Of Roofs and Such…

After moving from southern Brazil to the North, my family was blessed to be able to live in a house belonging to an American lady while constructing our home.  While the two bedrooms were enclosed, and even had air conditioning, the rest of the house was not. 

Instead, the roof was made of rafters covered with red tiles. Each tile was arched with a raised area on the end to fit it onto the wood laid across the rafters.  Tiles were laid with the curve facing up and then tiles were laid in between those facing down. 

Made of red clay, the tiles were attractive to look at and held up to the weather well. 

There was one very big problem with them though.  When the tile met the wall of the house there was a gap left.  A gap of about two to four inches square. Or in other words, just about the proper size for a tarantula, or snake, or mouse, or other small creepy crawly you don’t want in your house. 

One creature that made its home in and out of the roof of the house was a gecko.  The gecko to show his appreciation left us a “gift” every morning in the hallway.  Sometimes, there was more than one so you didn’t walk around the house barefoot, and you cleaned up the floor first thing after leaving the safety of the bedrooms.

Of course, the safety of the bedrooms was dubious since upon arriving after a days’ long trip from the south, we were shown around the house.

In the master bedroom bathroom sink was a several inches long pior-de-cobra.  In English, that means worse-than-a-snake.  In other words, the bites of these not-so-little centipedes were worse that the bite of a snake.  Considering Brazil boasts quite a number of nasty, deadly snakes this was a bit alarming.

We were grateful for the use of the house and the refuge found in the almost enclosed bedrooms.  But we had very definite ideas about making our own house rodent, arachnid and reptile free.

Or so we hoped.