Unwelcome Guest

We lived in the nightmare rental house and were finally able to get out of there due to health reasons and were able to break our lease early. We were very blessed to find the perfect home for our family. It will need some work, but it was the perfect size, location, school district, etc. that we needed. We moved in about a week ago. We would have moved in sooner, but we cleaned out the house since it had been vacant, but it was so easy to clean compared to the monster poop house we just came from. If I didn't have kids and sick kids at that, I could have knocked out the house in one day. I still have to do a little deeper cleaning like windows and light fictures, but for the most part I'm just trying to put things away. Also, the day after we signed on the house Chase had to work, so I headed over to do some cleaning with the kids. I pulled up to the house and the whole front yard was flooded with water pouring out of our connection in the front. So, I panicked and texted Chase and tried to figure out what was wrong. Finally our friend came over and helped me turn the water off, so we had no water until Chase fixed it, which delayed our move in as well. So far we love the house, it is very quiet and dark at night which is really weird. The corn and wheat fields that surround our house are beautiful and awesome. Except for the random dog in the distance barking or a cow mooing, it is very quiet during the day as well.

My biggest hang up right now is stressing me out. We seem to have a resident snake that lives in the attic, pretty good sized too it seems. When Chase met with the guy who installed our internet he was told that he found an unusual amount of snake skin in our attic and that we might want to be careful and hire an exterminator. Well, I was all on board to call someone asap, but Chase seemed to think it was old and probably gone and we couldn't afford that right now, so we didn't do anything. All seemed fine, until last night. We got home late after spending the day at Sea World with my parents who are visiting. Bailey said she heard something crawling around in her room. It was shrugged off at first, but I told Chase to go check it out. I heard some repeated banging by Chase as he tried to see what might be in the ceiling. I came down the hall and he informed that something was definitely in the attic and that we might want to call someone. He told me it was definitely bigger than a mouse. After questions of..."Does it sound like a squirrel?", etc. I could tell from the look on Chase's face it was much worse so I went over to have a listen for myself.

After some banging on the ceiling to initiate some movement on the intruder's part, I could tell it was probably a large snake up there slithering around. I can hardly bring myself to type this part as my fingers are becoming numb and jello like. I'm getting chills up and down just thinking about it and a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Let's just say it was very hard for me to sleep last night. We let Bailey sleep on the couch. For those of you who don't know I have had a primal fear of snakes all my life and used to have night terrors as a kid. Well, so we called animal control this morning. I was going to let Chase and my dad head up there to take a look, but felt more comfortable with someone who did this proffessionally, especially since we didn't know if it was poisonous. The animal control guy came and I left with my mom and the kids, I didn't want to be any where near the house when they caught the thing. Well, they couldn't find it, but Chase told me he saw the snake skins and they were good sized which was a good thing because then it couldn't get through the vents. I'm still trying to figure out how this is a good thing. I guess it's better that it's up in the attic and not down here, but it doesn't help me sleep at night. He said it's most likely a rat snake and has been living up there taking care of rodents. There was evidence of mice and squirrels.

When we bought the house some roof panels underneath had fallen off leaving a huge gap, our home inspector fixed it, but anything and everything could have crawled in to make a home for itself. The animal control guy said if we saw it again, call and they'd come out. Supposedly, it's not poisonous and is probably a rat snake which Chase told me can get about 2-4 ft. long, again chills and stomach convulsions. I love my house, but is it too much to ask that we have no animal residents, especially snakes in my attic?! I don't care if it was taking care of existing vermin, it can live outside far away from the house and eat the vermin before they get to the house, that's how it should be anyway for my sanity's sake. Oh, the same night Bailey found a scorpion on the toy chest-super! I guess I should be grateful Bailey, the sensible one, is the kid that discovered it instead of Addie who probably would have wanted to collect it and keep it in her dresser, or Joelle who would have tried to pick it up and play with it or eat it.

I knew when we moved here I would have to deal with more wildlife stuff, I just wish it was the type of wildlife peskiness like deer, squirrels, birds, and rabbits eating my garden or pooping on the car...stuff like that. I know that even if we had lived in town we'd still have issues. Our friends in the ward frequently get possums, and also had a snake in their business' attic. It's the nature of living here I guess. A guy at church mentioned mothballs keeping snakes away,at least I think that's what he said, maybe we'll try that. Where the heck do you buy moth balls? Well, this post has gone on entirely too long, I feel ill just writing it. Any suggestions on getting rid of or keeping out animals like our little roommate are more than welcome! I really need a nap now. I still love our home, I know Heavenly Father blessed us by helping us get into this home and I know he will help me keep it together and keep our family safe. Maybe, I'm supposed to grow and learn something from all of this. I am trying to keep things in better perspective, just like everything I went through at the nasty poop house. That house was disgusting, but it was cheap and big enough for our family, which was extremely difficult to come by. Also, we were able to get out of our lease early which wouldn't have happened in a normal house and we would have missed the opportunity to get into our current home, so in other words the nasty poop house was a blessing. I don't like some of these trials I've been given, but I know I wouldn't want anyone else's trials either, so I am going to try to make the best of it. I am blessed with a beautiful home, wonderful kids, and an awesome husband who has a terrific job, I'm focusing on that.