Wednesday, February 17, 2010

I smell a rat.






I have come face to face with the enemy, and the enemy is a rat.   Not a cute, animated rat like in Charlotte's Web or Ratatouille.  He does not help me with my cooking (though, that is a thought) and he does not have big family that does not appreciate him (oh, I hope not!).  He is a real live, grey, whiskery, long tailed rat that likes my kitchen.

So, a couple of weeks ago we noticed a weird hole in the side of one of the bananas on the counter.  I have seen stranger things in my house.  I have a daughter that eats apples with a spoon so it did not immediately cause alarm.  We accused the teenagers and little kids.   We thought someone was doing it to freak us out.  It was denied by all and we continued to see strange hallowed out spots in our bananas.  But it was not until we saw the half cantalope on the plate with a hole dug out the side that I got creeped out.

So the ideas started flying.  We thought maybe it was a chipmunk coming in from the doggie door, which is in the kitchen, and having a snack.  I could handle the cuteness of that.  Then my dad suggested a raccoon.  Not so cute.  So we decided to do what any family who has been watching America's Funniest Home Videos for 20 years would do.  We set up a video camera.  We propped it on the counter and pointed it at the bait, the already eaten cantalope.  We left one light on over the kitchen sink, pushed record and went to bed.

The video tape was only an hour long so we thought the likelihood of something appearing in that hour was slim.  When we awoke we  did notice something had visited the cantelope again.  As we scurried around getting ready for school and work my husband watched the tape on fast forward.  Then I hear a squeal from him and the words "it's not a chimpmunk."  I could feel nausea in my stomach as I looked at the tape.  There on my counter helping himself to our fruit was a RAT.

 Ewwwwwwwwwwwww!

 So creepy seeing an actual live rat on my granite counter top.  And we don't think he was coming from the outside either.   I watched for about 5 minutes and that is all I could take.  The five year old now calls it the "scary video" of the "monster" that is eating our food.

So now, I am knowingly living with a rat.  A rat my daughter and I have named Ratzilla. And I am so creeped out by my kitchen right now.  Just opening a cupboard I am in fear there will be two beady eyes looking back at me.  This house is not big enough for the 9 of us.  Somebody has got to go, and I prefer it be the rat.

So here are the ideas for project "Ratzilla Elimination".

1. Let the dogs sleep downstairs one night and have at it.  My daughter said no because then there would be rat guts everywhere.  Gross.

2. Get a cat for one night.  I am allergic to cats and think we would have the same grossness as the dog idea.

3.  Get a bigger snake than the corn snake we already own.

4. Buy the rat a chef's hat and see if he knows how to cook.

5.  Get an exterminator.  But I have seen the movie Mouse Hunt and don't like the thought of the house being leveled in the process.

6. Get a regular old mousetrap. Snap. Yuck.

7. Get a "humane" trap and take him to the dessert to commune with nature instead of my cantalope.

I am leaning towards the last one but it turns out they are not easy to find.  So we may have to go with something less dignified.  Snap. Yuck.

Ratatouille anyone?  (Does not actually contain rat meat but still, yuck.)

7 comments:

heather@actingbalanced.com said...

So sorry to hear about your rat... I wouldn't be setting foot in the kitchen til it was gone... chills just from reading about it... I'd personally go with the snap trap or the exterminator and make hubby check the trap before I went into the kitchen every morning til it was gone...
Hopefully the problem is taken care of soon so that Mom can smile again

Laura, Ben, and family said...

you can find a humane trap at most construction type stores (home depot or something). :-)

Although I'd probably go for the non humane method, and the minute I saw something in it, I'd scream bloody murder and make my husband take care of it.

There's nothing wrong with being squeemish. We lived near a farm for a while, and we ended up with mice in our engine last summer, (gross), so I had to put mousetraps in the car. And the first time I had to ask a stranger to empty the trap, because I wasn't gonna do it, and I couldn't drive home with a dead mouse in the car ... I felt silly, but it's better than having them alive!!!

Lourie said...

BLAH! I had one in my garage and that was bad enough. I am not nice when they cross my path. Any critter, bug, vermin etc will sleep with the fishes if they dare enter. I don't do snap traps because I have little curious fingers. I did a sticky trap. Yeah I know...but it's me or the rat. Put the sticky near or right by that lovely fruit, and I bet you will have a very unhappy rat. Do be ware though as they will chew themselves apart to get loose. Hmmm...maybe that icky snap one is better. It happens fast too because they are creatures of habit and follow the same path all the time. Good luck.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.

AB said...

Yikes! Take out anyone?

Zane said...

I'm glad you didn't decide to let your dogs try to get the rat. I know your dogs and Rex would try to kiss it and Chloe would be swinging from your chandelier.

The Anthony Family said...

How come you no share the video? Did you humanely catch it and make it another family pet? I would feel much better about everything if I could here a finalization to the rat story! Do tell....

joemama said...

i would say number 4 for sureeee

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