Last week Meredith shared about our experiences with a rat in our house and the adventure we had capturing it. Since that time we have had nine confirmed kills. Some have been literally at the hands of James. Some have been at the hands of poison (more in this in a bit). Some have been at the hands of traps. There really is more than one way to kill a rat!
We have found them in our buffet, our stove, and heard them scampering around in our attic. One day James and I were taking the back off of the stove so that we could see if there was one hiding. We had heard noises coming from it, but as we banged the sides, and moved the stove around, there was no sign of any rat, other than the droppings around and behind, and as we looked, inside.
The more coverings that came off, the more exposed the insulation became. The rat popped up to see what was going on, and the short chase ensued. James reached in to grab the rat. The rat dropped to the floor and ran back and forth for a bit. I alerted James to this fact and he tried another time to grab the rat. The rat scurried over to the table that holds our toaster and spice rack and began to climb one of the legs. James finally got a hold of it and put the rat out of our misery. We cleaned up the remaining mess all before “The Scream Machine” (as James called Meredith that day) got back from a lunch date with her friend.
This cat and mouse game was getting to be too much. We decided to switch tactics. We thought that the best way to deal with the critters was to put poison into the ceiling. This was the safest place, as it was nowhere near a place where the dogs could get the poison. The next morning, we discovered that one of the rats had carried the poison from the ceiling to the outside of the house and left the poison next to one of the dogs’ food dishes. That day we decided to have the watchmen keep a close eye on the dogs, look for any poison or dead rats around the house as they did their rounds, and tie the dogs up when they left so that they could be as safe as possible. We have not used poison since and moved to traps.
We had seen that seven had been killed, and could smell from the ceiling in our veranda (as there was no access large enough to allow a person inside to investigate) a sixth one. Today James informed me of a present he had discovered on the veranda. I went out to see a rat’s tail hanging from a gap in the ceiling panels and the fascia. The flies were a buzz with the discovery. James pulled the rat out, ever so carefully, and disposed of the body. Later this afternoon, he told me that we needed to do some more investigating as there was still a smell coming from the veranda. On a hunch, he climbed the water tower to look on the roof of the veranda. Sure enough, there was the ninth one dead on the tile roof of the veranda. That one had been there a while and was half decomposed.
We believe that there is at least one more varmint to get. We will keep you posted once they are gone.
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