We have had exactly three encounters with rats since we moved here in 1997.
1) During our early days of home ownership, we suspected we had a mouse in the house. Things were getting nibbled here and there. There were scuffling sounds behind the walls and tiny poops under the kitchen sink. Mark and I put out mouse traps, little plastic tunnels which tip forward upon entry, leaving the occupant unharmed. We put every possible mouse treat we could think of in those traps in order to lure it in: cheese, crackers, candied fruit, peanut butter, peanut butter ON crackers. Nothing worked. One evening I was doing something in the office when I spotted it, immediately recognizing why it wasn’t going for the bait. It couldn’t fit into the mouse trap because it was A RAT.
I remember explaining this to Mark. IT’S HUGE, I said. IT HAS A TAIL THIS BIG. It wasn’t until Mark saw it that he truly understood what I was talking about. So we bought a real rat trap and set it in the office closet, where we’d seen it skulk away. Of course, Mark was out one night when I heard the SNAP of the trap. I went to look. I wish I hadn’t. The rat was actually kind of cute. It looked like a pet store rat: grey with a white tummy. Mark disposed of the body when he got home.
2) We came home from a vacation last summer. We were gone less than a week but missed garbage day. Mark went to put something in the garbage can, which was full, and there, lying across the top, was a big fat rat. It was in quiet repose, like Templeton after the county fair. Mark wasn’t sure if it was even alive, but it was, and it scurried to the bottom of the garbage can.
Mark wheeled the garbage can out to the curb and wondered what to do. (I stood way back, worried the thing was going to jump out in a ninja-style self-defense.) Mark tipped the garbage can over on its side and waited. It didn’t take long for a couple of our neighbours to emerge from their homes and come and see why Mark was staring at the garbage. It was quite comical, really, but here’s the question: what does a person do about a rat in the bottom of the garbage can?
The situation remedied itself. This story has a good news/bad news kind of ending. The rat eventually ran out of the garbage can (yay!), but it ran directly over to a neighbour’s house (oops).
3) There was no milk for my coffee this morning so I walked to the village to buy some. On the way back I saw a rat shape trundle across the snowy road ahead of me. It occurred to me that rats and squirrels look a lot alike, although squirrels get better PR because they’re fluffier. Was this a rat? Or a squirrel with a hair follicle issue? I went to investigate, and there it was, huddled next to my neighbour’s house: a big ugly rat. It was not cute, with a white tummy. I turned away for a moment, and then it was gone.
