I was talking to AJ on the phone tonight and she was telling me she was on her way to buy some rat poison because the house she is renting with another girl has a little bit of a rat problem. Last week, she decided that the problem was the bag of dog food she was keeping in the laundry room, so she went and bought a heavy duty trash can to store the food. She went out of town for three days and got home tonight to discover that the rats had chewed through the industrial strengh trash can.
Chewed through the trash can.
It reminded me of my own rat story. Ahh, fond memories.
When P and I were newly married, a family friend offered us free rent in one of his townhomes in exchange for P acting as a leasing manager for the complex. We were young and poor, so we jumped at the chance.
The townhomes were built around the 1950’s and really quaint. The one we lived in was two stories with hardwood floors and I just loved it.
One night, while we were sleeping, P jumped up and said “Did you see that?” He’s notorious for talking in his sleep so I didn’t pay that much attention. “What? Did I see what?” He said, “It was a gray, furry thing that ran across the floor.” Umm, yeah sure…go back to sleep.
Two mornings later, P got up early to go hunting and as he was drinking his coffee, he felt something staring at him. It was a family of baby possums huddled in the corner of our kitchen. So, he grabbed his gun and went hunting in the comfort of his own home.
I’m kidding.
The possums scurried out a small hole in the kitchen baseboards. So the next night, P put a Have a Heart trap in our kitchen. It was a tip we’d seen on Martha Stewart for catching wildlife that live in your home.
The next morning, P goes downstairs fully expecting to see some possums, but instead sees that he has caught a rat. A big, nasty, fat rat. And from what he told me later, the rat lunged at the side of the cage and hissed at him. This was no Jerry mouse, my friends.
Of course at that point, I felt like we were living under siege. I was completely grossed out to the point of never wanting to step foot in the kitchen again.
The next night, P was out playing basketball with some friends. I was home by myself, minding my own business, when I start hearing rustling noises coming from the kitchen. Not wanting to come face to face with any member of the phylum rodentia, I run over to the doorway of the kitchen and flip on the light thinking the light will scare whatever it is away.
Well, the light came on in time for me to see a piece of half eaten toast go flying across the kitchen floor. The worst part (well, maybe not the worst part, but still very bad) was that we don’t even eat toast. This creature was flinging half eaten toast of an unknown origin across my kitchen.
P came home to find me just slightly undone by this turn of events, so once again the trap came out followed by a good, solid round of rat poison and boarding up any potential gateways to the outdoors that existed in our kitchen.
And that was the end of our rat problem.
And we moved out a month later.