And scratching and squeaking apparently doesn't count.  So, I was set to get a picture of it.  Because I don't care if it hasn't started chewing on my stuff yet, it's gonna happen and I would rather not wait until we are pushed out by the critter.  

About ten minutes later, Evan walked into the room and started talking.  I shushed him of course.  But he had stirred the visitorS.  There was definitely more than one this time.  I whipped my camera out and started recording.  Of course, the lights are out so you can't see anything.  But they weren't out anyhow.  You can definitely hear them though.  In case you are interested:

If you can tell us what is making that noise you can have a high five.  And you are welcome to come hunt it down.  

The reason we are calling them visitors - for now- is that they don't seem interested in finding our food, getting into our trash, or chewing on our boxes/laundry/wires.  They just come up, laugh at me, squeal, and run away.  I'm thinking maybe they haven't found a way to get all the way into the apartment.  They are in the walls, or vents, or something and are still working their way through.  But it's enough to make me want to wear boots and long pants when I do the laundry.

I think after hearing this Evan is willing to call the landlord in.  I certainly don't want them partying in here while we are on our two-week super vacation.  Who knows what they will find to indulge in?

I would like to end this blog by saying, we keep a tidy apartment.  Much more so than we did when we lived in Richmond, on the ground level, and never had so much as an ant inside.  I was certain if we kept our counters clean, took our trash out regularly, did the dishes, and so on- we wouldn't have any of these types of problems.  I was wrong.  When the weather gets cold and wet, the critters get resourceful.  

This apartment.  I'll say.