I’ve written before about the disturbing nature of my attic – for example, this blog …
I was in the attic on Monday night, searching for the photo of me with Stripper Santa. I got really freaked out. My panic initially revolved around where the effing hell the Stripper Santa photo had gone. Are you one of those people that if they lose something are incapable of thinking or doing anything else until they find it again? I am. So I was flinging stuff around in an increasingly deranged fashion. (I’m going to be in serious trouble next time Husband looks in there.) After two hours of sneezing and swearing and smashing my arm and almost falling through the ceiling, I finally found the bloody thing. I also discovered lots of freaky stuff, including …
My HSC study notes
Every birthday card since I was born
An E.T doll with battery-operated, flashing eyes
A plastic bag filled with black sand from Hawaii
A June, 1959 copy of National Geographic (coincidentally containing a photograph of a Hawaiian black sand beach)
A Frenz Of The Enz badge
My high school uniform
A replica Crowded House jacket a friend painted for me
A black & white polka-dotted Morrissey Edmiston jacket
Two fossilised shells
A novel I wrote at age 11 called Scamp the Wonder Dog. (“By the same author: The Farnams on Faranite – the story of Charlie, Champ, his wife and their children. Faranite is a planet where one thousand familys emigrat in 2200. When the earth disintergrated.” reads the back flap.)
All my school report cards – primary and secondary
My extensive matchbox collection
Some of first dog’s teeth in a black plastic box
A framed cartoon drawing of a friend I had a secret crush on, tied naked to a four-poster bed (birthday gift)
Fortunately I wasn’t looking for the Stripper Santa photo last night, as I currently require a walking frame after attending a pilates class run by Ghenghis Khan reincarnated as a perky gym instructor called Jackie.
But the freaky nature of the attic usually has something to do with the god-awful mess inside it.
Recently, things have taken on a more sinister cadence.
I was sitting near the attic door the other night when I heard a weird flapping noise coming from behind it. So I did what every modern girl does in such circumstances – I tweeted my terror. I was reassured – via Twitter – that it was probably just a bat and to get over it. Eeeek! A bat! In my attic!
And now, every night, Husband and I are woken around 2am by the sound of gnawing and scrabbling. Sometimes it sounds like it’s in the wall behind the bed, sometimes it sounds like it’s in the ceiling, sometimes the attic.
We’re guessing it’s either a rat or a possum making a meal of the building materials in our house.
Eeeeek! A rat! In my attic!
So Husband has laid a few traps. Hasn’t caught anything yet. And still the gnawing haunts my dreams …
Speaking of scary attic stuff … Did you read Flowers In The Attic when you were a teen? Did it totally freak you out?
housegoeshome 
There’s some kind of bats-in-your-belfry joke here, but I’ll let that lie. So what happens if the trap goes off one night and you can hear the sound of something not dead scrabbling around attached to the trap? Let me guess who’s going up to investigate…
Ya-huh, you’d be right with that wild guess. But please let it be fully dead, not partially dead. You’ve given me something else to freak out about now, thx very much.
God yes I read Flowers in the Attic – completely freaked – THEIR MOTHER LOCKED THEM IN THE ATTIC AND WENT ON WITH HER LIFE! Loved it – I can’t remember why I loved it. I really read a lot of crap as a teenager.
I used to surreptitiously read all my mum’s old Mills & Boons, which were in my grandmother’s shed.
Loved all the Virginia Andrews books as a teen. Thought it got a bit creepy when they continued to be written posthumously!
BTW did you write that novel in Year 6? And did you have Mr King? I did the same thing in Year 6 at New Lambton with Mrs King. We had penpals at your school. My novel was a ripoff of Little House on the Prairie (my fave book and TV show at the time). My penpal was Kylie Hunter – wonder what ever happened to her?
Hope you trap you newest resident. I lived out of town during the last mouse plague – brazen little buggars would run across the lounge while you were sitting on it! Fortunately I was only there for a month before our cat arrived – problem solved. Never saw another mouse inside again.
Yes I had Mr King! Such a small world. Megz should know what happened to Kylie Hunter – she knows what happened to EVERYONE.
I’m sure I’ve asked Megz before. Maybe after your last reunion she’ll have more info. Megz????