Now then. About the rats.
Several days ago, hubby saw something greyish that he assumed was a rat. Just for a split second, and he didn’t get a good enough look to ascertain genus/species with any degree of accuracy.
However, since then, our garbage in the kitchen has been routed through, crackers (still in their wrapping) have been ripped into, soap has been gnawed at (interesting little tidbit there for ya!), and rat droppings have been seen.
Starting three nights ago, Fahim put out rat poison. Every morning, it’s disappeared.
Rat poison. Looks like a brownie, but with poison. Seriously, it looks that good.
This morning, Fahim thought I should go through the kitchen and see if we could find it. Perhaps it had a nest in there?
So we pull the fridge away from the wall (my bright idea) and we find… guess what? More crackers and the rat poison. But wait, the crackers. They’re now stored in the cupboard, so how did the rat get at them?
As it turns out, we had an airtight container with crackers on our ant-free cupboard. The container’s still there. No crackers, and a yellow liquid residue was left behind. No, I haven’t washed it yet. Nor have I smelled it. And no, I’m not certain that it’s rat urine. I don’t want to find out. I’m not touching that thing again until I find that pair of rubber gloves I have kicking around. Assuming the rats haven’t eaten those, too.
Anyway. Lid back on. Not tight, but back on.
IS NOTHING SACRED??????
We hypothesized for a few minutes that it could be a squirrel trapped in the house (as we think of the squirrel that climbed our drapes, and then quickly escaped outside as we got increasingly louder), but then we remembered the chicken bone it got out of the garbage, and hubby figures squirrels won’t go for chicken bones, so it’s gotta be a rat. I admit I know not enough of rat or squirrel dietary habits.
Our cleaning lady – when we told her of the rat situation – suggested that we mix together rice and fish, which rats apparently love, and mash in some panadol (pain killer, probably similar to tylenol, but I’m not certain on that point). Apparently, the panadol will kill them. But how much panadol? And we’d have to go get some first.
We’re willing to go out and get some. And rat traps, too, although they can be messy.
Remember those three pieces of rat poison the rat took away? Completely intact. Not eaten, not chewed, not snacked upon. Just hoarded.
