I smell a rat…. if only I could get my cats to do the same.
In our utility room, which is stuffed to the gills with various types of food – bags of dog, and cat kibble, potato chips, egg noodles, dried peas and beans, and individual packets of hot chocolate powder began developing holes.
Oh-oh, we have a mouse. There were two things wrong with that assumption. It wasn’t a, and it wasn’t mouse. A suddenly-turned-on light eventually revealed a scuttling little fur ball that definitely was a rat.
How do rats get into your house?? I don’t know about yours, but mine has a flexible, 3-inch tube, from the bottom of a window well, down to the furnace, to provide air for combustion. It’s supposed to have a steel-wire grate in it, but rats have teeth and jaws that can chew a hole in the side of a Buick.
Food was moved, and placed in Tupperware, Rubbermaid, and Zip-Loc containers, and an unused steel canister set. Boxes of cereal went back into plastic store bags and got hung from water pipes on the ceiling, so that they couldn’t be reached. A large plastic tote box was purchased, to safeguard my nachos. I went to a hardware store to purchase a rat trap, thinking I’d get one like the super-sized mouse trap, above.
They’re not sold around here anymore. What I got, for $12, was a plastic, Hungry, Hungry Hippos kind of thing. I baited it with peanut butter and oatmeal flakes. Neither rats nor mice particularly like cheese. After a week of no results, I went to a different chain store, and got one for $6 that was more like I had in mind, and safer/easier to set.
After a week of two traps, the newer one yielded a body. I think it was a female, but I didn’t spread her little legs to find out. A week later the Tonka Toy trap snagged an adolescent. (Oh goody! If they’re breeding, I’ll never get rid of them all.)
Two more weeks passed. We knew there was still at least one more, because we could hear scratching as we sat quietly reading. At last the new trap caught another supposed female, but the next day, as I entered the storage room, I saw a larger male shinny up a water pipe, and disappear behind the fibreglass insulation.
A whole month passed, with nothing on the trap line, only scratching from the basement. I moved the traps from time to time, especially near the boxes of cornmeal muffin mix that were chewed into. I changed the bait to moist cat food – and back to peanut butter and oats. Finally, another dead rat, but this one seemed to be another female. Still, the rustling and scratching continued. That male is a canny old rat.
We considered rat poison, but with 4 cats in the house, our vet discouraged us. The son told me about a DIY glue trap. Apparently Gorilla Glue makes a super-sticky duct tape. You can stick together a broken car bumper, and drive 75 MPH – in the rain. Put some, sticky side up, on a piece of cardboard, place near food and hope the rat steps on it.
I don’t have Gorilla duct tape, but I do have a roll of no-sided tape that followed me home from the auto plant. It’s pure adhesive on a roll of waxed paper. Stick it to something like cardboard, peel the wax paper, and there’s nothing left but sticky. I put two layers on a shoe box lid.
When I went downstairs to place it, Mica, my Fred Astaire cat, followed me down and jumped up on the freezer to demand his usual petting and skritching. While I was doing that, the dog walked in, and suddenly began barking and lunging under the shelving unit. He crawled in and continued barking.
As I looked, I saw the rat sneak through a hole into a plastic crate, with the dog in loud pursuit. What to do? What to do?….Throw something, and try to kill the rat….Can’t be a jar, or I’ll be cleaning up glass shards and pickled beet juice for weeks….A can! What can?? A can of soup? Too small! Chunky soup – the cans are twice as big and heavy.
I grabbed a large can, and watched as the rat leaked through a hole on the other side of the plastic crate. The fat little f**ker eased under a storage cabinet on casters, popped out the other side, and headed for the shelves on the other side of the room.
I flung the soup can at him, and caught him below the shoulder blades. Apparently the can wasn’t heavy enough, or I didn’t fling it hard enough. Hurt, but possibly not damaged, he changed direction and scuttled into the corner behind the water softener and refrigerator….
….and all the while, my cat sat serenely on the freezer, calmly watching the rat disappear. We may have to have a discussion about the fine points of his contract. It’s been two weeks since I added the glue trap to the two others and found that the son had lost a bag of Oreos. Who knew?? Next he’ll be down there makin’ S’mores.
Google says that a rat can live for 2 to 5 years. This Chubby Cheese-me-off could outlive me. Have any of you had mice or rats that you couldn’t get rid of? Any suggestions – or sympathy? 😛
P.S.
The cats occasionally climb the shelves, and get onto the air ducts above the rec-room suspended ceiling, and play chase. Two weeks after the above, I was quietly reading, and a chase began in the basement.
Who’s chasing who today? Contessa’s upstairs. Zorra’s in my lap. Tonka’s sleeping on the couch. Mica’s redeeming himself by chasing the rat! Go Mica, go! Two days later I heard faint scratching on one side of the ceiling, but nothing since, and I find no further evidence of any more food broken into. I cross my fingers (and toes, and even my eyes) and hope.
Archon's Den 