THE INTRODUCTION (10/15) – It wasn’t until the third service at Landry’s home that I realized that, maybe, mysterious happenings don’t only happen in the movies.

Day one, after a few moments of greeting, Landry gave me the backstory about her mouse infestation…

“We were away for a bit and came home to the field mice having taken over our home!” she wrote in a review sometime later. “They were everywhere. Nesting in our sheets, in the pantry, upstairs. They literally walked by us while we were in the house!”

Next I walked around the large home with her husband to try the keys for the door to one of the crawlspace doors. None of the keys worked, so we decided to walk around their home, chatting amiably, while inspecting for entry holes.

And sure enough, after almost completing a full lap around the house, I found a broken vent that led to the crawlspace.

“Game on,” I thought. “This should be straight forward.”

Then I spend the rest of the service talking about how novel it was that their crawlspace was all concrete, and how much I was looking forward to checking it out. To date, it’s still the only all concrete crawlspace I’ve been in.

CHAPTER ONE (10/23) – A week or so later, after the locksmith had done their work, I returned and set 30 plus traps in the crawlspace. I also tore out the broken vent screen and replaced it with a new expanded aluminum mesh screen.

CHAPTER TWO (10/5) – checked and cleared 6 mice from traps. There was no new activity reported in home, so I optimistically offered to make it my last service, put a few monitors in crawlspace, and then continue on a “as needed” basis. I presented the choose-your-own adventure options to Landry’s husband, and he decided to play it safe and see if there were more mice in the crawlspace. So I agreed to return after my adventure to Death Valley with Beautiful Farmer Emily.

As it turned out, as the old knight said in Indiana Jones, “You have chosen…wisely.”

CHAPTER THREE (12/7) – Landry left their home. We left our home. When we returned from Death Valley we were at least three pounds lighter from all our adventuring around The Wilderness. Unfortunately, when Landry return she found:

“There was a large dead chipmunk in the livingroom that got caught in a mouse trap. Also some creature pulled down all the toilet paper in the great room bathroom again. Still hearing something skittering in the livingroom walls! But, No mouse pee or poop in our beds or in the pantry so we are getting there!!”

When I returned to service, I listened to Landry’s story again…doing by best to account for the new information. She explained that their home has a number of unexplained anomalies. The idea that mice, or chipmunks, were going to make that list on a permanent basis made my blood boil. What the F was a chipmunk doing in the house? And what elusive creature had the discipline to wait not once, but twice, for Landry to leave the home before it unravelled their toilet paper?

My first guess, as always, is ghosts. But that answer never lasts long. The next thought after “It’s ghosts!” is always, “Nope, it’s just another day of pest control. And you’re the guy they hired to regain control of their Homefront!”

 

 

And then (after inspecting the exterior again and the attic space) I got my first real clue:

If you look closely at the black metal box on the right, you’ll see mouse tracks. There are also candy wrappers under the fire logs. I also found mouse droppings on the mantel of one of the other many chimneys in the home. That other one (which is nearest to the bathroom with the psychokinetic-toilet-paper-unrolling activity) is still a wonder…because the mantel is pretty high and I have no idea why mice would want to spend enough time to shit there.

What I didn’t see in the attic spaces was an chipmunk, rat, or squirrel droppings…only mice.

That information, taken together with other information, led me to the following working storylines:

A) Landry’s home has had a large house mouse infestation caused by the now fixed broken vent, and the 3 very dead dried out mice I cleared from the traps in the crawlspace today were the last “bandits in the forest.” And the dead chipmunk can be explained by the fact that there’s a very good chance that the home’s chimney’s are all open and uncapped. In this reality, the chipmunk simply feel through an easily accessible chimney and died trying not to starve by accessing the attractant I put in the mouse traps. I set traps in attic and reset traps in crawlspace to test if that storyline was true.

B) All of the mouse/wildlife activity can be explained by an entry hole I haven’t found yet.

CHAPTER FOUR (2/14/23) – Earlier that week I’d texted Landry the following message…

STORYSOLD:

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

Hi Landry,

It’s been a month and we have some good roof exploring weather. Are you interested in continuing the hunt for entry holes? Or checking the many traps I set in the attic? I haven’t checked those yet. Or if you think we’re at an end I can collect my equipment free of charge.

LANDRY: Hey! Why don’t you check the attic traps and if we are good no need to do the roof. We are happy to pay you. We were away for a month and didn’t see any signs when we got back!

On the day of my trap checking scene, I discovered 2 fresh catches in the attic and 6 older catches in the crawl space. This was the diagnosis I reported to Landry…

STORYSOLD: My traps say that there’s definitely at least one undiscovered entry hole. Based on the freshness of my catches, I believe they’re moving top down, likely through the many chimney voids. My guess is that the entry holes are in the eves, or chimneys.

LANDRY: Ok let’s continue the search for entry holes next time.

STORYSOLD: Sounds good. I cleared all the old traps and I’m going to set fresh ones.

As I concluded my production of Landry’s chapter of pest control, I eyed the roof. Where was The Action coming from? I didn’t know, and the not knowing filled me with a feeling of mystery. The wilderness was haunting Landry’s small castle in the woods and I, errant knight of The Order of Pest Control, was powerless to stop the mice and critters from popping into Landry’s story uninvited and sudden as The Undead.

I mean, really, isn’t that why we’re afraid of ghosts? Like mice, they represent forces of nature beyond our control.

And apparently, Landry’s love toilet paper.

CHAPTER FIVE (8/1/23) – Next service, the ghostbustering continued. When I was done with my “deep dive” hunt for entry holes, I wrote Landry the following message: 

Successful hunt today for sure! If I were Dr. Holmes I would say, “The game is afoot!” And if I was Egon I’d probably use some kind of metaphoric prop to explain my theory. In any case, I was right. There is a mouse sized entry hole that leads from that side building to your crawlspace. Installing a door sweep will solve that one. I also found 3 entry holes under eves, which would explain the activity in attic. I’m feeling confident that your mystery chipmunk fell down one of the chimneys. All 6 of them are open, and the roof is super accessible. If fact, I watched a chipmunk scurrying around up there today. Aside from the inspection today, I marked all the entry holes (except the chimneys) with plastic bags, and cleared 4 mice from traps (2 in attic, 2 in crawl) and reset them. I suggest returning again in a month or so (on a nice day) to do the exclusion work and check traps. I won’t charge to check traps if I’m there to do the exclusion work.

And then I waited for a confirmation to go ahead with my exclusion plan. 

Instead I was asked to return to check the traps. After I reported only 2 mice caught since the service where I plugged the entry holes with plastic bags, I asked Landry if she wanted to go ahead with the exclusion. Her reply was, “No I think we’re good. The trapping service is working.” 

I can count on one hand the number of customers, rich and poor, who’ve decided to leave their entry holes open after I found them. Most people realize it’s an essential part of good rodent control, especially in a location that’s closer to the wilderness than the urban wilderness. 

Oh well. Who am I to judge? It’s not my story. 

Some people love their mysteries. 

 

 

REACHING THE END (10/26/24): – One of the ways mysteries remain mysteries is what healthcare professionals call “treating the symptoms.” Most pest control companies have no expectation that The End of an infestation should be reached, so they’re constantly focused on regular trapping services. This service story explains why. In most cases I can diagnosis the cause of an infestation easily, write an action plan, and then do the work to reach a clear ending. If I was able to hop in my rip roaring spacecraft, travel faster than the speed of light, and time travel back to The Beginning and cap the chimneys, we might have solved this mystery from The Beginning, but that didn’t happen. Instead we now know the full story of this truly mysterious infestation… 

 

 

Here’s what happened after The Action of Chapter Five: a) Landry and her husband left their home for work in California again leaving their home quiet and free of activity (which has been an on-going theme); b) as it goes, something fell down the chimney again and they returned to the smell of death; c) I wasn’t able to find the body so nature took its course and the smell dissipated in time; d) meanwhile I continued to look for entry holes and clues… 

Then I made a discovery. I had seen the open holes at the bottom of the chimneys in the crawlspace many times, but I’d never seen any signs of wildlife in the crawlspace…so I never thought those openings could explain the wildlife activity in the house, specifically the toilet paper tearing activity in bathrooms, etc. Then one day when I was checking the mouse traps I reread those openings with my “rat eyes” and noticed rub markings on the sides of those concrete blocks…

 

 

I looked up alongside the chimneys and I realized there was a route, a pathway, up alongside the chimneys leading up into the house all the way to the attic!!! 

 

 

The route became clear. Unlike most roofs, Landry’s roof had unprecedented easy access from the ground… 

 

 

Some of the mice and wildlife had been falling down one of the six possible chimney holes and dying in the one’s that were blocked off. The ones that fell down the ones leading to the openings in the crawlspace then traveled up the large gaps along the side of the chimneys and accessed the attic as well as the rest of the home. 

I tried to do the chimney work in November 2023, but they were in L.A. and they said they would contact me when they returned. I didn’t hear back. In February 2024 I got a text asking me to check the traps in the guest home, which is the B story for this service story. Long story short the guest house service story went as planned. I found the entry holes, trapped the mice inside, and no new signs of activity have been discovered since. I asked Landry if I could try to install the caps on that day too. She agreed, but on the day of the service the weather was horrible and I ran out of time. In March I circled back about the chimneys and I again received a message back saying they were in L.A. and they’d let me know when they returned. I didn’t hear back from them, so I tried again in September. The reply read, “Hey! We just left for CA for a bit.” All I wrote back was, “Okay.” And then the shit hit the fan… 

Here’s the text messages that began on October 15th… 

LANDRY: We have a squirrel disaster. One fell down the chimney and ate through lots of wood and peed and pooped all over! 😱 We need to cap the chimneys but also do you know any service that does deep rodent clean inside. We need to clean all the pee and poop. We are away still. Saw the fucker on the ring cameras in the house. 

STORYSOLD: Yes the chimneys need to be capped and we can talk about cleaning. I do that depending on what you mean by that exactly. Tuesday and Wednesday next week look good weather wise. What would be a good time? 

LANDRY: It would be cleaning all the pee and poop inside the house. We aren’t there. We are still in L.A. I can give you the gate code and leave a key for you if that works. Tuesday is great. We just don’t want all the pee and poop sitting in the house until we get there. Thanks! 

Honestly my first response was, YOU MEAN YOU COULD HAVE GIVEN ME A CODE AT ANY TIME! AND NOW IT’S AN EMERGENCY BECAUSE THERE’S POOP AND PEE IN YOUR HOME! 

I calmed myself quickly. I’ve been doing this work long enough to know that humans rarely care about something until The Crisis happens even if it’s a train wreck they can watch happen in slow motion. It’s a super annoying hardwired thing Humans do. Best explanation I can come up with for the universalness of this behavior is: we’ve been trained by our civilizations to only react to The Crisis, then The Action happens like it does in the Hollywood movies: a) The Crisis (the villain) initiates The Conflict; b) the victim raises their hands to the sky like ants with antennas to call for help; c) the gods, superman, or your most available pest control company reacts to The Maiden Call and The Hero Response is triggered. I think it’s a spiritual thing. You know, like humans have been trained to put their faith in The Good/God Plan of civilization and spend their lives moving from one Maiden Call/Hero Response story to the next…

In other words, I wasn’t too surprised. Landry’s response was SITUATION NORMAL. 

STORYSOLD: I usually do clean outs which involve removing and replacing soiled vapor barriers and insulation. Cleaning surfaces in a house sounds like a job for a house cleaner. There’s no disease/health concerns. It’s just gross. Let’s do Thursday at 9am. I’ll plan to finally install all the chimney caps. Oh and I might set some larger wildlife traps if I find evidence of more activity inside. 

Two days after we scheduled the service I received a text from Landry I’m not sure was meant for me… 

LANDRY: Omg we had a squirrel disaster in our house in Portland. A squirrel fell down our chimney and destroyed the wood on the doors, windows and ate through the screens trying to get out over three days. $20,000 in damages!! We finally had someone go let it out when I saw it on the our ring cameras! 

STORYSOLD: Yes the mice are also coming in via the chimneys. Capping them has been my recommendation from day one. 

LANDRY: Totally! 

STORYSOLD: I have a plan in place and I bought the materials I need to do it right… 

On Monday I got the code and the location of the key. On Tuesday morning I put the code in at the gate. Nothing. I tried again. Still nothing. I texted Landry. She gave me a different code. Nothing. 

Finally I gave up and packed my equipment down their driveway, which was roughly a city block away from the gate. Then I got to work capping the chimneys, inspecting the attic and crawlspace, and resetting the traps. 

 

 

It was clear that our wilder creature friend was trapped. Yet I didn’t smell death. At this point it wasn’t much of consolation, but I did receive for the first time clear evidence that a large animal had traveled from the crawlspace to the attic and then accessed the main part of the house through some unknown interior entry hole. The mouse traps I’d left on the last service in the attic and crawlspace were either missing, or tossed about. Mice don’t do that. And the zip locked/sealed food bag monitors I left all had big holes torn in them. Mice don’t do that either. They make cute little dainty holes in the plastic and pull the food out one piece at a time. 

 

 

Halfway through the service, after two trips back and forth from the house to my van (trying the code each time) the second code Landry gave me finally worked and I was able to park my van in a more convenient place. 

To compound the drama, Landry’s chimneys were custom made. Which means I had to build custom screens and find a way to install them without the use of a rotary hammer drill (because my hammer drill was too big to fit in the space). The answer was a standard drill with a masonry bit. The drilling was slow, but it worked…and I was pleased with the caps when they were done. 

 

 

If I was a doctor I might say this house had a cancerous infestation. If I believed in gods I might say this house was possessed by a demonic infestation. And if I was a Ghostbuster I might say this house had a haunting infestation. But I’m a rat catcher and I say this house had an infestation. Our stories are real and more interesting than any story sold in Hollywood.

If we work together, we do have the power to solve our mysteries.