Fire and rats, oh my!
Coming from a fairly peaceful arrival and acclimation period, this past week was a bit of a shock. We had been invited with another family to the Hardy's for dinner on Thursday. John and Cynthia Hardy are the founders of the school and I think have been inviting in spits and spurts, new families to the school for a kind of welcome dinner. We had offered to bring over some desserts - brownie cakes and a crostata made with the last of the organic jam that we get from Biosolidale that we had been using as gifts. Both the oven and the stovetop are gas with the gas canister located in a compartment right next to the oven. I don't particularly like this set-up, but it's something we're used to from Italy. Viola was in the kitchen "helping" me and was sitting on the counter next to oven. I was washing the dishes when I heard a hissing sound as if of escaping gas. I opened the oven door and when I went to close it, I felt an invisible push on my chest and then the gas canister went up in flames. It's all a blur after that, but before I knew it I was yelling for Steve and standing outside with Viola who was crying. As I looked through the window I saw ceiling high flames coming from the oven. I thought for sure there was going to be an explosion and the house going up in flames - it was terrifying. Steve got our neighbors who are also the caretakers of the house and then came over with pretty much the entire village. Finally the flame died down, the gas canister was unplugged and taken outside. Thankfully, with the exception of the cupboard and tiles begin blackened there was very little damage. Our housekeeper and caretaker started cleaning straight away and set everything right.
Later that evening we took our partially cooked cakes over to the Hardy's and finished cooking them there and thankfully they turned out alright! The Hardy's have an amazing home, unfortunately, I didn't get to visit the whole house, but it is spectacular. We had a very nice evening there and then got home by 9:30. A very early evening - not like our Italian evenings out at friends when we wouldn't have even started eating until around 9pm.
The following day we didn't use the stove until that evening and Steve made a delicious dinner. Then on Saturday morning he was making breakfast when suddenly there was a fire behind the switches for the burners! We couldn't believe it! Thankfully, we were able to put that fire out relatively quickly, but it was obvious to us that it was time for a new stove/oven.
In our new home we co-exist with all kinds of creatures - ants of assorted sizes, geckos both tiny and large, other types of lizards, and unfortunately, rats. At first we hadn't realized the rats were rats until we started noticing bite marks in our soap, a small pillow that Nona had made for Paloma that was filled with chickpeas and other edible items was chewed straight through and a container full of red pepper flakes had been moved and eaten. I also found urine in one of our kitchen drawers. This was no lizard!
We've been having problems with these rats ever since we arrived and they were starting to get bolder and bolder. We finally asked our pembantu (housekeeper) to set up a trap, but this was no stupid rodent - it somehow managed to take the food and evade the trap! Finally, she set the trap even stronger and one night we came home to find an injured rat in our bathroom. Our pembantu's husband who is also the caretaker of our garden and pool, came over caught the rat with his bare hands and then went outside and killed the rat. I didn't look, but apparently he slammed the rat down on the ground. Ick. I don't like rats, but it seemed a very cruel end.
Well, where's there's one there's more and sure enough - we most certainly have more than one rat around. We again found bite marks in our soap and other evidence that another rat was in the vicinity. This time we decided on poison since it was no longer going for the trap. Some of the poison has been eaten and now we've put more poison down. It really creeps me out having to kill something this way, but I also don't want rats in our house. I'm afraid it is us or them and we can't capture them, cage them and start feeding them lasagna. I hate the idea of being their exterminator, but knowing that they have been getting into every part of our house - makes my skin crawl and the idea of whatever germs, bacteria and disease they could be carrying with them - only makes me mourn their lives for about 5 seconds.
After a long day yesterday attempting to find a replacement for our stove/oven, we finally found it at Bali Electronics in Denpasar. It was a long day in the car for the girls and lots of different shopping centers. Viola who was such a happy baby and toddler has been in her terrible threes now and takes to whining and moaning over every little thing. Giulia and Paloma or now at these great ages where they take a lot in stride, but Viola is absolutely unmanageable and is throwing the peaceful family dynamic way off. I'm not sure how to handle things with her because she absolutely does not listen to any kind of reason or logic and getting angry at her makes things even worse.
Hopefully, our problem with the stove/oven is resolved with this new one and the rats eat the poison and give us a break for a while. Now that's the start of a new month, Steve and I are hoping to have more of a schedule of the things we want to be accomplishing here. We've been on vacation mode for the past 3 weeks and now it's time to get started with language lessons, working out and thinking more about The Beehive. Even though we work every day, we need to start thinking about the future of The Beehive and what we plan to do for the long term. Rome is ever-present on our minds - it still doesn't seem like we are supposed to be here for a year.
Later that evening we took our partially cooked cakes over to the Hardy's and finished cooking them there and thankfully they turned out alright! The Hardy's have an amazing home, unfortunately, I didn't get to visit the whole house, but it is spectacular. We had a very nice evening there and then got home by 9:30. A very early evening - not like our Italian evenings out at friends when we wouldn't have even started eating until around 9pm.
The following day we didn't use the stove until that evening and Steve made a delicious dinner. Then on Saturday morning he was making breakfast when suddenly there was a fire behind the switches for the burners! We couldn't believe it! Thankfully, we were able to put that fire out relatively quickly, but it was obvious to us that it was time for a new stove/oven.
In our new home we co-exist with all kinds of creatures - ants of assorted sizes, geckos both tiny and large, other types of lizards, and unfortunately, rats. At first we hadn't realized the rats were rats until we started noticing bite marks in our soap, a small pillow that Nona had made for Paloma that was filled with chickpeas and other edible items was chewed straight through and a container full of red pepper flakes had been moved and eaten. I also found urine in one of our kitchen drawers. This was no lizard!
We've been having problems with these rats ever since we arrived and they were starting to get bolder and bolder. We finally asked our pembantu (housekeeper) to set up a trap, but this was no stupid rodent - it somehow managed to take the food and evade the trap! Finally, she set the trap even stronger and one night we came home to find an injured rat in our bathroom. Our pembantu's husband who is also the caretaker of our garden and pool, came over caught the rat with his bare hands and then went outside and killed the rat. I didn't look, but apparently he slammed the rat down on the ground. Ick. I don't like rats, but it seemed a very cruel end.
Well, where's there's one there's more and sure enough - we most certainly have more than one rat around. We again found bite marks in our soap and other evidence that another rat was in the vicinity. This time we decided on poison since it was no longer going for the trap. Some of the poison has been eaten and now we've put more poison down. It really creeps me out having to kill something this way, but I also don't want rats in our house. I'm afraid it is us or them and we can't capture them, cage them and start feeding them lasagna. I hate the idea of being their exterminator, but knowing that they have been getting into every part of our house - makes my skin crawl and the idea of whatever germs, bacteria and disease they could be carrying with them - only makes me mourn their lives for about 5 seconds.
After a long day yesterday attempting to find a replacement for our stove/oven, we finally found it at Bali Electronics in Denpasar. It was a long day in the car for the girls and lots of different shopping centers. Viola who was such a happy baby and toddler has been in her terrible threes now and takes to whining and moaning over every little thing. Giulia and Paloma or now at these great ages where they take a lot in stride, but Viola is absolutely unmanageable and is throwing the peaceful family dynamic way off. I'm not sure how to handle things with her because she absolutely does not listen to any kind of reason or logic and getting angry at her makes things even worse.
Hopefully, our problem with the stove/oven is resolved with this new one and the rats eat the poison and give us a break for a while. Now that's the start of a new month, Steve and I are hoping to have more of a schedule of the things we want to be accomplishing here. We've been on vacation mode for the past 3 weeks and now it's time to get started with language lessons, working out and thinking more about The Beehive. Even though we work every day, we need to start thinking about the future of The Beehive and what we plan to do for the long term. Rome is ever-present on our minds - it still doesn't seem like we are supposed to be here for a year.
posted by lomalinda at
04:34
2 Comments:
I'm glad to hear that you are all okay after the gas tank went off. I'm sure having anything more than a 16oz can of pressurized gas violates insurance coverage in the US. I first encountered tanks inside the kitchen in a place close to Naples and just figured it went along with the steel bars, locked shutters, and locked gates mentality. My cousins were afraid their tanks would be stolen. If I were you I'd see if your caretaker could put the tank outside and run a line from it to the stove.
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
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