Ruth vs Rat: I have killed many rats during my 47 years in Los Angeles. Yet they persist. Our battle began when we moved into our home on Gramercy Place. An old house, a porous house. Professional assistance only lessened the number of points of entry but could not eliminate them. One year, after a uniquely wet winter, I caught and killed 78 rats. I know I have said 80 in the past but no one believes me, so I have reduced the number to one that has a greater appearance of accuracy. In that year of rats I lost my squeamishness. I became brutal. I laid out glue traps as the rats were clever about whisking the bait out of the snap traps without getting caught. I laid the glue traps in their common paths. And caught them. I took to drowning them. I had a bucket of water waiting for them outside. In the middle of the night I would be awakened by the noise of scrabbling, a rat trying to get loose from the glue. I would get out of bed, put on rubber gloves, pick up the trap with rat, and go outside and plop it in the bucket of water. Rat after rat. (Thoroughly unpleasant!) The invasion lessened. Then ceased. In the last decade I have had to deal with the odd rat or mouse. However, the transmission of history in the rat world has broken down, has diminished, and my porous house once again is attractive. And I have been visited by several rats this past 6 months. I caught a couple with snap traps and then, with encouragement from Mandi, I tried an electric trap and I caught another. A respite. And then…….then…….a couple of weeks ago my daughter, Maggie, noticed rat droppings on the rug in the room in which grandson Fig takes his nap when they are here for the day. On the rug, in the middle of the floor! What was this rat doing? Dancing? Not acceptable! Yet for several days I heard nothing in the walls, no sounds of scrabbling. Then a sighting! At night in the kitchen. A scamper through and a disappearance. So I put out the electric trap and baited it. But did not turn it on. That is the advice. Let the rat safely get the food then place it further back in the trap where, if it goes for the food, it will get zapped. Several days passed with no sounds, so sign of rat, and the bait still in place. Then….one day….bait gone. I baited it again but once again did not turn on the trap. I knew the rat was lurking but I was also lurking in my way. Then, last night, intrusive scrabbling noises. The rat was rash and emboldened, letting its presence be known. I surprised it in the kitchen. It scampered for an escape hole but found it blocked, it rebounded and tried again, way still blocked. What could I do? How does one catch a rat bare handed? If one would even want to?! I shouted at it. It tried once more to climb up the cupboard to the counter but fell back down. It ran the other way towards the back door. Which was closed. No exit. It turned around and froze. I froze. The kitchen island was between us but our eyes met. Truly, we needed a rat voice over just then as the rat looked to the left and the right and then scampered along its side of the island and I countered, while yelping, along the opposite side and climbed up on a step stool. And the rat was no where to be seen. I heard it a few minutes later in my bedroom!!!!! Nooo! I couldn’t figure out where the noise was coming from. I armed myself with a broom and two rather hard rubber balls that I thought I could throw at it, maybe hit it, maybe discourage it from continuing it’s residence? Could not find it. Thought of sleeping on the couch but enough silent time passed between all that and bedtime that I did sleep in my bed. But before that I set that newly baited electric trap. And found the next morning that it had done its work. A dead rat. Yes! How the rat got from my bedroom to the kitchen is a mystery. As I said, my house is porous, it’s old and made of wood. Still, rat deceased. Now, you are supposed to be able to simple slide the dead rat out of the electric trap. I had done this once before. This time the rat did not slip easily out of the trap into the waiting paper bag. Not with shaking. Not with banging against the kitchen island. Finally I donned my kitchen gloves and pulled at the tail that was hanging out of the trap. And pulled. Then absolutely tugged. It’s little feet were sticking out of the trap. Rats are not unattractive, exactly; and some have quite good roles in animated features. But this one was dead. I pushed back my squeamishness which had returned after that year of the many rats and peered into the trap to see the whole thing and saw that the creature had bitten the wire that activated the shock plate and there was no way I was going to get that rat out so I threw the whole thing away. Ruth still ahead, rats not giving up (because they don’t have a proper literature to inform them my house is off limits!)
DeAnne M.
Ack!!!!! You are brave!!!Sean S.
Holy crap. This is like a mini Moby Dick! I don’t know what I would do in your situation, probably just curl up in a ball.Mandi M.H.
Sean S. right? I was practically shouting from my couch!Deborah S.
Ruth, even with Happy and Captain? Nightmare. Go Ruth. Surrender RatsRichard L.
What an epic tail tale. And now I feel like an overproud amateur, having wiped out a clan of 22 one week many years ago. (Removing climbing vines from a garage wall dissuaded any new ones from showing up)Jen D.
Wow that is a horror adventure! Natasha P.Rats aside, you wrote a captivating tale here! Also, go Ruth!Joyce H.
Wow, now that’s quite a rat tale!Thomas W.A.
I have a handy 5 pound sledge hammer for the coup de Grace…I also partially grew up on a farm with an uncle who fought in the Battle of the Bulge and had a 20 gauge shotgun for rats.John M.
Wow! That’s an epic tale my friend!! I believe these rats, since it is LA, think they are in an animated movie you are the kindly older lady who will feed them and wear them in your chef’s hat as you bake goodies. Someone needs to tell them that is a bad and incorrect assumption! Perhaps leaving a few rat heads on small pikes in the garden will get the message across!!Mandi M.H.
Omg Ruth! You need a hug.Rafeal C.
You’re better than me. I have a pathological fear of rats.Mark S.
A tale well told. Brava, Ruth!Jeff W.
Wow, what a post! Thanks, Ruth.Matt A.
A riveting tale. They are no match for you.Libby B.
The smell of a cat would keep them away.Henrietta C.
Wowser!