Rat the rat

Everybody say a quick hello and goodbye to Rat, the rat that invaded my home.

I learned my lesson. I thought Ozzie was hallucinating when he kept staking out weird things like the refrigerator and my dresser. Now I know better. Even though Ozzie is not a good cat for catching rats, he's very good at monitoring them. Like in this photo. Ozzie was convinced that there was something in the upper shelves in my closet. And he was right. Rat was taking refuge behind the stereo I store there.


I first became truly aware of Rat (and not just Ozzie's awareness of him) last Tuesday when I decided to explore my sock drawer for a pair I haven't worn in a while. My dresser (the Target special) is pretty small, and it's a struggle to fit all of my clothes in it, so for the past while I've just been stacking the clothes I wear most often on top of it. It's anybody's guess as to when I last opened one of its drawers. That's another lesson I've learned: Check your drawers regularly. Because I was disgusted to discover quite a bit of rodent poop in my sock & underwear drawer. Ewww. Later that day I went through all of the drawers to wash everything that needed it and discovered a nest and even bigger mess in my pants drawer. Ewww. Oh well. It provided good motivation to throw out a few pairs of pants I never wear anymore...

I figured that it was a mouse. Ozzie's been known to bring in mice before, and he prefers to toy with them and keep them for prolonged entertainment than to kill them. So I wouldn't be surprised at all if he had released a mouse into my underwear drawer. My apartment manager, who has been really great about all this, had Tom the exterminator come put traps around on Wednesday. When I got home I investigated a little bit to make sure I knew the locations of all the traps. There were some obvious ones in all the places I suggested (behind the fridge, under the dresser) but I thought I would look into the dresser drawers too, since the rodent was known to have spent a lot of quality time there. I started from the bottom and worked my way up.

There were no traps in the drawers, but I was confronted by a GIANT, CREEPY RAT taking a crap in my underwear drawer (which is apparently the place for such things). I must admit, I'm very disappointed with my reaction. I try to be macho and level-headed about such things. That would have been the perfect opportunity for me to capture Rat in a cup and escort him from the premises. Instead... I screamed like a little girl and slammed the drawer shut. Rat scampered out of the drawer, kicked over one of the tiny mouse traps under the dresser, and laughed at me. And I don't blame him. He was HUGE. Those pathetic mouse traps were smaller than he was!

Later that day, I followed Ozzie's lead at investigating the shelves in my closet. Sure enough, Rat was up there. And, sure enough, I screamed like a little girl when he flew out at me. Really. He flew. I think he must have been a mutant rat with gliding skin flaps like a flying squirrel. He also brushed against my hand when he flew. That didn't help with the screaming like a little girl.

On Friday Tom the exterminator came back and set rat sized traps. I requested badger sized traps, but he didn't oblige.

Friday night Ozzie continued to be obsessed with the closet, but this time he focused on my wedding dress. I tried not to pay too much attention since I didn't want Rat to fly out at me again, but still, I was curious. Lucky me. I was treated to a vision of Rat in a ball gown. The big red one I wore to senior prom, to be exact. (That dress looks much better on me!) True to form, I screamed like a little girl.

Rat was crafty. He stayed at large for several more days. I stopped paying attention to Ozzie's leads because I was tired of embarrassing myself.

Yesterday Rat finally decided to end it. I was home at the time, recovering from another bout of food poisoning. (It wasn't quite as bad as last time, but, just like last time, I lost 5lb over an hour or so. :P) I really wish I hadn't been around for Rat's demise. It was really distressing. The trap snapping was really loud, and then I could hear Rat scrabbling around in it with his death throes. Shudder. Though, pragmatically, it was good that I was around. Otherwise I might not have noticed until Rat started to decompose since that trap was in an out of the way, impossible to really view place. (And according to our psychotic high school chemistry teacher, nothing smells worse than decomposing flesh...)

So that's that. No more Rat. Tom the exterminator thinks that based on the amount of poop, there was almost certainly just the one. He also thought that Rat was "just a little guy". I don't know about that. He sure looked huge to me! He probably shrank upon death. I bet his wing flaps dissolved too.