TIGDHWMWH #1

I have decided to start a new collection of posts following the theme of TIGDHWMWH (Things I'm Glad Didn't Happen While Mom Was Here). First up.....maggot rain! (like chocolate rain but with more protein)

To start things off, one evening about 5 days before leaving site for something I went to the shower and encountered a rat. This was an awkward experience for both of us since we appeared to be equally naked. The rat ran off and I hoped he'd fled to never return. Wrong I was as I heard him scampering about two days later. I looked for him and found him on top of these boards I have that serve as a drop down ceiling over part of my house (not my design). More unnervingly I also saw that they had established a leaf-den of debauchery on said boards. I set a trap that night in the hopes of snagging one of the two before they could put on any Barry White and start doin' that do. The first night I snagged the guy! HA! Their love fest would never take off now....or so I hoped. The next two nights my trap got nothing and I heard no signs of the female rat so I assumed I scared her off and was home free. I left on my trip and thought nothing of it. When I came back into site about a week later though I smelled death at my door. Literally just at my door. Everywhere else in the house it was fine. I looked for the smell-culprit but it wasn't too bad and I couldn't find anything. After a couple days I couldn't even smell it at my door anymore so I decided to forget about it.

The next day Matt came over for a little visit, and while we were talking I noticed maggots crawling from his bag. "Gross Matt! Did you bring maggots with you?" I said, and he told me that he recently bought vegetables off a boat so maybe they were in there unfortunately. We moved his bag and swept the maggots out of the house. As we did we noticed one land on the freshly swept ground and realized with horror that they were not from Matt's bag but were falling from my drop-ceiling! We moved everything out of the way and put a bucket under where the most seemed to be falling. Over they next 30-45 min there were a few maggots falling down every minute or two. They would fall and we would sweep them out into the yard for the ants to promptly consume. They also were falling from roughly the location of the rat's debaucherous den. This led me to believe that the babies had been born before I killed the father, but then I scared off the mom and they subsequently died.

So there ya go! Aren't you glad you weren't here for that mom?!?