I don't know what it is but lately I've been seeing a LOT of rats. We were in the front yard the other evening and heard something moving around in our palm tree. The Island King pointed a flashlight over there and we saw a small rat run up into the top of the tree. He put out 2 traps with peanut butter as bait but somehow the rat managed to eat the peanut butter without tripping the trap. We've put the trap out every night since and every night the rat eats the bait but doesn't trip the trap. I'm not sure what we're going to do but I sure don't want him living in the tree.
The other morning on my way to drop off Island Girl for school we saw a big rat, followed by 2 little rats run across the road.
Yesterday afternoon I pulled into a local strip mall and a rat was running down the sidewalk in broad daylight.
This morning as I was turning off of my street the biggest rat I've ever seen was walking down the middle of the road. I stopped and watched it for a minute because it was so big I thought it might be a possum but no it was a BIG rat.
I have never seen so many rats in such a short period of time. I don't know if it's just the time of year or what but they really creep me out.
The woman who used to live next door to us was crazy (I mean really crazy - like mentally ill kind of crazy) and she saw a rat in her back yard one afternoon. She thought it was cute so she started putting bird seed ALL over the yard to attract more. Once she'd attracted a good sized population she hung bird feeders on her windows so she could sit inside and watch the rats crawl up her screens and eat the bird food. Needless to say that led to a serious rat problem. Late one night the Island King heard something jiggling his fishing poles in the garage and when he looked to see what it was he saw a rat running across the tops of the poles. He freaked out and grabbed his machete off of the workbench and went after the rat.
He kept swinging the machete and missing the rat but after chasing it all over the garage he finally killed it. We now have slice marks on several of his fishing poles, the workbench, and our hedge trimmer but that rat is dead. I'd have paid good money to have been awake to see him chase that rat around the garage with the machete LOL
The next morning he went over and talked to the crazy woman's husband. The husband was very upset about the rats too but didn't like to upset his wife. The Island King told him he didn't mind upsetting her and that something had to be done LOL They were leaving for a trip the next day so the man asked the Island King if he would put poison in their yard after they left and kill the rats while they were gone. No problem. When they came home she found several dead rats in her yard and came over screaming at me like a banshee indian. I listened to her rant and rave for a few minutes and then very calmly told her that we didn't care that they were her "friends" and that the more she attracted - the more we'd kill. She stared at me with her mouth hanging open and I went on to tell her that if they were really her friends she'd stop feeding them because the Island King was going to make it his life's mission to kill every rat she attracted to her yard. She never spoke to us again but she stopped feeding them and our rat problem was solved. I'm telling you, this woman was a NUT!
My Dad has rats in his yard too so he started putting out traps. He went out one morning and there in the trap was a rat. A live rat. He lives on the water so he tossed the trap, rat and all into the Sound and then waited til the next morning to retrieve his trap. The rat drowned of course and now whenever he catches one he tells my kids that he's taking the rat swimming LOL
They're nasty critters and I don't know why I'm suddenly seeing them everywhere but I wish they'd go back to wherever they came from. I may have to send the Island King out to the palm tree in our yard to kill that one with his machete LOLLabels: Staying