Rattikins is back
So we caught Mirabelle, rat escape artist extrordinare. Yesterday morning Mere heard a crackle and looked to see Mirabelle's tail disappear under the fridge. She promptly screamed for the rest of the family and we built a barricade so the rat couldn't leave the kitchen. For the next two hours we proceeded to scoot the fridge out, clean behind it, take off all the parts we could and poke my rat with a vacuum cleaner. She hid in the cooling coils which is an incredibly hard place to reach. The funny thing about the whole situation was that while all four of us were flustered, Mirabelle was the essence of non-challence. She didn't squeak or jump or act worried in the least. If she got dirty, she'd stop and groom herself. She wasn't at all worried that three large humans were trying to smack her with long objects. Finally she got annoyed with us and left the fridge. She sat behind some chairs and then crawled into a whole in the wall. Dad built a contraption againt the hole consisting of a Kleenex box, the human rat trap and another Kleenex box. We baited it with an apple and some peanut butter then left for Thanksgiving at my grandparent's house. Lo and behold, upon our return the cage was closed and the rat was caught! She's now safely (and grouchily) sitting in her cage with Charlee.