(no subject)
OK, so you want to hear about Templeton, by which I mean Templeton and his extended/extensive family, all of whom want to join our family. It's not too grim really, but he is smarter than we are, and that is annoying.
We first noticed his presence last November when we heard him gnawing in the walls. It sounded like a beaver was in there nibbling. Our houseguest, a visiting Welshman, declared that things gnawing inside the walls always sound far bigger than they are, and that it was surely only a mouse. Only thing was, no shit, and as we all know, mice just can't hold it. Where they eat, they excrete. Still, I didn't think of RATS.
So, we baited our mousetraps, the bleeding-heart, catch-the-filthy-vermin-alive kind, with tasty gobs of chunky peanut butter and set them out in the kitchen. The critters ate the peanut butter but didn't spring the traps. Our first theory was they were too light! I guess this shows we are the-glass-is-half-full people.
Then we began to find that cat food--hazelnut-size kibbles--was being moved and hoarded in the drawer with our table linens. Ugh, this was getting nasty. Friends suggested chipmunks. Charlotte dreamed of ferrets.
We bought chipmunk and squirrel traps. NO luck.
I started looking for telltale skat while Alan was surfing the web for rodent profiles. After we found sizable turds behind the sofa, he theorized Norwegian roof rats. We bought rat zapper traps. Enough mercy and fretting about karmic debt (like we remember those previous lives anyway?) These traps are supposed to electrocute the rats when they go into them to get the tasty cat food with which they are baited. Only our clever rats wanted nothing to do with them.
Meanwhile, they had chewed through the phone cord, devoured several bars of soap, and begun eating the bathmat in the upstairs bathroom. I was finally beginning to get mad. After all, it was April, and this creature had been bugging us since November.
When the annual spring invasion of the giant flying ants got so intense that I called an exterminator, we asked about the rodent too. His first question, 'how big is the skat? The size of thistle seeds?" Now, really, I know the size of many seeds, but thistle??? Alan tried giving him various estimates based on inches, but he was a seed man, and when in desperation Alan said 'watermelon seeds." His answer was, 'oh man, you got rats.' Not Euro-chic, Norwegian roof rats, nasty normal ones.
We did not hire this poisoner of the earth, although when ants are dropping all over you it is tempting, but just waited for the ants to abate and bought nasty spring traps. Now I don't know if you have ever used the rat-sized ones, but they are extremely dangerous and scary things. We had two brands, they looked identical but one brand was far easier to set without breaking your hand by accident. It also proved far easier for the rats to raid without tripping. Still, one of them actually caught our rat.
Well what we thought was our rat. Our initial delight that we had caught the bugger was short-lived. Despite the carnage inflicted by the trap, it was clear that something had been nibbling on the corpse. Friends for dinner? More of them.
We reset the least dangerous traps and tried again. We failed. Meanwhile, deprived of the cat food, which we put away every night, Ratty began to eat holes in the rugs. Picking places where there were traces of food, I guess(in Heloise's spotless home, inexplicable). He got bolder. Alan came into the kitchen one night, before we had even turned out the lights, and there he was, greedily eating cat food, while our worthless, overbred, English-born, chocolate tabby-point Siamese cat watched with interest. At that point all our good tree-hugging, earth-loving principles were shed like George Bush's college misadventures. We bought d-con. I gather the rats eat it, go outside looking for water, die, and then are devoured by vultures, taking that poison straight up the food chain. What do I care!
We did it. We put out the little box, about three inches square, filled with vivid green pellets. Ratty loved them. Really loved them! The first box disappeared entirely, not just the bait, the box and all! We put out another box, he dragged this one over to his rathole and tried to pull it through.
It was quite sad somehow. What a smart rat, moving the whole box, saving all those steps; taking the lovely green candy home to share.
We put out a third box. It remains untouched. We have not heard Ratty. Last night we left out the cat food, but none disappeared. What an anticlimax! No resolution, no corpse. Is he/are they dead? Did they just go to their summer nests outside? I guess we won't know until next November or they eat something else. So, we have our house back. The ants have flown away and Templeton is either dead or rat-poison resistant and sitting happily atop a giant pile of tasty green pellets.
We first noticed his presence last November when we heard him gnawing in the walls. It sounded like a beaver was in there nibbling. Our houseguest, a visiting Welshman, declared that things gnawing inside the walls always sound far bigger than they are, and that it was surely only a mouse. Only thing was, no shit, and as we all know, mice just can't hold it. Where they eat, they excrete. Still, I didn't think of RATS.
So, we baited our mousetraps, the bleeding-heart, catch-the-filthy-vermin-alive kind, with tasty gobs of chunky peanut butter and set them out in the kitchen. The critters ate the peanut butter but didn't spring the traps. Our first theory was they were too light! I guess this shows we are the-glass-is-half-full people.
Then we began to find that cat food--hazelnut-size kibbles--was being moved and hoarded in the drawer with our table linens. Ugh, this was getting nasty. Friends suggested chipmunks. Charlotte dreamed of ferrets.
We bought chipmunk and squirrel traps. NO luck.
I started looking for telltale skat while Alan was surfing the web for rodent profiles. After we found sizable turds behind the sofa, he theorized Norwegian roof rats. We bought rat zapper traps. Enough mercy and fretting about karmic debt (like we remember those previous lives anyway?) These traps are supposed to electrocute the rats when they go into them to get the tasty cat food with which they are baited. Only our clever rats wanted nothing to do with them.
Meanwhile, they had chewed through the phone cord, devoured several bars of soap, and begun eating the bathmat in the upstairs bathroom. I was finally beginning to get mad. After all, it was April, and this creature had been bugging us since November.
When the annual spring invasion of the giant flying ants got so intense that I called an exterminator, we asked about the rodent too. His first question, 'how big is the skat? The size of thistle seeds?" Now, really, I know the size of many seeds, but thistle??? Alan tried giving him various estimates based on inches, but he was a seed man, and when in desperation Alan said 'watermelon seeds." His answer was, 'oh man, you got rats.' Not Euro-chic, Norwegian roof rats, nasty normal ones.
We did not hire this poisoner of the earth, although when ants are dropping all over you it is tempting, but just waited for the ants to abate and bought nasty spring traps. Now I don't know if you have ever used the rat-sized ones, but they are extremely dangerous and scary things. We had two brands, they looked identical but one brand was far easier to set without breaking your hand by accident. It also proved far easier for the rats to raid without tripping. Still, one of them actually caught our rat.
Well what we thought was our rat. Our initial delight that we had caught the bugger was short-lived. Despite the carnage inflicted by the trap, it was clear that something had been nibbling on the corpse. Friends for dinner? More of them.
We reset the least dangerous traps and tried again. We failed. Meanwhile, deprived of the cat food, which we put away every night, Ratty began to eat holes in the rugs. Picking places where there were traces of food, I guess(in Heloise's spotless home, inexplicable). He got bolder. Alan came into the kitchen one night, before we had even turned out the lights, and there he was, greedily eating cat food, while our worthless, overbred, English-born, chocolate tabby-point Siamese cat watched with interest. At that point all our good tree-hugging, earth-loving principles were shed like George Bush's college misadventures. We bought d-con. I gather the rats eat it, go outside looking for water, die, and then are devoured by vultures, taking that poison straight up the food chain. What do I care!
We did it. We put out the little box, about three inches square, filled with vivid green pellets. Ratty loved them. Really loved them! The first box disappeared entirely, not just the bait, the box and all! We put out another box, he dragged this one over to his rathole and tried to pull it through.
It was quite sad somehow. What a smart rat, moving the whole box, saving all those steps; taking the lovely green candy home to share.
We put out a third box. It remains untouched. We have not heard Ratty. Last night we left out the cat food, but none disappeared. What an anticlimax! No resolution, no corpse. Is he/are they dead? Did they just go to their summer nests outside? I guess we won't know until next November or they eat something else. So, we have our house back. The ants have flown away and Templeton is either dead or rat-poison resistant and sitting happily atop a giant pile of tasty green pellets.