I woke up this morning in the mood for celebration. Last night, I was finally able to rid our house of one large and highly intelligent rat.
It is a story that actually goes back years, my history with rats. However, I will make it short and sweet.
This year’s rat moved in sometime in late August, probably through the open back door. We have seen them before, they are attracted by the smell of pet food stored in bins and the garbage can.
In the mornings, we noticed our produce, in the kitchen had been munched on. I discovered that all our baking supplies were ransacked, oatmeal, chocolate chips, cocoa, flour, even the baking soda. Rat poops in cupboards along with spilled bags of everything.
We had to hide anything edible around the house as it sought out everything. It discovered the candles in the living room, the little pumpkin on the coffee table, the soap in the bathroom.
It pooped everywhere, on the mantle,the chairs, the window sills, the kitchen table, the shower, toilet, the sink.
My first plan was to kill it, as it was just getting too creepy. When you lie in bed at night and you hear things moving around in your kitchen and living room, it is a little over the top. When your cats and dogs are useless, you have to take it up a notch.
I bought a couple of large standard traps. The kind you put bait in and it is supposed to snap their necks. The first night I heard the thing snap shut in the middle of the night. I didn’t hear any death cries so, I figured we didn’t get him and I was right. Although, I did see what looked like blood and I thought perhaps his paw was mutilated and that he was hiding bleeding to death. I didn’t have the heart to set the trap again.
Poison was not an option so I ordered a humane trap on-line and it came within the week. I spent the next few weeks setting that damn trap with various forms of bait. The SOB always managed to get the food and not trigger the trap.
I tested it over and over again and it should have worked but it didn’t. In the meantime, every time I spied the rat it was getting bigger and leaving bigger poop. I removed all sources of water and food. I reset the trap. I was going to starve this rat and make it die from dehydration.
It kept out-smarting me. Even the dogs were getting a bit pissed as he would come out when they were across the threshold in the living room. It would scurry around the kitchen leaving it’s nasty poop everywhere. We went through boxes of tissues picking up rat poop.
Finally, just this week, after denying the rat any food, I had the thought, since the rat came in the back door that is the way he will go out again. So I put a few millet seed sprays out on the back porch just on the other side of the door and left the door cracked open so that it would be tempted to scurry out and get a quick meal. I had to do this for three nights in a row. For the first two nights, he would sit right at the edge of the threshold and reach out as far as he could to try and get the seeds but he never went completely through. Finally, last night I think hunger got the best of him. I waited patiently and eventually he made his way through the door and I was able to slam it behind his bony ass. I showed him who had the superior brain power.
This morning I cleaned house, I removed every trace of rat poop and burned incense. I feel like I went through an exorcism. This house is clean.
