Rat-a-tat-tat

Last week was a 'skin crawling' week with Herman dying and bird splatting, but I did not report on the trifecta event due to lack of time and lack of energy. So here is the story, you know how generally things happen in threes; Well, my third squeamish event happened the day after bird splat day. We were seated at the dinner table as a family (as we do almost every night) and I look out onto our deck to find a lovely RAT eyeballing our bird feeder. It even was doing acrobatics trying to reach up to grab onto the the darn thing. The bird feeder is only 2 weeks old. My inlaws have a lovely array of birdfeeders and houses in their yard and they thought our yard needed one; so while they were here they bought us one. I love their birds, but I also know that they struggle with squirrels so I was skeptical about said bird feeders. The squirrels did come and my inlaws configured a way to keep them at bay as much as possible, it really didn't work out that way AND oh by the way, other varmits have caught on. Needless to say, birdfeeders are OUTA here and rat reduction plans are in the works (aka poison)...but don't tell PETA.

So, this is a great segue into my other RAT story. When we lived in Menlo Park, CA in a rented bungalow in 2001, I had an incident. I had just given birth to Monkey and was dealing with an 18 month old 'spirited' child as well while my husband was off on a business trip. The kitchen and master bedroom were located close to each other. One night I hear a scratch, scratch, scratch noise in the kitchen so I'd run in and try to 'catch a glimpse of it' but of course, when I came, the noise stopped. This went on for several nights. Then I noticed that some fruits would be 'tampered' with. I told my husband of this incident and he blew it off as me being sleep deprived and perhaps my daughter had gotten into the fruit. Then one day I had fed Princess and whisked her into the bath leaving a bunch of food crumbs all over the floor. When I returned, all the food was GONE. Yikes. That really threw me and made me NOT WANT TO BE IN THE HOUSE ANYMORE. But, I had to soldier on. I told my husband of this new scenario and he still tried to blow it off. He thought maybe I didn't remember that I picked it up or that my daughter ate OFF THE FLOOR. So, I'm dealing with newborn, spirited daughter and alien in the house. Then my husband returned from the trip and HE then heard the scratch, scratching and THEN he understood that in fact some THING was doing all of the craziness in our house. He too tried on several occasions to catch a glimpse but with no avail. So, we call the landlord and they have someone come in. They set traps in the crawl space and low and behold it was a gi-normous rat (or so my husband says because I did not want to see). The scratching was the rat eating its way around some foil that surrounded the dishwasher which was the opening where the rat entered. Boy did I feel yuck about that one and had my kitchen 'sterilized' afterward. So, Rats and me.....notsomuch.