Sunday, September 28, 2008

The Year of the Rats

Jeff and I have decided to give this past year the title
"The Year of the Rats"

Last night we killed what would be the 6th rat in our home in one year. Sure, two of them were caught in the attic, but you try going to sleep at night hearing them scurry around in your vents. Not so sweet. We have officially killed 4 rats in our kitchen alone. Our KITCHEN! And yes, I'm using the word kill very intentionally here. I feel a little guilty about that part of the whole process, but only until I picture one of the giant, disgusting, bacteria-infested creatures pawing my kitchen counter and digging their yellow teeth into my butter dish. Oh yes. It has happened. And who knows how many times we used that butter until we saw the teeth marks.

Lets just say we're almost done with living here. The rats have almost successfully driven us out. I think what did it was the last rat "situation" where one of them was nicked by the rat trap but escaped, leaving a trail of blood on our carpet and smeared one whole section of our kitchen tile with its blood. You should have seen Jeff's face when I realized, as we were looking for the half-dead rat (this was all right before work by the way), that the rat had come out of hiding and was laying right in the middle of our kitchen floor. It actually looked cute for a second. But it wasn't so cute when it bit the rat guy through a bag 2 hours later. And it was even grosser when we realized it had been hiding underneath our brand new dishwasher (the blood-smeared path revealed that little rat secret).

Jeff and I have decided that if we catch ONE more rat, we're out. The rats will have won.
I can't handle wondering if I'm going to see another rat jump around beside me while I'm sitting at the computer, or if I've left the front door open for a minute too long and our pantry is no longer safe.

And did I mention that we had to spend almost $200 fixing our car because a rat chewed one of the wires in half (but to the rats defense, this happened in our church parking lot, not at our house)?
But still..... this is why it's
THE YEAR OF THE RATS.