A woman is using her personal experience to convince others they should never buy a home in a wooded area.
TikTok user Laureise (@laureise) posted a video on Aug. 30 that details her struggles with owning a home in a wooded area. She explains that she and her fiance bought a house in a wooded area two years ago, and since then, “rodents, bugs, and beetles” have been “eating us alive financially.”
That’s why Laureise is issuing this PSA. “If you’ve ever thought about buying a house in a wooded area,” she says to start the video, “just don’t.”
A tale of two pest infestations
To illustrate her point, Laureise offers two stories from her own experience as a homeowner. The first case involved Norwegian rats. “Laying on the couch one night, we hear something scratching underneath our floorboards,” she says. “And what they are doing is munching on our HVAC piping, which is our heating piping. It’s the pipe that blows all the air through our house, which is wrapped in asbestos. This wouldn’t be an issue because it wasn’t being disturbed.”
That is until the rats started eating the asbestos and using it to make nests throughout the house. This required a pest control visit and repair to their HVAC system. “That whole process cost us about $10,000,” she says. “We had no heat, no air, nothing, for maybe six months.”
Thankfully, the couple was able to get the rat problem under control. Unfortunately, their relief was short-lived. That’s because they shortly thereafter heard from a termite company that one of their neighbors had termites. The company offered to do a free termite inspection on their house. Laureise and her finance accepted the offer.
“So they come on over, and the good news is: No termites,” Laureise says. “You have wood-boring beetles. My fiance and I never heard of them. So, we asked, ‘What’s a wood-boring beetle?’ They say, ‘Well, they’re basically just as bad as termites. They bite through the wood and lay little larvae in the wood. And then the eggs hatch. And then, those little eggies that are no longer little eggies anymore, then go and bite into the wood until the wood is all [expletive] up in your house.”
To make matters worse, the pest control options included a $4,500 heating treatment or a $7,000 fumigation. Both sound extremely inconvenient, but the couple ended up going with the heating treatment.
@laureise Thankful to own a home but I fear we may never financially recover from this lol.
♬ original sound – Laureise Livingston
Viewers react to the story
The video has amassed more than 122,000 views as of this writing. In the comments section, viewers weighed in on pest control options and the expenses of homeownership.
One viewer wrote, “Wood boring beetle sounds like a problem for the next people!! Lol. I will say $7k for remediation sounds like an ok price! It’s $5k for simple a** bat traps where I live in MA.”
A second viewer wrote, “Yep rented a cute house in the forest during covid thinking it was the dream – rats everywhere always.”
A third viewer said, “Same issue with my SF house that’s 100 years old. Termites and beetles first year, second year, fixed roof and sewer lateral, third year, garage floor hole. No more savings. Tired.”
However, one user said they got off lucky. “I think $15k for house maintenance when you first buy your house is a steal. Our house was completely renovated and we still had to spend 30k on some fixings and things,” they wrote.
Essentially, living near the woods without the company of rodents, insects, and other pests is difficult. That’s because, as Pest Cemetery blog notes, your cabin in the woods is a source of food and other resources for everything that lives there, including yourself.
The Daily Dot reached out to Laureise via TikTok comment and direct message for comment.
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