Greenwood Ratscrew

Maholla peeps-

So listen to this. Two nights ago, Alex woke up around 3am, and feeling thirsty went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Much to his dismay, a RAT ran across the floor in front of him and bolted behind the refrigerator. After about an hour of trying to get the rat out by poking various broom sticks/tape measures/toilet plungers behind the fridge, he set a few traps and went back to bed.

The following day, the rat had still not taken the bait of peanut butter and bacon, so Alex, unable to live in a rat house any longer, called an exterminator. Now, I have to say we both thought the exterminator would arrive, go in to the house, and come out with the rat in a trap or something . . . well, it doesn't quite work that way. He is not a rat catching wizard, but rather a rat catching helper. After walking around the house and sealing up any holes with netting and foam, the exterminator set a few more traps, and then basically told us that we had to wait for the rat to get hungry enough to take the bait since right now it is probably living IN THE WALLS! YUCK! There is a hole in Alex's upstairs that the exterminator found where the rat has been getting out of the walls and into the house. So, now that his outside entry is sealed, its only a matter of time before it has to come out of the walls, step on a trap, die and end our rat misery. We can not close the inside hole in fear that the rat will die in the walls and smell. This all happens yesterday.

Alex packs a bag and comes to stay with me for the night since there is nothing he can do but wait out the rat, and he might as well sleep in a rodent free home for a night. Around 10:30 last night Alex realizes that he forgot to take his garbage out, and since we had a party last weekend he really can't miss trash day this week. Being the nice girlfriend I am I agree to accompany him back to his rat house to take out the garbage, and we figure, might as well check the traps while we are there.

We enter the house, I stay in the living room, perched on the couch while Alex checks the traps in the kitchen. No rat. Next he heads upstairs . . . . "interesting" he says. I yell up for him to explain- you do NOT want to hear "interesting" from a person checking a rat trap. No sign of a rat, but one of the traps had gone off and was flipped upside down. We suppose it could have just gone off on its own . . . but then, and here is where the fun begins, we see BLOOD on the carpet downstairs. Not a lot, but about a quarter size spot of blood on the floor. The mystery is, there appears to be no other blood anywhere in the house. So a trap goes off upstairs, and then blood on the carpet downstairs, but still no rat.

I have to admit, at this point I start to get into the 'rat race'. I take a tissue and set it over the blood, step on it, and make sure its wet (such a detective!). Alas, it is fresh blood. Then Alex, using his headlamp, discovers a drop of blood on the stairs. Aha! We are getting closer . . . . actually, that's it. That's all we find. We search the house up and down for a bleeding rat but find nothing. After much discussion, we decide that the rat must have got his tail trapped, hence no trail of blood along the floor like you would see if his paw got caught. He got his tail trapped, freaked out, bolted down the stairs and sat with his bleeding tail on the carpet, before returning upstairs and back down his hole. We covered the upstairs with more traps and returned to my house defeated once again by this darn rat.

Alex will check again today after work, hopefully this thing is stupid enough to get himself tapped again, this time for good! Alex thinks he should get a CAT to catch it, or set a snake loose in the walls . . . . . neither of which I will let happen. YUCK! Cross your fingers, I will keep you posted!