I Hate Rats

I didn't expect to write about rats!

I don't like rats.

My daughter, one day, came home with a little story-joke...

 ' I was crazy once. They locked me in a room with rats. I hate rats! They drive me crazy... I was crazy once' ...  etc

Well, I'm there. 

They live in the house with us. Maybe not live, I think they just visit at night and search the kitchen for sustenance. 

The first one found me in the kitchen one night recently. I did the screech, dance, run thing... it just ran back and forth trying to get back to the cooking area where it has an escape route, but poor thing  (oh man, did I say 'poor thing') got locked out cause we had closed the inner door.

So unbeknowned to me, it found it's way to my room and set up housekeeping under my bed.  I didn't know  until about 2am when it began it's housekeeping or toileting routines.

That was pretty much it for sleep that night. It would scurry about under my bed and I would thump about and utter threats like "you better not come out from there cause I'm here, with a full bladder, and you could be at risk, unless you can swim" If I made enough noise it would get quiet, and if I stayed quiet it would get it's courage back and resume activities... so I would begin the thumping again ad nausium.  By the mornings light I must have dozed off in exhaustion and it made a daring escape out my window. I know cause of the teeth marks through the screen.

That morning I find him in the kitchen, resume the screech, dance, run behavior and watch as he climbs the wall in the corner and lets himself out the exhaust fan!  Brat.

Next night, with evidence of it's escape, I returned to bed with greater ease... well not so much as to leave my window open enough for a repeat performance.  And sure enough, 2am, I see him decend from the air conditioner outside my window. He climed down the screen and chewed a new hole (cause I had repaired the old one) but was too chubby to fit through the narrow window crack. I was at the window in a flash, afraid I was wrong about his size and the space available for his entry. 

Somewhat relived, I returned to bed, but sleep? aahh... no, not for a long while.  I shivered to watch his return to investigate a new entry spot. Big fellow he is, the screen droops with his weight.

 My host says just don't leave and food in your room and he'll get tired of being there.  She suggests just keep your mosquito net zipped up and "no worries"  I think she must not mind rats as much as me. And does she rally think they can't get through my mosquito net when it has made four new "doors" in the screen.

So he comes by every night to rip a larger hole in my sorry screen. I think it's time to keep the window shut, zip down the mosquito net and forget repairing the screen...