Rat Shenanigans: The Update

I had some time this afternoon to get down into the cellar to do some investigating. I was at a point where I could not stand the smell any longer... The headaches were so intense, and Essie seemed to be at the end of her rope as far as tolerance of that awful unyielding stench. I knew that if I could get some stuff pulled out away from the wall, I could find either the source of the smell, such as a physical dead rat, or perhaps the hole that lead to the rat cemetery. As luck would have it today, I found both.

The rat was in a box of shoes and boots that Essie and I have been keeping in storage. I knew it right away as I picked the box up off the shelf... The fragrance of decomposition was overwhelming... I immediately took the box outside and dumped it onto the icy snow. Amongst the leather shoes and boots, there it was: The biggest gnarliest looking beast I have ever seen... A rat equally as big as the boots it lay next to, despite its putrid degenerated body. Green gel seeped from its underbelly making an interesting stain on the snow. I noticed that it was melting the ice...

I stepped back into the cellar and began to pull everything away from the walls. I found two cavities, one on the floor behind the washing machine, and one up on a cement ledge torn into the paneled plywood wall. Insulation had fallen out of the hole, and it, with the combination of dryer lint and rat shit made an unpleasant pile on the ledge next to the opening.

I went into town, back to the Farm and Home store and bought some of that spray foam that you shoot out of an aerosol can through a provided little tube. I hurried back home and then proceeded to fill the hole in the wall with the foam, and watched as it expanded to triple its size. It oozed out like pus on a zit, which incidentally was kind of cool to watch. Then I poured about a half gallon of bleach down the hole in the floor, and then filled it in with the rest of the contents of the spray foam can. Then I stepped outside, beat my fisted hands against my chest and let out the loudest and longest Tarzan yell I could muster...

I knew I had finally defeated the lice infested recreant.