Gonna Catch Me Some Vermin

My sister, an avid gardener, went into her shed the other day and had the strangest sensation that she wasn’t alone. 

Turns out there was a Mama Racoon and five babies living under (or in?) the shed.  Since she already hosts quite the menagerie, Anne decided against letting her visitors make the backyard their permanent home, and she put in a call to the pest control folks.  They brought over a live trap which was baited with stinky fish and left overnight, much to the indignation of Anne’s cats who had to be kept in the house that night.

In the morning, the wild animal control crew discovered that the black and white critter they had successfully trapped was not, in fact, a raccoon, but a skunk.  And yes, there was some spraying involved. Peee-yew!  Oh what a fun job those guys must have!    

The raccoon family seems to have moved out voluntarily.  Whether it was the disturbing chaos of clanging traps, small yapping dogs and hunting cats, or the smelly neighbour sharing their shed, we may never know. 

There must be something in our family’s vibe that attracts pest.  The story of Anne’s unwanted furry friends brought back some all-too vivid memories from my life in Bangalore last year around this time. 

I didn’t know I had a rat at first.  For one thing, I didn’t leave any rat-buffets lying around, keeping all my food either in the fridge or in sealed containers.  And I didn’t see any evidence – i.e. rat poo anywhere. 

The first thing that happened was my washing machine stopped working one day.  (I know, it doesn’t sound very ratty, but stick with me.) I called the handyman/miracle worker from school to come and fix it and he discovered that some of the wires were mysteriously broken. 

A few days after he’d spliced the wires, I had to call Ranganath again because my washing machine was broken again.  And guess what he found – the wires were frayed again. 

I never saw it, but I doubt my rat was this cute!

“I think you have a rat,” he said.

“What do frayed wires have to do with a rat?” I wondered.

“The rat’s chewing them.”

“But why would I have a rat.  There’s nothing for a rat to eat here!”

“That’s why it’s eating the wires,” Ranganath insisted.

It sounded a bit like circular logic to me, but it turns out that Ranganath was right. I did some intense investigation and discovered that there were a few rat droppings that I hadn’t spotted (because they were underneath the washing machine). 

Ranganath recommended one of those sticky traps to catch the rat – the ones where the rat runs on and gets stuck. I couldn’t stomach the thought of it.  The thought of a live rat that I would have to Finish Off was just more than I could handle. 

The thought of the live rat period was more than I could handle. The only good thing about this rat was that I hadn’t seen it yet. It was more like the rumour of a rat than an actual toothy, worm-tailed, flea-bitten rodent at this point.

I elected to Do It In with cakes of rat poison, ignoring Ranganath’s scorn on the effectiveness of rat cakes.  I duly plopped two of the cakes beside the washing machine before I went to bed that night.  (Where I lay awake with the light on listening for rat-like scuffling until I fell into an exhausted doze.)

In the morning the rat cakes were gone!  I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. On the good side it meant (I naively believed) that the rat had eaten the poison and would die. On the bad side, it meant that there really was a rat. And that I might have a stinky dead rat carcass to contend with.

Just to be sure, I set out rat cakes again that night. In the morning they were gone.  And again on the third night I put out more poison.  And on the third morning – gone.

Something was up.  At this point I realized that the rat poison cakes probably didn’t work.  And now I was just basically feeding the thing.  Charming.  Not exactly the pet I would have chosen.

I had to get more aggressive in my attempts to kill it.  Or I had to move out.

I decided not to be so wimpy. First I tried to find where the rat was living or coming into the flat.  This was a mystery that I never did solve. 

But I did discover that the crafty little bugger had been piling the rat poison cakes in a dark corner of a cupboard that had only a curtain covering it.  If I wasn’t determined to kill it, I would have actually been proud of my little pet for being so smart!

There was definitely no rat’s nest IN my flat, so I concluded that it was coming in and out every night – by what route or means I never figured out. 

Serious Poison! Note: it is even strong
enough to kill blondes!

I got some Serious Poison – which, by the way, you can buy on any street corner – and put it down with the appropriate bait (the chemist recommended coriander and peanuts) and put it near the washing machine. 

In the morning there was no discernable disturbance in the poison.  I wondered if the rat realized that I was serious and the jig was up, or if it really did eat some of the poison before crawling away to die somewhere. 

But from then until the end of the school year, there was no more rat poo or any other signs of rat habitation in my flat.  So it was gone!

UNTIL……

I came back from summer holidays only to discover that a rat had moved into my washing machine over the summer.  And given birth! 

Fortunately my housekeeper had discovered and Dealt With the rats a few days before I got back, but I never looked at my washing machine the same way again!