Shock and Awe on the Roof Rat!!

Its before

dawn and I am typing this blog in gloves to soften the key strikes on the computer. I have wrapped my coffee cup in a sock so when I set it down, it makes no noise. I wrapped the dog's collars in duct tape and toilet tissue as well. They stand as sentries, well, they're sleeping right now, but they could stand as sentries if they really wanted to.  Stealth is my soul, Ginsu Knife is my moniker. I am at war. I didn't think it would take this long for them to arrive. But now, now they are here, the Al Queda of the vermin world-the infamous Roof Rat!

They migrated out of the Arcadia District, leaving the posh homes and the upscale gardens filled with fruit trees, being driven out of that section of town by women wearing Versace, shewing the animal with designer brooms. Sure, they're not as big as their New York cousins, nothing requiring collars and leashes, but evil just the same.  Most left laughing, if rats laugh, not wanting to deal with their hosts, they moved out into other neighborhoods. Unfortunately for them, they wandered onto our peaceful street. Poor choice.

I first heard their scratching in the walls. It took a bit to figure out what the noise might be. I was hoping a lizard, geckos. We have geckos. They are our friends. We live in harmony with our gecko brothers. They eat the crickets and we supply outside electric boxes for them to sleep in.

It wasn't geckos.

There is no negotiating with these guys. They have their own hostile religion where they think they can impart their forced societal beliefs on anyone by living and eating and crapping in food drawers. You don't talk sweet to these animals. You burn their villages, snipe their leaders, putting their heads on little pikes made out of toothpicks around their living spaces to be a sign to the others they might want to leave before they too, have their beating hearts cut out and cooked with the morning bacon.

Shock and awe baby.

We started with the neighborhood  ACE Hardware. I asked the salesman what he had for rodents such as these. He took me to an aisle, half of which was just for this animal. Traps, poisons, baits, sonic disturbance devices-I was a man standing at the temple of a weapons' factory. But I had to stick with the plan. If I showed my hand too quick, these little bastards would talk to each other and let the others know where the claymores were. First off-we give them the feeling they're welcome.We put out the recommended poison which has the taste of peanut butter! The salesman at the store told me "It won't kill them right away, so you have to be patient. They have to drink water to activate the poison. Then, they explode!"

I got a warm tingly feeling, like I just won $5 playing a $2 Powerball ticket. 'Explode'? What a great idea. They wander back to their little nest, thinking everything is okay at the end of the day, and WHAM! Rat juice all over their family. Psychological warfare. I even left a little tray of water right next to the bait so, you know, they didn't have to walk so far-poor things (insert evil laugh here). Within a day, some of the scratching was gone-it got loud and then--nothing, like death spasms.

Two days went by, more bait, signs of them still around. They were taking the bait. I refilled the water with good, bottle water. Take, drink, enjoy! Then, late at night, one came out in the open. There was an initial sound of controlled panic from the other end of the house. The dogs were asleep next to me and frankly, I don't blame them for our issue. Their dogs for crying out loud. They don't want to mess with these things unless I can throw them like a baseball for the dogs to chase and retrieve.

I went into the den where I found Joni standing on the couch pointing at the corner of the room. She said it was moving slow, in the open. Good! the poison, oh the sweet elixir of death has come, confusing them, like a cockroach coming into the light before they die, this varmint was doing the same, finding the solace behind the dryer on its way into the wall again. That was fine, there were mines there too. Luckily for the rat, we didn't go hand to hand. I was willing, just as soon as I could have found something to club it to death with. The first thing I reached for was a dog's water dish.

Insufficient.

The next day, Phase II kicked in. Standard, old fashioned traps were deployed around the bait. You have to understand something about the territory. We have a 60 year old house. There are gaps, the width of a little finger in small spaces these guys fold their bodies and push through, gnawing it a little bigger when they have time.  Like napalm in war, traps have a political incorrectness about them. So? its a rat that can crawl from your roof's sewer vents, out through the toilet, and if you happen to be using it at the time, will cause you years-YEARS of counseling and you will never sit and read the paper again-ever. 

I disposaled him/her. I didn't want to give the dead rat's friends some place they could go and build a shrine to martyr their buddy.

And the little pike stood, as first a red toothpick, designed to hold green olives at a cocktail party, finding now true honor, mounted in play dough in the pantry, holding the head of our enemy high so the others could see what happens when you stray into the wrong neighborhood.  

So, like I said, I'm typing you this message in measured silence. They always come out this time of day, early, dark, morning. My listening posts are up and the wire is strung, holding empty baked bean tin cans in case they try to come in. I hope they do. I still have Phase III in reserve--DE-CON, the same poison my dad used at our cabin fifty years ago, the hydrogen bomb of rat poison. But its quiet. Maybe they moved on or the last of them crawled back to their nest and scribed a note with  its last dying breath, pinning it on their fur for anyone to find, warning them of the crazy bastard down stairs.

They will be back. They always come back. But we will be ready. Always vigilant. Always stealthy. Always Ginsu-ish.