On Rats....

Rats.

The bane of my modern life. They are smarter than mice, more determined and persistent. 

I have been at war with two of them which invaded my mother's house about a year ago. They are too big to get caught in the mouse traps I set, outsmarted the glue traps I put down, and even eaten the bait off a few of the traps just to spite me.

I can hear them scuffling in the walls at night.

Then they got bold enough to dart through the kitchen at night... this was how I met the first rat.

Let's call him, Vince.

(apologies if your name is Vince...your parents should have called you Norbert instead...unless you like rats then it's all good).

Anyway Vince is a large

Norwegian Rat- or brown rat, or wolf rat, as some of the locals refer to him as. The picture isn't of Vince but just for reference.

My mother was the first to see Vince when he dashed across the kitchen one night, and she screamed and decided to hide in the bathroom while I looked for him. I admit that I thought my mother has seen a mouse and panicked. The second time, I didn't chuckle as hard as I did the first.

I tried a variety of mousetraps, poisons, bait stations, and nada- Vince ignored them all. Of course, he had a steady food supply from all the loose bird seed on the back porch...mom feeds the birds, squirrels, raccoons and two skunks and as it turns out the rat.

Of course, out of all these rodents...yes squirrels are very cute barky rodents and birds are rodents with wings.... my opinion as they are messy and contribute to the rat population.

I did find what I thought was a mouse dead -crammed in a cabinet on afternoon near the mop soap. Now I suspect that the "mouse" was a baby rat who ate the rat poison and choose to die in that spot, so considerate of him.

Anyway, I pursued Vince and his ilk with every bait that I could come up by word of mouth, co-op store advice and even google. None of it worked. Honey- nope, cheese- nope, bread? Meat? chocolate- hell no, bird seed? Nope, nope, nope and furthermore nope.

Finally, I conceded defeat and turned to the professionals. I looked for the pest company with the best rating and ended up with Cooke's Pest Control.

They were friendly and helpful and completely misleading of what they would actually do while totally ripping me off with contracts that delivered nothing new that I hadn't already tried.

Here's the rundown.

Me: I have a rat problem.

Them: Sure, we can come treat your house and get rid of the rats.

Me: Rats?

Them: Sure, if you have one rat, then you have at least 25 rats.

Me: Great.

Them: No worries, we guarantee we will get them all. 

Me: when can you come?

Them: How's Thursday?

Me: What will they do?

Them: Treat the house for the rats, then come back every two months for a year to make sure we get them all.

Me: That sounds great.

Them: We will see you Thursday.

later (not Thursday)

Them: Hi, we were in the neighborhood and would like to stop by and do an advance inspection for the technician who is coming tomorrow.

Mom: Okay, no one told us about that.

Me: Okay, what did they say?

Mom: That they will be here in an hour.

Me: Define close by?

Mom shrugs.

later.

Them: Hi, this is Lou and I am Max, we're from Cooke's Pest Control. (the names are changed because I cannot remember they're actual ones)

Me: Let me show you where I saw the rats.

Them: we need to inspect the entire house, inside and out- if you don't mind.

Me, they came to inspect the house with micro flashlights.

Them: Well we found where your rats are holding out.

Me: Really?

Them: Yes, it's in this storage room under the house, there are definitely signs that is where their nest is. Plus there is definitely dead bodies in there.

Me: Really?

Them: I have 12 years of experience, I know the smell of a dead rat.

Me: Well actually- I mean are you sure it's not insecticide- see I sprayed down there a few years ago Them: No, we know the difference between insecticide and dead bodies and that's definitely dead body smell. We'll show you.

NOTE: they found no sign of the rats inside the house despite me showing the guy where I had seen the rats

We go to the storage room. They show me some insulation that is suspiciously hanging down from the rafters. They point at it.

Me: That's it?

Them: Yup, there's a dead rat up there.

Me: Uh-huh. I smell insecticide.

Them: No, it's a dead rat. I'd definitely stake my rep on it.

Me: Okay.

Them: Well, there is something more that you should know.

Me: Oh? What is that? 

Them: You have termites.

Me: Of course, I do.

Them: This is serious.

Me: Please tell me how much more that will cost.

Them (rubbing their paws together): We will cut you a discount.

Rat removal: $631. $133 for initial treatment, and then $83 for each return visit.

Termite removal: $2355 AND they offer financing.

What a bargain!

notes: they continued to be vague about how the technician would "treat" the house for the rats, but were extremely specific about how they would rid the house of termites.

note: they showed me proof of the termites....all the damage was over 10 years old and I had used a base insecticide to kill the termites...also none of the damage was to the actual house.

I call Cooke's after they left.

Me: I need to know how this treatment is being charged.

Them: repeats what they told me earlier.

Me: When do I pay that?

Them: The tech will bring the contract out.

Me: Wait, did you say contract?

Them: Yes, you sign a contract which will be billed by the month or visit.

Me: What about that money back guarantee?

Them: Well, that's determined on an individual case by case basis.

Me: Riiiiiiigggght.

Them: Is that sarcasm?

Me: Let me speak to your supervisor.

Them: Why?

Me: Because Hell hath no fury like me getting conned (this wasn't what I actually said).

Them: Please hold.

I will now summarize the conversation with the supervisor.

1. contracts are non-negotiatable 

2. They hade no knowledge of the two yutzes that showed up an hour ago with the whole termite bit. They actually acted surprised when I told them that the whole termite thing blew their con for me.

3. The technician that was coming the next day for the "treatment" would boil down to him spraying the perimeter of the house with a garden variety insecticide and putting down about 4-6 bait stations -with locks that only Cooke's would have keys for (not me- so I could never know if they actually caught anything like the truth).

4. and that was it.

I checked BBB and consumer complaints and found Cooke's to have the worst rating by the BBB and consumers. But the best rating by referral sites.

Anyway, Vince had a good laugh. 

I gave up, then went back to google.

I found out a ton of basically useless info that both confirmed that Cooke's used google as well for their info and that we were basically screwed.

I then turned to our local co-op and were shown their selection of rat removal products.

Wait for it.

Bait and old fashioned rat- traps- think spring loaded mouse trap but much, much bigger. Big enough to catch chiwawas.

I went to the local hardware store bought some rat poison and threw that in the places I had seen the rats.

Apparently Vince and Shirley (sorry to all the Shirleys out there if your name is Shirley or don't like rats being arbitrarily named Shirley) had gone on vacation as I stopped hearing them.

Then I heard them again, I mean I actually heard her but thought it was Vince. 

One day, while shopping for toilet paper I decided to grab some glue boards and try them.

A couple of nights later, I heard some scratching scuffling somewhere in the kitchen, it sounds like someone shuffling through our stash of used food city bags. I checked then found nothing there. The next day I heard it again, but this time it was coming from the utility closet in our former classroom (from my mother's old school), it's now like a second living room, but we still call it the classroom. Anyway, I popped open the door, and this dark gray tail disappears into the corner of the closet where my mother had stored the old rags and some storage bags. I immediately shut the door, trapping the rat in there. I then set the glue boards and cracked the door.
One trapped rat.
Now what? I thought. I will stomp him!
I am wearing house shoes (slippers) Okay, scratch that plan.
I will put him in something and drown him!
Right, because drowning rats is a common form of execution.
I then tried to pick the rat up with a picker upper

That would have worked, except that the blasted rat flipped the glue board and it stuck to the hardwood floor and the cabinet next to him. I tried and failed to extract the glue board and rat with the picker upper.

I tried the next longest and biggest tool I could find.

Bolt cutters.

This totally failed.

I finally grabbed a pair of channel locks and pried the board with rat loose and transferred the squealer to the picker upper.

Then I knew I wasn't killing the blasted thing.

So I dropped him in a sealed albeit not air tight trash can.

The next morning I checked on the little bastard and he had freed himself from the board and was scrambling around at the bottom of the trash can seeking escape. 

Now what?

I loaded up the trash and took him and the trash to the dump. 

Haven't seen him....err, I mean her since.

You see, once I got home I realized that the rat wasn't Vince who is brown but Shirley who is dark gray...no I don't know the actual sex of the rat, but I had my suspicions.

I admit it, I relaxed, Rat Gone.

Nope. Vince decided to pop out one afternoon and run over my foot.

So more glue boards went down and two days later, I caught Vince. 

He collected a glue board outside of a hole he had been using between the bottom of my dishwasher and the kitchen cabinets.

He was mighty upset. 

And then as I searched for the picker-upper he flipped the glue board and stuck it to the linoleum floor.

ARGGH!

I tried many things to extract him from the floor. Finally, I scraped him off the floor with a broom and dustpan (mostly the dust pan)

Vince joined Shirley in the dumpster at the dump.

and then a day later I smelled another rat.

A very Dead rat as it turned out.

I finally located the smell pungent under the dishwasher.

so I had to go get a drill extract the stabilizing screws and pull it out.

Major rat nest of paper towel scraps, dish towel bits. toliet paper, suet wrappers and lots of other unidentifiable stuff....also noe very dead and smelly rat.

I should have taken a picture.

I bagged it all, checked around the house and found a similar nest under the couch in the classroom- not as bad but still it was there.

I placed it in the trash and took it all to the dump the next day.

The smell stuck around despite bleaching the floor.

SO, the next time the guy at the Co-Op says rat poison doesn't leave an odor, tell him, that it does and it smells worse the BS he just told you.

To top it off, I decided to use the rest of the rat posion.

I looked under the kitchen sink where I kept it and this is what I found.

In case you missed it, the bag is empty, some rat (the smelly one) chewed his way in and ate the whole bag!

This after weeks of putting down rat poison everywhere, the blasted rat went to the source which might mean it took a hell of a lot of poison to kill it.

and then silence, a whole new day...actaully weeks.

I get a handy man to seal the rat holes and hope for the best

and then... I find a loaf of bread that's mysteriously off with a suspicious hole in the back.

Tonight, I caught another one and it's waiting it's doom in the same trash can and the trip to the dump.