(50) unwanted houseguests
part i. unwanted houseguests
the spaces i inhabit acquire a dynamic of their own. ever since i started living alone, now well over a decade ago(!), my dorm room contrasted the sparely furnished living spaces of my colleagues. whereas my bookshelves were packed, a disarray of fuzzy blankets, colorful duvet covers, an ever-overflowing laundry basket, the bathroom littered with makeup and skincare products, pictures on the walls, a giant calendar and a loose-mouthed nightstand (one look would suffice for the observer to know me entirely: the details of my current sex life, religion, my major and minor, dreams and aspirations), most of my friends' nondescript rooms told different lore. Male friends rarely had personal items at all, save for the sporadic pile of dirty laundry, you were left with the dismal sight of the standard dorm room: bare bones nordic prison-architecture, scottish cold, single-college student of unknown gender, running low on toilet paper, and sometimes with an old open liquor bottle to remember a pregame by.
in law school, the flat of my singledom had the same carnivalesque flair, housed in a bigger square footage, and started the continuous influx of furniture and hand-me-downs inherited from deceased relatives or deceased relationships (my parents'; my stepfather's; my mother and stepfathers'; and, later, my father's couplehood).
these features, in differing measure, have applied to all my living spaces ever since. and from the start, this has amused me, comforted me, stressed me out, and made me feel ashamed in equal measure. you can say it has become part of my identity, to host people in this ever-changing, confusing home.
in our youth, i reckon many peers felt a kinship towards me because my space provided intangible familiarity while navigating the world of adulthood and independence for the first time. maybe some of this is also enmeshed in the backbone of my marriage, in the early hours of love, as there was something to be said for a sense of home. who knows, how many friendships were fostered because of these living spaces with a mind of their own? would it be possible for me to have as many close friends as i have, had i only recently had a place of my own, introverted as i am? or, on the contrary, would that delay in independence have forced me to be more extroverted, in turn?
...
the years have passed. our friends now have aesthetically pleasing homes of their own. and all along, the fluttering accumulation of clutter never ceases in this sentient, prescient, wholly dynamic household of mine. in the age of internet-curated, photoshopped minimalism, our house is a maximalist eyesore. the shelves flow alive with books read and undread, travel souvenirs, family tchotchkes, mementos of lives past. pictures pop up from one corner to the other; old paintings and newly framed artwork find (ever more scarce) free inches on the walls. while we sleep, new furniture enters the room in procession; the remaining softly rearrange themselves to make room for the new addition.
add two dogs, a child, and ever more consuming occupations, and this borderline hoarder house rules, despotic, untamed, with a mind of her own.
and while the house happily nests and nurtures its inanimate treasures, we are also the intentional (*for the most part*) hosts of living beings: dogs, friends, family, foe, all end up crashing here eventually — it is only a matter of time! we have had human houseguests, furry houseguests, good houseguests, great houseguests, rich houseguests, poor houseguests (in more ways than one), terrible houseguests, epic houseguests, catastrophic houseguests. family that have made themselves guests, guests that have made themselves family. and all while we had never had undercover houseguests, up until now.
...
part ii. creature comforts
it is a christmas tale worthy of print and illustration. for our latest houseguest, inconspicuous as she is, still roams incognito as far as we know. let me introduce you to the rat who made herself comfortable in our home.
sometime in early november, this unruly house of ours started growing strange appetites. for chaotic as it is, i had always known of the location of every single one of my belongings. and sometimes in the dark of the night, other times with a fleeting glance, the house would swallow small things. a pedicure toe spreader here, an earring there, one of a's toys... dog toys, screws, itty bitty things it could hide in its nooks and crannies.
the dogs started acting up. barking at the couch, sniffing the corners, stealing more food; hoovering challah and cheese left over from shabbat spreads, while we looked away.
i thought i was going nuts — and maybe i have already have.
"the house is making me lose my mind!", i cried to j. "could we have a mouse?" "absolutely not. the dogs would warn us." (yes they would), "the housekeeper would notice" (she didn't).
cue in the winter holiday, where we went for the south with our family. in my mild paranoia, i locked up the house; drew the ironclad blinds, closed all windows, locked each division, shut each door.
we took painstaking care in cleaning and tidying up the place before we left, since we were arriving hours before hosting another house party. when we came home, our living room was in an even direr state of disarray: pulled-up blankets, chewed-up doors, mice droppings galore.
a mouse is here.
we hurried a. up the stairs, locked in the dogs, closed all doors and crannies and opened the window for the rodent to have an escape route. we took away blankets, trinkets, decors, books and litter, and started hacking away the furniture... all of a sudden, a large scurrying sound, a crash, a fumble, from behind the tv.
there!
all of a sudden, a huge rat comes flying from behind the tv setting and lands at my feet. j screamed, barricaded behind disassembled couches; armored with a red broom on his right hand, a portable vacuum on his left.
AAAAAH!!
j howled, i shrieked, every time the rat made itself known; from furniture to furniture, always seeking to go back to its nesting ground.
after one hour "fighting" the rat (which of us three was more terrified, i don't know - but it was j), we finally made it impossible for the rat to do anything but escape through a route padded with pillows, leading away to the garden.
it was over.
or so we thought
...
part iii. joanna, the shabbat rat
we tore the living room down, another sleepless night, on the eve of hosting 16 people for new years'. thousands of euros down the drain, the lonely planets of every trip we made, all the books of my pregnancy and doula activity, deemed redundant: as jottled with love as they were reeking of rat urine, decorated merrily with faeces, a's play area used as a toilet for the rat; a's stuffies repurposed as nesting fodder. (and the rat's favorite was jerry from tom and jerry, could you imagine?)
we threw out, disinfected, we reassembled, we cleaned, we nearly let go of house help. and yet, the rat was back.
beckoned by the smell of freshly baked challah, warm from the oven, or drawn by the mysterious odors of a cheeseboard (rat-cliché), every friday evening to saturday morning the rat was back for the shabbat feast, meaning we had to spend the sabbath toiling, cleaning, bleaching, searching, despairing, dealing with pet control men invading our pervaded home.
i feel a strange sense of affinity towards the rat, and it pained me greatly to have to set traps, hide poison traps. it felt deceiving, unloyal, unkind. because there is a great sense of kinship between this rat and i: i too find our cluttered home adorable, i too nest and fodder in its folds.
the rat appreciates my challah, sometimes more than humans do. we share the same cheese taste. she values my private things. (goes without saying that the rat has impeccable taste).
i can picture her coming home from a week's work, basking in the glow of the shabbat candles. i can't help but imagine her, feeling safe, hiding in the couch, months on end, evenings on top of evenings on top of evenings, chilling with us, while we watched netflix, mere centimeters away. her curling over the fireplace's warmth, oozing comfort, just like we were. how can i blame her for appreciating the finer things in life?
**
i wish this story had a satisfactory conclusion. alas, we are yet to find a Pied Piper of Hamelin of our own.
until then, this creature of habit prevails. for every shabbat, the damn rat is back.
f.