Saturday, March 22, 2014

The Great Rat Debacle…


We knew we had an uninvited visitor.  It early January and I was up late one night working on emails and heard this awful scratching in the kitchen.  All the lights were off because the power was out…  So I grabbed my flashlight and crept into the kitchen.  The scratching was coming from the corner cabinets.  I approached the door, hiding the light against my chest… as quietly as I could I took hold of the door knob and yanked it open, whipping my flash light around at the same time… prepared to see the frightened and guilty culprit with eyes shining bright red in the light.  All that stealth led to nothing!  So the next day we purchased the only rat traps we could find, 3 sticky boards.  I held little hope of them actually working, feeling like what ever was making such a racket in the cabinets and chewing the door to the point of leaving sawdust on the floor in front of the cabinet would laugh at our attempts to capture him.  I was correct… he continued to torment us.  
We would find evidence of his enhabitance through the pasta bags with holes, dried bean trails… Then the panty/laundry room started to stink!  So Tom, Aldo and David took the washer out on the back porch.  The offending tenant ran out… and we thought we were rid of him!  

Eyewitness Gracie Holbrook reports that,   “It was living in the washer with all the items it had taken from us… plastic bags, pasta noodles and nesting material!”

How ever he got back in… the next day the power was still out…Tom calls Stephen into the kitchen.  He is down on his knees with the flash light… “Stephen, it is here under the cabinet!”


How were they going to get rid of the fast and wile critter?! They didn’t have any thing long enough or sharp enough to reach him.  So they called security knowing they are armed with a bow and arrows (used to chase off the larger wild animal.. i.e. monkeys).  Aldo and David came armed for battle and the hour of his DOOM arrived! 





Gracie and Stephen may have to seek counseling after the trauma of the chase and death of the large rat. When they retell the story of that fateful evening they still cringe and shiver.

We now are sure to close our screen doors even if we just step out the back for a moment!  We have learned our lesson.