Incident #2: Snap, Crackle Pop

A few weeks after Incident #1, the boys and I were in the living room one afternoon – them playing, me laying comatose on the couch trying not to puke. Suddenly there was a loud, dull, cracking sound from the corner behind the dining table. Strange, but not alarming enough to make me actually move.

A few minutes later there were two more similar noises in rapid succession. Not quite gun-shot loud, but enough to make you jump (unless you’re experiencing morning sickness, in which case you might possibly rotate just your eyeballs to look in that general direction in the hopes that it might be an intruder with a gun who is about to put you out of your misery, hallelujah.)

The boys and I looked at one another. I told them to get on the couch and stay there. It couldn’t possibly be another rat, I reasoned, because it was only 5:30pm. Maybe it was one of those large iguanas that occasionally try to claw their way through our sliding glass patio door. Maybe one had finally succeeded. I looked under the buffet table, pushed back the drapes, shook the corner chair a bit. No reaction.

I called Jonathan. He was on his way home anyway and told me to keep whatever it was cornered until he arrived. At that point, standing even a few minutes was beyond me and I ended up on the couch with the boys.

CRACK - - CRACK - - CRACK!!

The clumsy and not-so-subtle creature had just made it’s way into the kitchen, somehow without me seeing it. Which annoyed Jonathan greatly during his debriefing a few minutes later - - now he had the entire kitchen to scour, a lacrosse stick menacingly in hand (does this sound familiar, Heidi?).

CRACK! SNAP!

More noises in the kitchen, right under his feet!

CRACK - - CRACK!

One from under the kitchen window and one back in the dining room! There were two creatures?! Then Jonathan figured it out. As he put away his lacrosse stick he explained that our floor tiles were splitting apart. And once one or two give way, it’s a domino effect. (It took a week or two to convince the boys of this – they kept asking about “the creature making loud noises.”)

The random cracking sounds continued all night, waking us up with a start. Turns out the unusual two-day cold snap (upper 40s) had loosened the grout. The tiles were 20 years old to begin with and – as our insurance adjuster explained later – improperly installed.

By a few days later we had a few little hills throughout the living/dining/entry area where the tiles buckled up about inch. Jonathan has since removed those tiles (and smoothed the concrete beneath), so our house is an unsightly obstacle course until next year/decade/century when we have the funds to renovate completely.

So... more noises, but caused by neither rodents nor iguanas. Something far more costly than a visit from the pest control company. We estimate it was about $400 a

CRACK!!

Comments

[Swistle]

Ha ha! I was all, "Why wasn't she more startled?? That would have scared the BEETS out of me!" And then you said morning sickness. "Ah," I thought. "Praying for death, that's why."