Me and the Other Rat

I met a man sitting on a sidewalk bench in Lynden the other day. He had a heavy Chicago Bears sweatshirt on, and it was obvious to me that he wasn’t a local.

I had a nudge from my inner self to say “hi”. He was a nice guy, but it was hard for me to understand the inner city slang he was using. Basically, I understood that he was in the county visiting a brother who had moved out from Chicago. The brother was encouraging him to move out before he got shot in the streets.

“I couldn’t believe it when I lay in bed last night. There was no gunfire going on. You know how terrifying it is to hear gunfire outside your bedroom window?” he asked.

Well, yes, I do. But this is Whatcom County. Gunfire is only heard at dawn when the hunters are opening fire on the ducks.

I do know the real terror which wakes me up from a dead sleep. It shakes me to the core. It’s a sound that I dread more than hearing an intruder in my house.

“Moo.”

“Cripes, not again!”

It’s worse than waking up in the morning and finding out that all four wheels are missing from your car.

I dressed and walked the property. The farmer across the field from me, who by the way is the worst excuse for a cattle farmer that I know because his cattle have no feed, once again had his animals break through my fence to find feed in my yard.

The yard was aerated by hundreds of hoof marks and left with enough manure to fertilize all my fruit trees. They not only circled the house numerous times, but they went through my art garden, chomped on my hedge, and left a comment on my front porch doormat.

“Well, if you built a better fence, my cattle wouldn’t get out,” the farmer explained.

“If I spent the hundreds of dollars to fix my fence, your cattle would still destroy it to get on my lawn because you have no feed for them. And why am I maintaining a fence to keep your cattle from roaming?”

It’s no wonder I have high blood pressure. I spend 365 days of the year battling pests on my property.

I know that in Whatcom County we have moles. What I don’t understand is that I am surrounded by multi-acres of field land and yet the moles find it more convenient to dig and push up their hills in my yard.

You would think that with the cows in the field producing manure and fertilizing the ground, the worms would be abundant for the moles to feed on . . . oh wait, there is no feed in the field for the cows to produce manure. That’s why they are in my yard.

Now, sometime in late March or April, the Ladybugs appear in the house and every day I must walk through the rooms with the vacuum to suck them off the windows, curtains, and ceilings. What I can’t understand is where they come from each day. Another thing – Ladybugs are always one size, never baby Ladybugs.

About the time I have done away with the last Ladybug for the year, my next nemesis in the kitchen is Sugar ants. They keep me going all summer long. Moving in a single file line across the countertops toward something sweet found by a scout. I wipe out hundreds at a time with my little bottle of ant killer and yet they keep coming.

Of course, anyone who has ever brought bananas home from Costco, or any fruit picked from outside trees, will soon have their kitchen swarming with fruit flies (which, by the way, are attracted to my wife’s sourdough batter). Although she tries to pick most of them out, she eventually gives up and bakes the loaf anyway. We just tell people we’ve added rye to the bread.

And what plague around the Mitchell house would be complete without the late-summer yellow jacket and hornet swarms? Five stings last year! Five stings, and always when I’m in the pool. Picture me, running across the front yard, hands flailing in the air being chased by a swarm.

I heard Leo from across the street yell to his wife, “Don’t look, Ethel!” but it was too late. She’d already been mooned.

With the season comes the pest. I do have a year-round nemesis though – the rat in my laundry room.

He, or she, comes up from the crawl space at the furnace and reeks terror while at the same time showing me just how clever a rat can be. After all, it isn’t a cow.

My battle with the rat began when I noticed it was chewing holes in the bird/squirrel feed box which I keep in the laundry room.

“Okay, so we’ll see just how smart you are,” I snarled.

My first attempts at catching it, we will call the “spa” treatment.

There is a partition around the furnace with gaps in two places which the rat could exit. First, I took two rags and soaked them with peppermint oil and taped them on the floor next to the furnace. It is documented that rats can’t stand the smell of peppermint. On the outside of the partition, in front of the two gaps, I placed pads which are covered with a sticky substance. If the rat passed the peppermint rags and went out through the gaps, it would step into the sticky goo and become trapped.

The rat, ignoring the rag smell, went through the gap, laid down in the goo, rolled a bit to exfoliate itself, went over to grab some squirrel peanuts, then went back behind the partition and spent the night sleeping on the peppermint rags, most likely wearing Wi-Fi earbuds. The next night, he reached through the gap and slid the goo tray off to the side so he could avoid it.

Next came the spring traps. The ones I purchased have a small cup on the trigger in which I placed a peanut.

How was I to know it had been trained in bomb disarmament?

Each morning, that trap was still armed, and the peanut was gone.

“Very clever my little furry friend.”

So, I filled the trigger cup with peanut butter and stuck the peanut in it making it difficult to remove.

The next morning, the trap was sprung, the peanut was gone, and the peppermint rags had been slept on again. I did notice a plastic picnic knife caught tightly in the trap.

“So, it is a battle of the minds, is it?”

My next purchase online was a teeter totter trapdoor lid which fits over a five-gallon bucket which is half filled with water. On the underneath side of the lid, I smeared peanut butter and balanced three peanuts on top of the teetering lid. The design is such that the rat climbs on top of the lid smelling peanut butter. As it crosses the lid to get to the butter and the whole peanuts, its weight causes the lid to drop away, dumping it into the water to drown.

The next morning, the peanuts and the peanut butter were gone from the lid, which meant that the rat was in the water.

But no. Using an accomplice to counterbalance his weight, the rat once again stole the bait.

It was obvious to me now that the rat was a retired jewel thief who had gained much of its knowledge by watching Pink Panther movies.

As the traps changed, they also became more expensive and sophisticated. I now own a $65.00, battery operated Rat-Zapper – guaranteed to electrocute any rat.

Giddy with excitement, I removed it from the box and placed four “C” batteries inside to power it. Basically, it is a rectangular plastic box, open on one end. The other enclosed end has a small cup which holds peanut butter. Between the front and back end are metal plates. Somehow, when the rat crosses the plates, it triggers the power to come on which electrocutes it. I placed it at the opening of the furnace partition and giggled as I wrung my hands.

The next morning, I showered and covered myself in my bathrobe eager to see if the trap zapped the rat. Entering the laundry room, I could see the LED light on top of the trap was flashing red. This was an indication that there was a dead rat inside.

“Blah ha ha ha,” I laughed like a slightly insane mad scientist.

I walked to the exterior laundry room door with the trap to dump the dead rat outside. Standing in my bathrobe outside the door I carefully looked in the trap at my nemesis. The trap was empty. There was a peanut shell lying on the plates.

“You rotten little . . .”

I reached my hand inside to remove the shell . . . without shutting the power switch off.

ZZZZZZZZAP!

In that brief moment, my mind saw all 700 of the Comcast channels including the Spanish ones which I somehow understood. My life passed before my eyes but somehow got stuck in fourth grade when my mom gelled my hair too much.

“Yeow!” I screamed, shaking the trap off my hand and dancing around the yard with my hands flailing in the air.

From across the street I heard Leo yell, “Don’t look, Ethel!” but it was too late, she’d already been flashed.

The rat, or rats are still alive and living comfortably in my crawl space under the house. I will continue to pay more and more to try to outsmart them. It gives me something to do each day.

On another note, I see that Leo has finally put curtains on his living room windows.

Credits: The audio voice is provided by ElevenLabs.io. The characters of Leo and Ethel were from Ray Steven’s song, The Streak.

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