Saw the Rat

Last night, after supper, I went upstairs to do a bit more reading in my Italian Fairy Tales book (Italo Calvino. What a writer!), and seeing as the Fairy Tale book is in the ensuite bathroom, you can guess where I took my seat.

It would have been a nice relaxing read, were it not for the sudden sounds of rustling and scurrying that nearly made me jump out of my skin. JUST outside the wall of the shower. Or maybe just INSIDE the wall of the shower. Was that a rat on the roof? Or was it under the roof? Or was it... INSIDE OUR WALLS????

I raced downstairs, and let Ken know that my tiny bit of garage cleaning over the last 2 days had not dislodged the rat. I hadn't scared it enough to make it leave the comforts of our garage.

It was time to get serious about the garage vermin.

So we went out, and Ken and I tackled the stuff in the Rat Corner of the garage.

I'll admit it. I was just a girly-girl, and couldn't bring myself to go exploring in there by myself. I'll just live with the shame.

He was all burly-man, though, and wading into the rat-chewed boxes, pulling stuff out (wow, I forgot that we kept Nate's crib. It was back there in pieces. Fortunately, not chewed by the rat), and handing it to me to be swept down (if it had rat poops on it, or seed hulls (hmm, the rat had been busy). He was pulling stuff out, taking down piles of boxes, unearthing stuff we'd forgotten about when I saw it.

Out of the corner of my eye, and with the stealth of a jedi, it scurried past me without a sound.

Yikes.

I commend myself for not shrieking and jumping up onto the ladder's top rung.

Ken picked up a fire extinguisher. "Hmm, I could shoot this at the corner where he went. That would certainly give him something to think about."

"Yeah" I replied "But it would also make a great big mess on those shelves that he just scurried under."

Instead, Ken passed me the three traps that had been left by Clark Pest Control the last time we'd had a mouse. That was almost 3 years ago. Amazing how time flies when you're not infested with vermin. I baited them with peanut butter, and reset them, and Ken placed them along the path that we saw the rat take.

Fingers crossed!