Keller Family Blog

Wow. I used a Bomgar box this week to provide remote support to someone. This box is incredible. It is much more than simple remote control. I could not only see the persons screen but could delve into more technical details of their system. In one instance I was helping someone with a computer problem in Sydney with me in Melbourne. I was more effective and efficient. Got their problem solved in less than 30 minutes which could easily taken an hour without this tool. I have used different tools over the years to see someone’s screen. This by far was the best. If you do tech support you should check it out. http://www.bomgar.com/ (And no I receive no compensation for my opinion or words. It was just too cool to not share.)

 I went on a men’s retreat this past weekend and was able to play golf for the first time in Australia on Saturday. I had a wonderful round despite the use of rental clubs and no golf shoes. The best part was that there are over 300 kangaroos living on the Anglesea Golf Club. I didn’t take a regular camera.  Just caught a few pictures with my mobile phone. Still worth seeing. The shot of me hitting the ball from between kangaroos was not staged. That is where my ball was and where I needed to hit it from. Lots of Sulfur Crested Cockatoos were on the course. Fortunately the kookaburras which woke us up at the crack of dawn with their very loud laughing did not disturb our game.

In case you didn’t know, my father built a golf course in Indiana and I very much enjoy the game though don’t get to play very often. Also as I played I thought of my late father and wished he could be playing this course with me. It was his birthday.

Somehow I was charged twice and issued two tickets for the exact same itinerary for a recent flight. Once by the travel agent and another time at check-in by the airline.  I of course only authorised the charge once and never signed anything the second time I was charged.  Though they say that the ticket used was the second not the first “non-refundable” ticket.  Pray that this all gets sorted out well.  I guess it is not really my money. This ticket comes from Campus Crusade operating funds instead of what I raise, but still I have no desire to see $2000 wasted. (Did I mention that travel in and out of Australia is in general very expensive.)

Just before a trip I figured out that my new laptop hard drive was failing.  I received the replacement drive less than 12 hours before I was to leave for the airport. Now I have to reinstall everything on the road.  I have all of my documents on another drive to copy back, but it is still a pain. Fortunately I haven’t had it long.  The worst part is that I would rather have this joined to the Windows domain back in the office and I can’t really do that easily away from the office (especially when the VPN client won’t run on the reinstall of Windows.) I likely just need to download and reinstall, I just can’t download easily at the moment.

At least I know now that over the past few weeks my performance annoyances with Windows Vista was not Vista’s fault.  It was a failing drive.

I am sure you would like to hear other parts of our adventure in Australia, and we would rather write about them, but this is the most sensational of the events of the days. I keep thinking that every post I post about the rats/possums will be the last. Alas the saga continues. Hopefully all will be done before some family visits in a couple of weeks.

Basically while we can’t get to the dead rat, the flies can and then there must be a space big enough for them to crawl into the house. I have killed over 40 flies in the house just today. As an experiment, we have employed a venus fly trap near where the flies are congregating. We’ll check on it tomorrow to see if it gets any. We can’t identify where they are coming in or we would stop up the hole or crevice.

Also I will post some pictures of the house and things soon.

We had referenced earlier that “good news of having rats” because it was better than possums. Well on Friday the man dealing with the rats for us found a dead possum. They had chewed their way back in and consumed all of the rat bait. Very likely the “rats” we heard and described in the last post was mother possum and a couple of young ones. As he was telling Crystal about it she could see he was a little nervous. If he had suspected that possums were also  in the ceiling then he would have been prohibited from using bait in the first place as it is illegal to try and kill a possum. So he removed all of the baits, sealed up the hole in the eaves and put in a one way door in the roof for the possums to come out.

On Saturday night returning from the Australia Day fireworks we saw a small bush-tailed possum on the top of the roof.  Likely one that had just come out of the house.

After yesterday’s inspection the door was reset as it had been used at least once. Today it hadn’t been used so the hope is that there are no more up there.

The good news of the day was if a bush tailed rat comes in the attic the rats are unlikely to enter the attic for a couple of months. Therefore we should have a couple of months of peace.

(If only the dead rat in the chimney area would stop stinking when the sun hits the brick in the late afternoon…)

Well after 2-3 days of peaceful sleep in the back of the house away from the stink, the rats go marching on.  We have heard more in the walls and across the ceiling of our bedroom. Perhaps they are a bit lighter / younger ones, but I don’t know.  Perhaps the dead one in the chimney has decayed enough for the rest to get by and head back up every night.  I really don’t know, but I do know that there are more up there.  I found a great pest/rat removal company website. Too bad they are in Orlando FL where I used to live instead of here in Melbourne.  orlandorats.com

 The house really stinks right now and will likely stink for a week or longer.

One of the rats died in a place in the “chimney”.  It is too far down to reach from the top and too far up to reach from the bottom.  The rat man apologized and just poured some carpet deoderizer down the chimney on the carcass.  If it still stinks we are to keep calling them to come and keep pouring stuff on it until it has dried out / stopped decomposing.  Ugghh.

Note: The chimney doesn’t have a fireplace just a gas heater so we can’t get into the chimney from the house only from under the house.

We know we heard one more rat before this latest stink started so there may be one more dead up some where in the ceiling that may start to stink soon, so how are we to know when the one stops and the other starts.

Last night was the first night without the sound of little feet running above our heads!! Hooray.

Now the kids can shower in the evening without the rats jumping in the exhaust fan.

Removal of first rat happened earlier this week. Number 2 and three need to be removed now.
Our house stinks right now really really bad which means that we likely will need to eat out at McDonald’s again tonight. Hopefully they will find all of the remains quickly today.

The large rodent was in the exhaust fan for the bathroom as Karlissa finished her shower.  I grabbed a flashlight/torch and shined up the light into the vent. After a few moments I could see the glow of eyes in the space as the eyes reflected my light. He dropped further down and onto the fan grill and we exchanged looks. He (the rat) wasn’t frightened by me at all. The kids made noise and so did I but mostly it just stared at us and seemed to try to figure a way down into the bathroom.  My guess is that it is a “black rat” based on info from: http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/rattus.htm. One of us and associated family needs to go.  We’ll see who outlasts the other. As I type this I hear at least 2 circling the house like they do every night.  Feels a little like we are in Jericho before the wall came down.