What a first blog posting... today is day 2 after calling our landlord about our rat... erm... issue. We have yet to hear back from him.
Backstory: We've half suspected we had rats for a couple months (?) because of "scratching" in the walls in the evenings, but that had stopped about a month ago at the same time we sealed some faulty vents on the side of the house, and it was confirmed about 3 weeks ago when one ran out from under the washing machine and up the drywall in the garage. We thought we had mice, and that they were just in the garage (the kids had left the side door open) so I bought some nifty mouse traps off the internet We caught nothing. Then a week and a half ago my husband heard some skittering in the kitchen as he was getting ready for bed after far too many hours (lol) of television watching in the living room, the day he had had his "man surgery" at that, I mention that only because was supposed to be resting that whole first 24hours. Imagine my surprise when I wake at 2 am to hear the vaccuum running and dh cleaning out the pantry. Three rat/mouse things had been having a party in the pantry in some bagged dry milk and bags of rice I had near the floor and flipped out and scattered when he found them. Two ran under the stove and a third hesitated long enough for dh to throw a bowl over him. The next day my friend Kathy came over to get the "mouse" to give it to one of her pets as a treat only to discover we didn't actually have mice (I am told this is a blessing because mice apparently bred like wildfire and ocne you "have them" they are next to impossible to rid yourself of) anyway what my husband though was a mouse was actually a juvenile RAT. Kathy (who's day job is as a wildlife removal specialist in the Sonoma County, CA area) promised to come over the next day. She went in the attic and set a trap (there was some signs of rats having been/currently living up there, we set a trap in the pantry, we set a trap in the garage, she cut tree limbs that were giving the rats access to the roof and thus the attic... We set a humane trap in front of the stove since snap traps can break fingers and with 4 mobile curious boys it seemed too risky for a snap trap out in the open. A week later we've caught NO rats. They however have eaten a few tomatoes and a honeydew melon before we put all food in a camp cooler, they have eaten a few hole in the wall behind the fridge (set a trap in front of it, the snapped the trap but no catch), a hole in the living room floor (stapled some wire mesh over the hole under the carpet) and the very very last straw a 2x4ish hole in the livingroom wall!!!! Kathy also confirmed when dh moved the stove out to see what was going on that they had been eating the wire on the stove and could eventually bite the wires, the electricity use their bodies to arc and start a kitchen fire (oye!!). We hypothesise that every time we boarded up a hole they felt the need to make new one. But the thought of rats now having access to my living room (well my whole house) while I sleep gives me the creeps. Yes they are getting desperate, and they are ruining our rental in the process. It's been about 26 hours since my husband first called our landlord and we have not heard back from him. Last night instead of completely blocking this new hole in the livingroom we set up a small train table board catty corner to allow the rats out of their masterpeice hole to stroke their little rat egos without actually letting them get out and have access to anything. We left the hole next to the fridge open and boarded off the kitchen from the rest of the house. There doesn't appear to be any new holes this morning so I guess we took the right fork in the road letting them think they "won". Still hoping the LLs calls SOON. We onyl think we are dealing with 2 maybe 3 rats but man alive they are sm-art buggers!
