I was awakened about 1:30 AM last night by my cat running around the house. Got up to check things out, walked into my bathroom and a healthy, plump rat walked toward me.

Exited bathroom and closed the door. I could hear the rat walking around in the bathroom, knocking things off the shelves. He/she would look at me once in a while by sticking part of his/her head under the bathroom door. I blocked the under door area then sat down to ponder what to do.

Here's the interactive part. What would you have done? Gone to a motel and sold the house the next day? Called my wife who is backpacking in Patagonia? Set fire to the house and let the insurance company deal with it? Answer below.

I slid a baited rat trap into the room and waited. Problem solved in about an hour. I then went back to bed with the cat that probably brought the critter into the house and mental images of the encounter. I slept well but was jumpy and would over react to every sound and any movement by the cat.

Here are my two rat encounters that will make you feel better. In both cases it was cats that brought them in the house and proceeded to play with them.
1. Went to bed, after a few minutes I thought I heard a noise under my pillow then figured I must just be hearing my own heart beat. Few more minutes, slid my hand under the pillow and felt something. Light on, carefly lift the pillow to find a rat. Rat runs across the bed . Almost 24 hours later the cat finally got him and left me a present on the bed.
2. Cat comes through window making noises I should have recognized, jumps on bed and bugs me for a while, keeps trying to bury itself under my leg, under my side. I keep shoving the annoying kitty off of me. Get up in the morning to discover that the cat had brought me a rat, on which I rolled and slept on. Kitty was just trying to get under me to retrieve the rat.

Feel better now?

Molotov Kocktail.



Ok, are you freakin' kidding me? "Kocktail" is profanity? I had to misspell the dang thing. Capitalization wouldnt even work. Jeebus.

I found dead mouse in living room. I think it got into house and then cat killed it. At least cat didn't bring the "gift" to me in my bed.

My wife complains about the scratching noises in a wall. I think there might be some more mice in there.

The rats stay outside in the compost pile. I think it's time to launch a campaign to get all the rats. It's easy to get only some of them and then you haven't done anything. I hate to kill animals but I hate rats wandering around the yard even more.

Check your foundation for holes. No such thing as one rat. A/c line into house etc.

Get a badass cat who will keep any rats away.

Mine were woodrats, definitely brought in by cats.
Not long ago we had raccoons that kept coming in through the cat window in the bathroom. Since I did not want a face to face in a small room with them, I would start making noises and banging on the door to give them time to get out. Then...I did the same thing and when I made it to the bathroom, there was a skunk, not a racoon. Not fun.

Kat, thanks for scarring me for the remainder of my life! That is pure creepsanity.

When I was a kid my little brother and I would hang our toes right on the edge of the subway tracks in NYC and look down over the ledge and watch the rats run around below, thought it was all fun and games then. Now? I can't even deal with mice, overgrown cockroaches with hair IMO. Rats? I'd have a full on battle with fisticuffs and blowtorches if a rat made it into my bedroom.

Ya'll are tougher than me.

Kat,

I do feel better now. Thanks.

I'm also laughing.

There's something about these encounters that is so distasteful that it spills over into funny........after they are over.

Daryl

Edited by lyrad1 on 02/27/2012 10:11:04 MST.

Daryl, sorry for the hijack...but you started something I can really relate to!
More critters.
Scorpion in my daughter's room the day we moved in.
This one was a few years ago: I reach over to grab my glass of water next to the bed, in the dark. As I drink something bumps my lips. Lights on: a lizard had drowned in my water.


Of all of them, the waking up to realizing I had been rolling on a rat all night was definitely the worst. All I wanted was to take a shower but even that didn't take away the grossness of it all.

Edited by Kat_P on 02/27/2012 10:32:28 MST.

"Get a badass cat who will keep any rats away."

Yeah, well, I had a sort of Buddhist love-junky cat for 20 years, and he wasn't much good at being aggressive toward anything at all. He liked to rub up against the legs of deer that passed through the yard, amorous stuff like that.

So one winter we had a bunch of field mice that sneaked in and set up camp. I had a talk with the cat about the eradication plan, and we (I) made it a contest. I put a sticky note on the fridge to keep score. I set out several mouse traps with peanut butter, and he did what he usually did (took long naps). "We" finally got them all. Final score: me-17, cat-1. Some mouser he was. Be sure to pick the right cat for the job.

I lived on an island for many years so rats were common but we would get the huge cat size rats though, not the small city ones (like you see around restaurants). One year the people below the hill from us decided they didn't want to pay to have their garbage removed. So they let it pile up. The rats came up from the water not far away and then over ran the fields and came to the neighboring homes. They would chew through walls trying to get in. We would shoot them, kill them with shovels - I know it sounds gross and brutal but what else does one do?? My cat then was a good mouser, she would catch any and everything, she nearly died after killing a rat BIGGER than her. She was never the same after that encounter. She killed the rat in our laundry room, it had chewed through an exterior wall.
Not long after the county put a lien on the home and forced them to clean up, it was nasty. Then the rats went away.

Raccoons don't bother me.....we lived in harmony with them under every house on that island. The ladies are social. They left the cat alone and would parade their babies by yearly, even hang out in the yard sunning themselves.

But rats as big as a house cat do bother me.

I decided to scrub the bathroom clean to erase any rat leavings and achieve closure on this memorable encounter.

I just lifted a pile of clean towels (going to run them through the laundry anyway) off a shelf and found a coiled rattlesnake looking at me. I jerked back and yelled. I'm sure my blood pressure hit 170.

My fun loving wife had put a rubber snake under the towels. Talk about an effective prank? I was already half wound up when I entered the bathroom and the snake just about sprung my springs.

I'm too old for this. Her jokes are going to kill me.

Daryl:

Everyone is happy you don't have a concealed handgun permit.

Bullet holes can be patched and painted; the ventilated towels can be used to dry the car after washing; new towels can be purchased; but it takes a long time to get the smell of burnt cordite out of the house.

And you don't have to explain to the neighbors and the local TV crew why you went to war with a rubber snake.

No close-call rat story but I live near enough to the Nike campus to run a bark-chip path there (a very nice perk). The path goes near some small ponds and several nutria has taken up residence there. Last Sunday, there were 8 of them, eating grass right off the path. They are docile when you are running by but they look kind of nasty. There are others at a nearby park and they have them in Eugene, OR, too.

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/nutria/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutria

Edit: maybe I'll catch one and send it to ya, Eugene!

Edited by saparisor on 02/27/2012 12:08:22 MST.

Molotov COCKTAIL.

Now we need to follow up with a recipe for rat fondue.

--B.G.--

""My fun loving wife had put a rubber snake under the towels. Talk about an effective prank? I was already half wound up when I entered the bathroom and the snake just about sprung my springs. I'm too old for this. Her jokes are going to kill me."


Just wondering if the wife being a beneficiary of your life insurance policy might have something to do with her 'fun loving' pranks?

Edited by ben2world on 02/27/2012 12:18:10 MST.

"Now we need to follow up with a recipe for rat fondue."

Bob -- seriously, try this recipe instead. Chinese cooking is the best. :)


EDIT: I notice no annoying gear ads following this particular post...

Edited by ben2world on 02/27/2012 12:26:33 MST.

"no annoying gear ads"

It is kind of hard to top that recipe.

--B.G.--