Disclaimer: the services, companies, people and books mentioned are sincere consumer opinions, from my point of view as a long time expatriate seeking to improve life... my way. None of them are paid advertisements.

This is a -funny- story of an unwelcomed visitor, a recount of my how-to solve things as an expatriate living alone, an impromptu vegan latte tasting and the most unexpected decision to be made.

Next month (November) marks ten years since I left my hometown to become an expat, and if one decade away has taught me something, is how to deal with the most bizarre experiences all by myself and somehow be patient and keep calm. I had an ultimate test this past Saturday, and I have to say that I passed with flying colours mainly thanks to the unsuspected participants that helped me.

Friday night after work I was tired and after a quick bite of whatever veg mealprep leftovers from the entire week, pijamas, a little Youtube/Instagram browsing and I went right to sleep. Nothing unusual.

2.30am: woke up because I heard some noises. For a second I thought someone broke into my flat and was robbing me. Robbing what? I have an old TV, out-dated Iphone, a microwave that came with me from Chile, a discount laptop and lots of houseplants. No robber would risk breaking in a tiny flat literally one block away from the central Police station of Düsseldorf, with only the main door and a balcony on a 4th floor. Wait, if robber idea is dismissed, then what?

Woke up, put on my glasses and very softly (as to ensure maximum chances to fall back to sleep) went to pee like I sometimes do in the middle of the night. Meanwhile my subconscious started to make theories on the wake up noises: “what if those noises came from my wall heater?”. In most Germany, bathrooms come equipped with those bulky metallic wavy heaters with oil circulation that are connected to the entire building and when the cold season begins, the air trapped on the pipes makes loud gargling noises, literally without warning in the middle of the night.

I probed with my hands to made sure that the heater was off… A tail?

A dark brown long slender tail was hanging from the side of the heater. Thankfully my probing hands never got to feel out this unexpected visitor. Adrenaline. To my surprise I did not scream. I just blurted a loud “Oh!” (I am super proud of this, by the way).

Subconscious concluded: rodent. Next question of the decision tree: mouse or rat?

The tail owner noticed my proximity, slid behind the heater and scurried away to a corner of the bathroom, thankfully, never figured its way out the open door. Yes, yes, I pee with the door open. I live by myself, so what?

I caught a peek of the creature and now all my senses were on max alert, however I do remember thinking: “oh, what a nice dark brown colour, almost like a shade of chocolate brunette hair” (explanation needed: I worked for a while with Henkel-Schwarzkopf, who owns one of the largest European brands on hair colouring, so I guess, it kinda stuck on me).

Rats which I´ve encountered at close range before on a nearby park are either stark black or dirty grey. “In the open” they do not startle me, since I can normally avoid its path or they run fast away from me. Not this time. This encounter we are talking about confinement in a 3x5m bathroom (large size bathroom as per Düsseldorf city center standards).

Rat. Big ass rat. Small house-cat-size rat. Pretty brown one tough, but too freakishly close to me.

Here I surprised myself again: I quickly turned off the light (wait, why did I do that?!), went out the bathroom and shut the door. I made sure that the gap of the door-floor is not big enough for any rodent to squeeze through. Thank god for German precision, the door proved itself rat-proof.

I surprised myself again and avoided to go down the: “HOW the hell did a rat get in here? I live in a 4th floor” questioning and decided that at 2am I was not going to do anything. I tucked myself in bed and tried to go back to sleep.

Brunette rodent felt SO comfortable inside my bathroom that started to explore. I know this because of the noises. Imagine locking up a neurotic overexcited Border Collie. Wreak havoc. This is the moment when my mind went in freak-out mode. I heard shampoo bottles being knocked over, I heard attempts to open my metallic trashcan, I heard the hustle of toilet paper unrolled and much scratching of things. “Exactly HOW big is this fother mucker?!” I was sure my super sensitive elderly downstairs neighbor was gonna call the cops thinking I came drunk from a disco night and came home to Roomba!

Needless to say, it was impossible to fall back to sleep. So I put my fully awake engineer mind to good use. Decision tree time, question 1: “Who can I call?”. Option 1: The only person that came to my mind is the “Hausmeister” (the building maintenance guy). I would never call him in the middle of the night, I will wait until 8am for that. Question 2: “if Hausmeister is unavailable or unwilling?” Out of the box option: I actually thought to build a makeshift agility course and guide the rodent out the balcony door, I have plenty of books, pots, pans, and gimmicks that could work. But that could mean an encounter up close and personal plus the added risk that the thing is actually the size of a small Border Collie and could easily outrun the course. “Ok, I will leave that as last resource”.

Google. Uncle Google has helped me so many times for the weirdest of situations.

Schädlingsbekäampfung = pest control. A few options appeared. Most were closed on weekends, of course we are in Germany after all. Notdienst = emergency. Oh hell yea this is an emergency!! A couple of choices appeared. One had zero reviews... hmm… One had a single enthusiastic entry, where the literal translation from German language: “There were no mistakes made with this squad. They came at once and the job was done. Nothing is creeping and crawling anymore”. Sold.

8am. I got dressed. Proceeded with Option 1: Call the Hausmeister.

Without hesitation or mercy told me that animals are not part of his job description. “What options do I have?” I probed. “Well, you can kill the animal yourself, they are not really dangerous, but please do not dispose the body in the building garbage cans”. My unhappy silence prompted him to offer additional options.

“You could call the fire department. They help with trapped cats and stuff.” I was starting to get desperate: “but but but… this will cost a lot of money!” (Good-to-know moment: if in Germany you call the fire department for a non-emergency prank-like situation, it could set you back a couple of thousand euros for the stupidity). “Well, ask them first how much would it cost!”. Again, nervous silence from my side. He, himself also got desperate and blurted out: “Good luck finding help on a weekend! I have to hang up, I have a very busy day ahead of me”.

Google it is. I made the call to that one company with the enthusiastic review. They promised to get me a technician before noon. Since rat had enough exploring and found no food, made one last hustle and then there was silence. I actually fell asleep during that time.

2pm: my doorbell rang which sent my blood pressure to the roof. A big tall dude looking like a rugby player with thick black beard and military cropped hair, holding a gym bag, shook my nervous hand and let himself in and asked me: “What is going on?” Rugby dude (I know his real name, but I rather keep it anonymous) did not speak English, so our communication was in my very very poor German. When I am nervous, I tend to make jokes. Imagine me joking in German language. I could only explain: “rat, big, inside bathroom, door closed” and I frantically added “rat explorateur” (I kid you not) “noise all night, since few hours, rat quiet”. Rugby dude couldn´t help but laugh: “rat explorateur???” He produced out of the gym bag two heavy duty leather gloves and asked to be escorted to the bathroom.

We both stood looking at the shut door. “Bathroom: how big?”, he asked. I took strides to show him. Suddenly he turned around, startling me, and pointed his finger at me: “I am no Superman. I try to find rat. I do my best. Sometimes, it does not work well”. A realist! How unexpected! I remember having a Brene Brown moment thinking: “A tough-looking guy not afraid to show his vulnerability”. He veeeeery carefully opened the door and in he went. Light on. Door shut.

15minutes passed. I heard him moving around all toiletries and the small undercounter cabinets. I heard him flush the toilet two times (to make sure?). He opened the door and shrugged: “Nothing”. I guess something in my freaked-out damsel-in-distress stare triggered something in him and he invited me into the bathroom to show me how he looked everywhere. Until…

You know that toilet brush thingy where the lid-brush-container make a cylindrical shape? He lifted the brush and stopped cold. “Raus!” (get out of here!) I did not understand and so he brusquely pushed me: “RAUS!!!”, he yelled. I closed the door and left him inside.

Loud human yelling “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!” followed by equally loud high pitched shrieks, which -I assume- came from the spooked feisty rodent. More human yelling and rat shrieks. I was standing outside traumatized. Minutes seemed eternal. I heard with agitated voice: “Do you have a box I can throw away and some adhesive tape??” I found the requested and before opening the door I asked: “Is it safe?” Muffled: “Yes”. I saw this 200kilo rugby player in all fours with both gloved hands holding down a dark figure that seemed the size of a small house cat. I left next to him the box and adhesive tape and yet again, closed the door behind me.

The rat shrieks were out of this world. If I will have a permanent imprint from this experience will be that horrific sound.

Silence?

“You can open the door now” and I saw him securing the box with tape. He came out, gloves off, holding my girly Skechers shoe box taped shut with blue masking tape.

He seemed pumped with adrenaline but pulled together like a Navy Seal after a successful mission. He politely excused himself for the screaming and mentioned that athletic rat jumped at least one meter high after opening the toilet brush thingy. Apparently he had never before experienced such athletic prowess from a city rat.

“Do you want some water?” I nervously offered. “No. Can you offer me some coffee?”. He put down the box and its contents, atop his gloves, sat down at my kitchen table and started to write his invoice. I seriously wondered if a soothing chamomile tea or a shot of vodka would have been a more appropriate beverage offering. With the corner of my eye on the box and shaking hands, I started to make freshly brewed coffee.

Mr. Rugby was watching me fascinated and asked “What kind of device is this?” as I do not own a Nespresso nor any electronic device for this purpose. I have a ratty old (circa 2009) Bodum two-cup French press and explained him how it worked. I handed him the steaming black liquid in my cute Snoopy mug (I will forever wonder why on earth did I choose that amongst all the other more grown up mugs I own).

“Do you have milk?” … Damn. How do I explain this? “I am vegan” I replied very timidly “I only have vegan milk”. The look on his face was priceless. I wish I was clear minded enough to take a selfie with him right then and there. But I guess I was too distracted by the taped box on the floor that was occasionally wiggling like one of those ghostbusters machines after a monster capture.

Link to my review on what I believe are the two best plant-based milks in the market.

“Vegan milk? What is that? From which animal?” He asked utterly confused. “It is from no animal, it is milk from oats and it is the best in the world, want to try it?” I replied ever so proudly holding a carton of Oatly barista. He seem actually excited to try it! So I swirled a generous splash of oatmilk in his cup. Sip. Face… Suspense… Thumbs up!!! He nodding convincingly: “Good coffee, milk tasted good”. Could have well been his first -and last- time trying anything vegan, but he liked it.

MOST BIZARRE DECISION ABOUT THE LUXURY RATS HAVE

One of the questions on the invoice was: “Do you want the rat to live or die?” Wait, what? I was so confused by that question, for a minute I thought he was joking. He was not. I was still processing, my eyes large as plates staring at him while no sound came out of me. He quickly answered to himself: “Live, of course, you are vegan!” and warned me that this will cost 15 minutes more of his man-hour rate. The invoice literally had a sentence in the comments field: “Rat found in bathroom and put in box. Rat will be set free afterwards”. I signed the invoice with the freedom declaration, I paid via wireless debit card the equivalent of a luxury weekend getaway. He picked up the box, I waved goodbye at Timoteo (that is how I named my unwanted visitor), Rugby dude shook my hand and left. He looked like Superman to me.

Allow me a brief but relevant philosophical moment: What a luxury for city rats. They get to live and be released after the capture ordeal. I wish that we asked ourselves that same question about cows, chickens, pigs, lambs, rabbits, fish and etc at the center of our plates, three times a day, every single day, for billions and billions of people out there.

It took hospital-grade peroxide disinfectant (I do work in a chemistry company), my cleaning rubber gloves and two very large glasses of a rare Cabernet Sauvignon from Veneto area, to muster up the courage to clean up the rat shit dotted all over my wrecked bathroom.

Wrap up: Root cause analysis by Rugby dude (and also from Hausmeister, who called me later that day wondering if I was still alive, feeling guilty that he refused to help me but also curious on which option I decided upon), that mighty Timoteo climbed his way up four floors via the sewage pipes, found my toilet lid wide open (yes, I never ever had the habit of closing the lid… until now) and wanted to check out my flat. So you can now imagine the “entry protocol” I now use when stepping in my bathroom, trying to notice any tails hanging around. I now flush the toilet before I peek open the lid from afar with a broomstick. I now keep the toilet lid weighed shut with a bag of rocks (true story) and the bathroom door shut at all times.

Sanja, my dear yoga teacher, insists I got “Ganesha´d”. Hindi god Ganesha is usually depicted with a Bollywood-dressed rat near his left foot and is known for his sense of humour. Theory is that he sent Timoteo my way for a reason. It is indeed a comforting way to digest this experience. Be grateful? Mr. Rugby could have missed the toilet brush thingy and this story could have ended much more traumatic than it did. It could have gone awry, but it didn’t. It ended up… ok. Vegan latte tasting, vulnerable dude being a realist and me realizing that I can overcome these types of experiences.