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Before my family moved to our current location, we lived in a house infested with rats, not field mice but rats as long as my forearm. We, as tenants, begged for the property owner to take us seriously and hire an exterminator. It got so bad that we couldn't eat in the house because every surface had rat feces on it when we woke up in the morning, and no matter how much we disinfected, it didn't feel clean enough to use. So we spent a lot of money that we didn't have to spend on fast food and take out. On the rare occasion we did eat at home, it was pre made and only needed to be microwaved.

The rats took over our lives. Our dog would go crazy all hours of the night. My son woke up with a rat in his bed more than once! I would beg for them to do something. I even explained that the rats were eating the walls and the carpets, destroying their property! We spent hundreds of dollars on products to seal the holes such as steel wool and spray foam. We invested in traps. We went through so many that the gentleman at the hardware store learned our names! When we would beg for help, we were told that they would come put poison under the house. I'm sure anyone with a brain could tell you why that's a bad idea. When the unlucky rats did die, our house would smell like death for 2 or 3 weeks, but it never stopped them fully. There were always rats.

My son couldn't have friends or cousins stay the night. We never had friends over to visit inside the house because the rats weren't scared of the daylight or people. They would dart to the dog food bowl in the middle of the afternoon. My son has diagnosed PTSD because of the rats. Three years later, he still has nightmares about them.

Physical and mental safety are so important for familial stability. I know how my family felt. I know how scary it was to hear the chattering in the walls and under the floors every evening. I don't want anyone to experience what we went through. It was preventable trauma.