I was not sure if I would ever share this story with you.We had a get together for a few friends this weekend. It has been a long time since we have had more than a couple of couples over for dinner. It was fun and we spent a large portion of the evening outdoors on the patio. As a convenience, we left the patio doors open from late afternoon until all the guests had left and the clean up was complete. It was almost midnight before we locked up for the night.
The next morning we were up bright and early to head to church. The mister discovered that something had been nibbling at our fruit bowl. Actually, feasted on bananas, pears, apples and avocados. I noticed some dog kibble on the floor near the door and near the stove. The dog was whining and clawing at the cupboards. We had to serve communion and took off, knowing we had unwanted guests in the house.
Last night, all was quiet. No sign of rodents. The family went to bed and I was left to catch up my favorite DVR selections and knit in peace. I heard some rustling in the kitchen. Ran in and saw that something had moved the counter around. My hubby came running and found a piece of fruit wedged behind the microwave. OK. We definitely had a rodent. How many? Where. WHY GOD, WHY?
The mister shrugged and went back to bed. After all, a man needs his rest. I sat on the couch with some simple seed stitch keeping me calm and waited for what I knew would come.
From 10 pm until 4 am, I saw that wily rat every 15 minutes. It became accustomed to my presence and would stare at me before disappearing between the microwave and refrigerator. I passed out from exhaustion at 4:30 after extensive rodent research via internet. We had some old poison in the garage and set it out. It quickly disappeared. So, I had seen the enemy and filled it with poison. What else could I do? With the lights blazing, I headed to bed.
This morning, we called Al the exterminator. He came, set traps and drove away. Ten minutes later, we heard the loud snap of a trap. The dog was going wild. I called him back to collect the trapped R-A-T. RIP.
Now we wait for the ratting hour. He set traps all over the kitchen. Just a precaution. We have gone into take-out mode. The expert feels we are done. We had a lone ranger that came to the party. Beware of uninvited guests. Another new experience is under our belt. Never ask the question, "what else could happen?" The answer may surprise you.
2 comments:
Thanks for sharing your story. It reminds me of when the hub & I were married and living over a gift shop in the center of a very cute town. Four years, no problem. Then a PetSmart moved in right next door (as in we shared a wall with PetSmart), and in the first month we caught 8 mice. The first one popped out of my burner as I was about to make some popcorn. I never cooked in that house again. Needless to say, I think we moved out within a few weeks. Good bye mouse house!
I live in a very large warehouse-like building, so every day when I get home I do an animal head count to make sure my kitties and puppy are accounted for. Occasionally one of my cats sleeps above the ceiling on the kitchen so in order to check on her whereabouts I have to stand on the washing machine. One day while doing this, I went to shut the lid of the machine and noticed that there was a RAT inside and trying to get out. Obviously I begin squealing and flapping my arms around in a panic. One of my roommates came and tried to capture it but it ended up escaping the machine by launching of her arm.
The rat made 2 more appearances in the following days, but as soon as my humane rat trap came in the mail we haven't seen hide nor hair of him.
This winter we had 3 blizzards in a row with massive freezing temps. The suspicion is that he came in to get warm and left as soon as it went back to being 40 below instead of 60 below.
Post a Comment