Ah Rats! – The Pet-Friendly Way to Deal with Rodents

Over the past little while, our household had an unexpected visitor. He showed up uninvited, left a mess, wouldn't leave when asked politely, and was generally just the worst. You bet he was a rat, and not just the metaphorical kind.

This is par for the course when you have a preference for older, charming houses of a certain vintage. Ours apparently dates back over 100 years and has the crooked floors and ancient vents to prove it, so this kind of guest was inevitable. Now, never having battled rats before, we were left feeling at a loss as to how to kick out these varmints. We didn't want to get too inhumane, plus inadvertently poisoning dear old Charles (the dog)* was utterly out of the question. So what were us pet-owning city folk to do?

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Steel Wool
This one's recommended by everyone under the sun, but it's an oldie 'cause it's a goodie. The idea is to stuff any holes or cracks with the stuff to prevent rats or mice from coming through the walls or floorboards – they can't chew through steel wool. It's a good idea to keep a box on hand just in case, as this is really easy to use in a pinch, and can be very effective.

Peppermint Oil
Rats HATE the smell, so it's a good idea to liberally soak a few cotton balls in pure essential oil and leave them hidden in areas of rat detection. It'll just make them back off without causing them any physical harm. As an added bonus, your house will be at a permanent state of low-lying mintiness, and you'll maybe have some leftover oil, which is great for adding to your shampoo when you have an itchy scalp or to rub on your temples when you have a headache.

Disinfecting Solution
You'e going to feel pretty grossed out about your house, so giving everything a wipe down is a pretty good idea. I use those antibacterial wipes, but they're not really the most environmentally friendly or cost-effective solution. You could also use white vinegar cut with water – half and half is pretty good, or even up your solution to three quarters vinegar to a quarter water if you'd like something stronger.

Lots of Chairs
You're going to be jumping up on them a lot, even when there is nothing nearby – you'll just get weirded out and unable to stand on the floor anymore. Don't fight the urge, just get more chairs.

Containers
Everything in our cupboards is in canisters now. We bought a bunch of the stackable Tupperware kind at Honest Ed's and just boxed up anything that could be chewed through, including cardboard and plastic. One day I'll have dedicated containers for bulk items like flour and sugar, but for now, this works  just fine. Anything we didn't have enough space for in containers, I just stuck in the refrigerator, so now my cereal is oh so refreshing. Suck on that, rats.

Patience & Diligence
The most time-consuming part of the solution is pulling everything away from the walls, cleaning up what you find underneath and checking for holes in the walls. Make sure you check under your sink, to the part where the water pipes meet the wall – our hole there was the size of a tennis ball, and they can fit through any space the size of a pencil eraser.

Noisiness
This is your opportunity to get loud. Mice and rats hate loud noises and bright lights, so if you're fighting 'em, don't hesitate to make your presence known. Keep the radio on, the lights up and bang around when you're near where they've been spotted. Seeing rats and being reminded of their general presence is half the problem with them, so keeping them out of your way is a very good thing indeed.

A Healthy Dose of Mind Over Matter
We were having a hard time getting over the general disgustingness of the creatures, but had to find an inner zen to do what needed to be done. Don't dwell on the nasty – think about what you need to do to get past this situation, and only of that. Yes, they're gross, but that's what showers and exfoliant are for.

If you've got any pet-safe rat-fighting tips, please share!

Good luck and happy hunting.

*Note: one thing you do not need is a suck of a dog. Although Charlie is part Schnauzer, which are a ratting breed, he was useless, hiding behind Daniel and I whenever possible. Just know that in this respect, dogs are less reliable than their usual loyalty would suggest. A cat would likely be better suited to the task.

**Note the second: we did think about seeing if someone could take Charlie for a few days so we could set poison and take care of the dicks once for all. We were thinking of doing this for about 5 minutes, until I realized that the rat could track poison elsewhere and we'd have no way of knowing. If you've got a bad enough problem to warrant a poison-based approach***, please make sure to take an extra couple days to thoroughly clean all house surfaces. Your pets will thank you.

***Note the third: we did not have a bad infestation at all. We had, what we suspect, to be one rat that we scared off pretty quick. We found very few droppings and didn't see him at all when going through the house with a fine tooth comb earlier this week. Fingers crossed he stays out!

Purple Tie Dye Party

On Sunday night, instead of watching the Super Bowl or that awesome 60 Minutes interview on remarkable women (Meryl, Anna, and Dolly! You can watch it here.) I hung out with some of my favourite girls and we tie dyed. It was awesome. We all had a bunch of clothes to dye but we all wanted to use the same colour—and now we're all wearing purple the colour of grape juice.

I opted to dye my amazing sheer-backed shirt that I got from White Crow in the summer. I had more or less stopped wearing it due to a chicken chow mein stain right on the front (which you can still see if you look hard enough, but nevermind!) Dying it proved the perfect opportunity to give it a new life!

 Since the front is cotton and the back is a chiffon-like fabric, the dye took to each side differently, giving the front and back a slightly different colour. I couldn't be happier with the results. The only problem? After an hour with the clothing steamer, I still can't get all the wrinkles out!

Here's a tank that I did.

This was my first foray into dying clothes, and after seeing how easy it is I've now caught some kind of bug. I have so many clothes that I don't wear anymore—an old white button-up, a thin sweater that has a pattern I'm sick of—and with an all-over dye or even a dip dye, I think I could be wearing those pieces again. Who needs to go shopping anyway?


And here, the almost-highlight of the night (after Youtubing the incredible Madonna halftime show, natch), are my friend Sasha's nails. She did these—you're not gonna believe it—by hand. Both hands. It must have taken hours.

Amanda's Criterion Top 5

If you're just tuning in now, Laura and I have been detailing our favourite Criterion flicks. Well, she did hers, and now I'm doing mine.

I wanted to add that I really love Criterion for their respect for movies—I'm a big fan of their packaging, and the care taken to design a breathtaking cover, the finely-tuned copy on all cases and booklets, and the cleverly-designed menus and website. These guys LOVE movies, and it gives me great pleasure to support a shop that takes pride in their work.

Two things I realized compiling this list:
1. I like big photography, colourful, cinematic kind of films. The more sumptuous the pictures, the stronger I'm on board. Ditto that with anything slightly fairytale-esque.
2. I really wanted to pick Charade, but Laura already did, so you should watch that doubly.

On with the show!

Days of Heaven (1978)
A beautiful, understated piece of cinema, and easily Terrence Malick's best film. A steelworker accidentally kills his supervisor, and runs away with his girlfriend and kid sister to the fields of Texas, where they harvest wheat for a wealthy but good man – but naturally, things can never remain that simple.

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Narrated by the young sister, the vast, gorgeous fields set the stage for this American tragedy, the swaying wheat a sea of emotion the girl feels changing the world around her but does not understand. I love how quiet and dreamlike this film is, how little dialogue there is, and how wholly it overwhelms you. The whole thing is shot at magic hour – that precious half hour or so of soft light as the sun has set but the sky is watercoloured. It feels like a fable for the American dream, although the moral isn't something that can be understood in words – it's the emotional subtext here that is so compelling.

I remember I wrote about this one a while go, and on looking it up, I did a much better job then. You can check that out on my tumblr, if you'd like.

In the Mood for Love (2000)

I wrote about this one a while back too, so it might as well be number two on the list. It's Hong Kong in 1962, and two neighbours feel drawn to each other, intimately connected by a discovery about their partners, and at once bound to their traditional roles. This movie is all about heat, concealed and restrained, but its sensuality perfuming everything it touches, from the hyper-saturated palette to the languid camera movements. Such a beautiful, bold film, and if you can, see it on a big screen. I promise, you won't regret it.

(The video below is a little dark, but the theme music alone is worth a play.)

The Red Shoes (1948)
I'll continue down this path of visually arresting and colourful picks with one of the most vivid—and most painstakingly restored—prints in the whole collection. A young ballerina is the rising star in a ballet company, torn between her love of dance (and her demanding director) and her love for a young composer. It’s Powell and Pressburger’s best known film, for sure, and is the mother of all backstage drama films.

Martin Scorsese calls this one of cinema’s best uses of Technicolor, and with good reason—the sets are kaleidoscopes of hues, from Vicky’s flame red hair to the gorgeous locations and of course, the titular pointe shoes. Scorsese was a major force behind the restoration of this print too, which required seven years worth of restoration on each of the three Technicolor prints to make up the final version. This is one that you’ll need to make sure is the Criterion edition before you watch it, as previous versions were very washed out.

The Night of the Hunter (1955)
I’ve loved this movie since I first watched it in film class many moons ago, so I was really happy when it became part of the collection last year. Dreamlike and haunting, this is like a Grimm’s fairytale in stark black and white. The use of black and white film is really impressive too—so much to create the tension and mood is done with hard shadows and silhouettes. And Robert Mitchum is such a joy to watch here, so menacing and playful at once, and gives what strikes me as a very modern performance.

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Actually, the whole film feels very modern, very Leave It to Beaver gone bad, which is think largely why it wasn’t well-received by movie goers at the time of its release. It makes me so sad to think that the poor director, Charles Laughton, was widely panned for it, and it became his first and only attempt directing (he had a long career as an actor).

The Adventures of Antoine Doinel (1959, 1968, 1970, 1979)
Is it cheating to add a set of four? These picks do sit under one spine number, so I’m not going to apologize for it, but I am only going to suggest two of the set.

Antoine is one of my favourite characters in film history: a classic rapscallion, good-natured and a little goofy, which I’m such a sucker for. The first film, The 400 Blows, is an origin story, and not nearly so lighthearted as the later films. It depicts a young Antoine’s adolescence, his home life, his troubles in school, his desire for freedom. As one of the defining films of the French New Wave, it introduced Truffaut to the world and made him a household name. The actor behind Antoine, Jean-Pierre Leaud, is actually at his best in this one, at age fourteen, where he seems so effortlessly charming.

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My favourite of the set is the next feature, Stolen Kisses. Antoine is a young man, working as a (not so good) private detective, and pursues Christine, a violinist he has felt sweet on for some time. This entry in the series is much funnier, much sillier, but still rings so painfully true. I think Antoine’s so successful because he speaks to that part in everyone who feels awkward, a little outside the norm, a little too earnest to be cool.

Happy viewing!

My Criterion Top 5

On the advice of Amanda's beau, which he suggested after reading our post on the Criterion's Top 10s, I put together a list of my Top 5 Criterion films. (I started with 10, but then I got really, really exhausted). While I was putting this list together, I learned several things. And I'm sure Amanda will agree.

1. I have seen an embarrassingly low number of these films. Because of this, many of my choices are films that I love, yes, but are probably on the list because I haven't seen other, better films. Does that make my list irrelevant? I think... not.

2. There are so many incredible films that aren't on this list. Almodovar's oeuvre, for example, was nowhere to be seen. And no Dario Argento? The collection, which started in '84, prides itself on gathering the greatest films from around the world. And since this is the case, even though I am a supporter of what they do (which is help keep these films appreciated and pristine—you can read more about it here), I think that they've still got a long way to go. But I couldn't exactly just make a list of my 10 favourite films, could I? I needed some kind of definable list from which to choose.

I'm going to stop excusing myself now and give you my Top 5 (sorry) Criterion films:


1. Charade

I keep coming back to this film time and time again, because it has everything. Romance, comedy, action, suspense, great fashion, Cary Grant, and that AHA! moment when you finally figure it all out (and then smugly think that you figured it out before anyone else). What more do you need? It has my favourite line from any movie ever ("How do you shave in there?") and is probably the reason why I trusted men who lied to me for so long. (So what if she doesn't know his name? It's still true love!) The trailer, narrated by Grant, is a treat in itself.

2. Jules et Jim

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Sigh. I haven't seen this movie in years but it still fills me with this feeling of the romantic idea that you can be happy in love with more than one person and you can all be friends and love each other. Very Bohemian, non? It's about a love triangle between Jules et Jim et Catherine, and runs the gamut of emotions. It's also, at times, really playful and fun. Like this scene, the absolute best:





3. Three Colors: Red

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If you haven't seen a Kieslowski film, do yourself a favour, go out and see one now. And preferably this one—I think it's the most accessible, which is maybe why I like it the best. All the Colors films are great, especially when you watch them in succession (with this one last). I love seeing the ways in which the colours are used. This film is about a fashion model and her strange friendship with an old peeping tom weirdo, showing that an impossible fraternity can exist between seemingly opposite people. It was also Kieslowski's last film.

4. 3 Women

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Shelley and Sissy! I already love it. This film is the inspiration for so many fashion spreads, I can't even tell you. It's set in a dusty California resort town, and is totally dreamy. It switched from straight forward to surreal, and it's nice to see Spacek play a role other than Carrie. As a woman, I don't see how you could not like this film.

5. Winter Light

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This film is the epitome of a Bergman film. It's stark, dismal, and incredibly Swedish. A pastor of a small, rural church is looked to for guidance but is struggling with his own faith. If the fear of nuclear annihilation were not present, this film could easily take place 50 years in the past, and I love that about Bergman films—they don't belong to one time only. This is the second film in a trilogy (though the only one I've seen) about religious faith and doubts, which when done right can be so relatable and compelling. The role of the school teacher mistress is essential for my enjoyment of the film—it's her unwavering devotion to the pastor that stands in for the religious devotion that the pastor lacks. And, NBD, Bergman once said that he never really knew himself until after he made this movie. So there.


So, have I inspired you to watch any of these films? Amanda, I'm tagging you in, girl. You're up next.

vive magazine issue 4.1

I'm going to have to toot my own horn today because I'm feeling pretty proud of myself: the digital version of vive is now online. The mag looks even better in print, but if you missed our launch party, don't live in Toronto, or are an online-only mag sort of girl, then you are now in luck. 

READ IT HERE!

All I'm allowed to share with you here are teasers of the two major shoots that we did, the first by Dan Epstein and the second by Alan Poon:

So much hard work went into this mag, from the editors on the masthead to the photographers, writers, stylists, models, copyeditors, everyone—not to mention the bake sale buyers and party goers who helped us raise the money to print this baby. It was not easy, nor did I expect it to be. But the experience of putting this mag together with so many talented people has been invaluable and a lot of fun. We've already started on the next issue, due out in the spring.

vive has a very similar look and aesthetic to what we do here on Burgundy Girls, so if you love us (or love our blog) then you'll enjoy the mag as well. And, if you zoom in just enough, you'll see an article written by Amanda! (And seriously, it's a good one.) We'll soon post a list of the shops and cafes in Toronto where you can find vive, so check back on the blog if you want to get your hands on an issue!

We are always looking for new contributors—writers, photographers, illustrators, bloggers, etc., so please get in touch at sayhi@vivemagazine.ca if you are interested.

Oh, and one more thing. I love working for a print magazine, but the digital version is very special to me, because—let's be real—it will be able to spread faster, be seen by more people, and generally be able to go further than print can. This year, we will be releasing an online-only version or two, and I'm excited to take advantage of the digital platform and push the envelope a bit.

Review: January Luxe Box

It took a while, but when I finally got my hands on this month's Luxe Box, it was a nice surprise: a double decker.

Look at all the stuff!

And onto what's inside.

A full-sized China Glaze nail polish! This was a very pleasant surprise indeed. It's a pretty colour too, a rich bright pink creme called Wicked Style. A little sleuthing online tells me it's from the new Electropop Spring 2012 collection, which should be available in stores now. I'm impressed that Loose Button included a brand new colour – that tells me they've got a good relationship with their suppliers. I feel like my photo doesn't quite capture how fuschia this colour reads in person – this picture over at The PolishAholic reads much truer to life.

Hey, another NYX eye pencil. This one's a jumbo, a cool bronze colour called Iced Mocha. A very basic pencil, but it's in a colour I can see working with many complexions and it glides very nicely. It's very shimmery, but the colour reads as neutral. I'll use this for sure.

I guess Loose Button's cleaning out its drawers – they included a satchel with a couple perfume sample vials, some of which were included in previous Luxe Boxes I've received. (Note: apparently they did this on purpose, in case I'd run out of previous samples.) New to me are the Lady Million by Paco Rabanne, and the two Prada scents, Candy and Infusion d'Iris.

I was very surprised to find I really enjoy Lady Million, which is a strong fruity, woodsy scent, with notes of neroli, raspberry, gardenia, patchouli and amber. It does have a very strong drydown though, so I can see sensitive noses disliking this one.

Prada Candy is warm, sweet, caramel scent, with amber and vanilla notes in the mix. Very gourmand and very grown-up, which can be difficult balance to achieve. I can see myself wearing this a lot.

Prada's Infusion d'Iris had the most generous bottle of the samples, but it was not a spray bottle, so it's a little messier to apply. This is a very soapy scent, heavy on the floral and very clean smelling. Overall, not to my tastes, but one I can see being popular with an older demographic.



I also received a hefty sample of Biosilk Silk Therapy, a lightweight leave-in treatment that I've been curious to try for a while. The bottle has a enough for a few applications, and looks like a lighter formula than the Morrocan Oil I got a few boxes back. Yeah, I'm digging it.



And I received a sample of Seattle's Best Coffee in a medium roast. Seeing as I'm pretty addicted to my Tassimo disc brewer, I doubt I'll be using this. One of my pot brewin' friends, this is one's up for grabs.






In the additional Bath & Body Box, I received a Schick Hydro Silk razor. A few of my friends have tried this and loved it, but to be perfectly honest, it'll be hard to get me to try something other than my Intuition. What can I say, I'm a sucker for an all-in-one-step razor, since I hate shaving as is. I likely won't even open this one until the spring.


I also received a sample of the Fekkai Advanced Brilliant Glossing shampoo and conditioner that "everyone has been raving about". Sure? Okay? I mean, I've never heard of it, but I also don't have my ear to ground on the latest trends in shampoo. I tried it this morning and it felt pretty good. It lathered up really nicely, smells good and left my hair feeling very soft. It's a little flyaway-y than it usually is, but I didn't use anything other than my heat-protecting spray to style it. Not a product I'd likely buy, but it was nice as a sample. (Oh, and there was an included coupon for Shoppers Drug Mart when you buy any Fekkai products that I likely won't be using.)


Overall, a much better Luxe Box than last month's. Sure, getting doubles of previously received perfumes was a little disappointing, but overall, I feel very satisfied with the quality of this month's offerings. THIS is the kind of fun I've ben hoping for with this service – a little bit of everything. Okay, Luxe Box, let's stay together.

If you'd like to sign up and try Luxe Box for yourself, I'd very much appreciate if you'd use my referral code.

You can also see my previous Luxe Box reviews for October, November, and December.