Rats and Double Rats (Patreon)

My apologies again for the inconsistent updates this month so far and especially last month. You may already know why, but its another month so its the monthly well being update.

As said before, there is a rat in my ceiling. Its actually still there.

So once the problem had been confirmed, we left some poison bait in the garden. The next day, all gone. About a week later, the next door neighbours emptied their compost and found....5-6 dead rats. @_@ A few days after that, the rat in the ceiling was not only still moving around in my ceiling but other ceilings of the house. We had left a poison bait station in the attic but with how the house is built, my ceiling isnt actually reachable from the attic. So of course, nothing went into the bait station or took anything.

Which finally resulted in an exterminator.

After checking the rooms and leaving bowls of poison bait in places he thinks they might come down to, he checked the attic. What he told us was...surprising.

Rats had definitely been in the attic for sure. How many, we dunno. The surprising part was there was a hole in one of the walls leading to next door's attic, as the houses on my street are joined together. The exterminator reckons rats have been going from house to house to house via the attics, theorising this might be a street wide problem. What has it surprising was the hole was not from the neighbours with the compost but the other neighbours who are sandwiched between middle and upper class. He also left poison bait up there too and recommended a builder fill in that hole which we're in the progress of doing.

While that was a relief that our rat "friend" did come from the attic and in theory can get back there, it was still a bit stressy after he left. He'll be returning next Tuesday to check up   and well, it was not cheap to do. Had to even set up some emergency commissions to help me through the rest of the month and any further costs this may in tell, which the response was overwhelming to which I thank those that contributed and will get to those commissions in due time. Not to mention my gf falling sick with the covid, which she's okay now, but argh.

Which brings us to today. Yesterday was the worst day of rat activity as our "friend" was running about up there nearly all day. Why yesterday of all days I don't know, but till the exterminator came back, I felt there had to be something I could do in the meantime that did not involve cutting a hole in the ceiling.

I had been reading up on rat behaviour and learnt that they really hate Peppermint Oil. One day delivery later, I got a small bottle with a spray bottle and been spraying it every time I heard the bugger running about up there and so far, it seems to be effective. Hear a noise, spray some areas I think the scent should get up there, quiet for a fair few hours! Not to mention, the scent is not only very strong but it smells quite lovely too. If you can imagine taking a mint in reverse, like the mintiness is not coming from your mouth, you're breathing it in, thats kinda what its like. Very refreshing and yes, lovely. Might even keep buying it after this ordeal. Even managed to get a Hypno-ber request out the way today where's yesterday I could not focus for the life on me. Thank you Peppermint! XD

That Hypno-ber piece should be out tomorrow when I have a second piece to draw with it too.

Thank you all for being patient with me and your support during these hard times. With any lucky, the rat will hang out more in the attic where the poison bait is and this can be mostly over. We do need the builder to also work on a small part of the ceiling where the rat's head originally popped out. That part of the room used to be a cupboard which I tore out years ago but never did much aside from put some carpet down and then some bookcases so the wallpaper and ceiling parts are stuck in the 70s. XD That said, I will have to move those bookcases out, let the builder do his work, maybe put some new wallpaper up, and then put said bookcases back up. I will have to decorate that room someday but that's going to have to be a in stages thing.

Wow, so much to type this month compared to the last. XD So just keep in mind,

Exterminator revisit: This Tuesday (With more possibly to come)   
Builder: Sometime this month to work on a number of projects.

Now the art progress, for real this time I hope to get the singular Hypno-ber requests of 1-2 pics out the way, then really crack on with the bulkier 3 or more requests. I know monthly requests are quite behind as well, so hope to resume the Base requests once the singular Hypno-ber pile is done. Commissions will also slowly start to come along and the annual valentines, Pokemon Day and Satoko Day pieces. So much to work on.

Those who have sent me private messages recently, I will get to those very soon.

And as we enter another month, be sure to leave your reward tier requests for the month either via a private message or a comment down below.

"Rats" all for now, if you pardon the bad pun. XD Should be getting back to normal in due course. I hope you enjoy what's to come and in the meantime, I recommend you try peppermint oil. XD

Onwards, to a mintier future! ;)