Previously I would say I preferred seeing one or two rats scrambling for space with me in my apartment rather than seeing a cockroach. I hated cockroaches with passion and killing them with a bunch of brooms was irksome. They were mostly stubborn and diehard that way. The coats often gave them an air of invincibility that no matter how hard you stamped, they still managed to paddle along in their poodle as if to say, you are on your own. That was why I hated them the more. The original hatred is in their stealthy, crawly nature. They could snuggle beside you even in bed! Then the nightmare was when I realized that cockroaches could fly! Gosh! Why would God worsen my phobia by making these creatures fly, as if climbing ceilings, nodding their poky heads on the wall beside the bed are not enough. That was their undoing, the knowledge that they can fly, whooze past my face and sing like mosquitoes. Killing them became a passion.
Whatever was sold in the open market, a corner shop, an interior kiosk that has the label ‘cockroach killer’ became for me an important provision at home. Fumigating the home was a daily routine so long as I knew what chemicals were used for it. Cockroach repellant became part of home interior decoration until the lineage of cockroaches was fully exterminated and their ancestral link severed! I got my peace!
In those days when I washed the entire surface of the home with insecticides just as God washed the earth with Noah’s deluge and one or two rats fell victims, I would whisper, “Oh, you unfortunate rat, that wasn’t meant for you now…” when disposing of the dead rat’s remains, not that I loved the pests, no, I had my target, even a budget, and a style of elimination whenever I wanted to deal with home pests. I hated perceiving the smell of dead rats when I knew they didn’t have any reason to die an untimely death. The smell of dead rats made me smell a rat! Aside being nauseating, I should know what caused its demise in my own home! I should account for co-tenants!
Again, if you don’t know the specific location of the smelly remains how do you get it interred in the sun? I hated going round the apartment and sniffing like a dog! So I set traps for rats, whatever is called a bait that would hold the fussy rodent and keep it there till I am awake to free it to damnation. I used the traditional rat trap, gumstain, even poison in a cocoon or enclosed space so that it doesn’t hurry into my bedroom to die…
I loved the ingenuity of the creators of the gumstain… the rat is stuck there, whimpering and attracting its entire family and within minutes they are all dancing rumba dance in an endless party.
That was the life with pests! Enter the Lassa fever. It’s not as if it has not been here with us. According to the Centre for Disease Control, the acute viral illness which occurs in West Africa was discovered in 1969. I wasn’t born then, but my mother instilled in us the dramatic fear for waste mounds (just dirt big enough to gather with a small packer was a waste mound) and she made us view rodents as dirty.
“If cockroaches vomit on your dress that means your dress was dirty. If rats climb to eat the left overs in your plate then you are a pig! We never had dishes to wash the following day. No overnight cooking utensils. We washed and cleared everything fifteen minutes after every meal. I grew up not finding a single rat or cockroach in Mummy’s spick and span home!
The Lassa virus has been there, like a dormant volcanoe waiting to erupt and too much dirt has awakened it! We generate waste in West Africa more than the whole of America and UK put together ( to imagine that these people shop and chop more than we do!) but dealing with our waste has been a generational problem in Nigeria.
I visited a neighbour at the weekend and was directed to see her at her backyard because she was doing laundry. When I got there… I was dazed by the mountain of refuse that the family lived with! It was already pushing the fence off its foundation. Daytime, and giant rats were there having a field day! The distance between the mound and the main building was just a breath away!
How long have they had it that way? She told me as soon as they completed the house and moved in. I shook my head! They have amassed generational wastes! To cut a long story short, I didn’t tell her I felt ashamed being her neighbour, nor that she should go dump her university degree and the certificates thereof in a raging fire over her ignorance, no, I felt to err is human and to forgive, like the comedian said, is animalistic, so I let it slide. I told her about Lassa, and how it is closer to her habitat with those rats playing hide and seek on her door mouth. I hooked her up with a waste disposal agent and I am glad that by Monday morning a truckload of waste (phase one) was departing that block.
Big relief, because I slept dreaming that two of those giant rats, male and female, followed me home as if I was a cleric who would administer the conjugal oath on them. I woke up and madly went in search of rats…
Like all viruses, Lassa gets ignited by the state of health of its host community. Good hygiene is the best bet in squaring up with this malaise. There’s a common attraction: filth and the host rat.
It’s possible to live without rats. Cement all holes in the house, imbibe the maintenance culture. Repair torn nets and broken doors; keep filth away. Fumigate the home environment. Anywhere you find rats, chase, them till you pop them! And when you kill a rat, don’t hold it by the tail, except you have a hand glove on. Clean up that spot until it sparkles.
And … I don’t know why people condescend to eating rats no matter the specie. There is a whole lot of choice meat to choose from. I beg your pardon?
Well, despite the Lassa Fever scare, I remain a pathological hater of cockroaches until experts prove me wrong that there is nothing virulent in the lava of cockroaches that should get me worried… remember, every virus is like a volcano waiting to erupt.
While wishing you a beautiful week, enjoy your killing spree… of rats!
