Over three weeks ago I posted under “The Trouble with Rats” http://www.tourguizhou.net/the-trouble-with-rats/ .

I detailed the issues in dealing with the rats in my old house.  I never wanted to kill anything, but I finally got frustrated and had to drown a rat to finally get rid of it.  I am happy to report that I haven’t seen a rat (or evidence of a rat) in my house for over three weeks.

The rat that was drowned wasn’t the same  rat that crossed my living room.  That rat was never to be found again.  I baited the trap with all kinds of cool stuff, such as potato, lunch meat, cheese, and peanut butter.  I never caught him.  Now I think maybe it was my imagination.  The trouble with rats is that when you see them, you see a lot more.  Any noise, or movement in your house is immediately attributed to rats.  A bird chirping outside the house sounds a lot like the squeak of a rat. If you walk past a mirror and catch your image moving in the mirror, your brain immediately thinks that the movement might be a rat.

Perhaps the reason the rats haven’t returned is the public nature of the execution of the last rat.  I dropped him and the rat trap into a bucket of water in the back yard.  Any rat that observed this probably told his little rat friends:  “Don’t mess with Jack. He’s a killer.”

Anyway, I am aggressively trying to catch another rat, with a carefully baited trap.  There are no takers yet, but I’ll be ready when they come . . .