"Great big gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts." How about a nice, cool drink, varmints? Slime! Menace! You're a disgrace. You're varmints. You're one of the lowest members of the food chain and you'll probably be replaced by the rat. -Caddy Shack
A slimy, crawley, scratching, pooping, creepy, crawly nightmare of a RAT moved aboard my boat for over 2 months now. At this point I would gladly take a gopher!
Delta living (Rats Included)
What’s it like to live with a rat? 3:00am is his working hours. I hear him running through the bilge and then working behind my headboard in bed. “Scratch, scratch, scratch” and then pound, pound, pound as I hit the wall and try to make him stop. I know he is tearing holes in the stringers that hold my floor up. After I pound, he stops for a while. Finally, exhausted, my eyes shut, I begin to slumber, and the dog begins barking when he again hears the varmint.
What do I do? Easy enough. Start with a trap, right? Not really easy because I am scared to death of the trap. What if my fingers get in there when I set it? I am forced to embrace the SUCK and I set a trap or two. After a couple weeks; nothing.
Dark circles appear under my eyes as I began to feel a little desperate. More traps! Ten more! A month goes by, and nothing.
I realize I need a new strategy and at this point I just don’t care. I decide to put large boxes of poison out with knowing a dead rat could end up in my bilge where I can’t remove it. A couple more weeks, still nothing.
I begin wearing earplugs at night with noise cancelling headphones over them to block out the sound. I’m now able to sleep a little more and I even considered if I can live with the little furry roommate. It’s not so bad anymore until my ears become so sore from the ear plugs, I can’t use them now. I went from Stockholm’s syndrome to RAGE! I am going to get this sucker!
I can’t believe a rodent can outsmart me! Right? Shouldn’t I be able to outwit a rat? I am not a dumb person. There must be something! I need a new plan. I am going to drive him out. I buy a ton of the smelly things that rats don’t like in a little sashe’ and a sonic sounding thingy. I placed the smelly things everywhere and waited, days, weeks, maybe another month. You guessed it, nothing.
One lovely afternoon, I am sitting at my desk and I heard the all too familiar sound, “scratch, scratch”, coming from the air vent. Infuriated, I turned into Bill Murry in Caddy Shack and went crazy! I started hitting the walls, thumping my feet on the ground, screaming and running around looking for something, something!! A hammer came to mind. Then it occurred to me, what would I do with it? I got to get em! Then a brilliant idea, Bug spray! I sprayed, sprayed and sprayed. I knew it would not do anything but at least emotionally, I got my Revenge.
Sleep deprivation is taking over my life. A depression set in more and more with every encounter with my roommate. I am now pulling pieces of my hair out strand by strand. My memory is fading. Days and nights are blurred. I began walking like the living dead repeating, “I am going to kill you RAT”, over and over. My eyes are so dark I looked like a raccoon and I am wearing the same clothes for days. There is a stream of drool on one side of my face, and I won’t talk about the bathing issue.
I am possibly delusional! One night I looked up and I thought I saw Mr. Rat on my dresser! I started throwing things. This gave me more motivation! He has to go!
Every night was a routine. New bait on all the traps, sticky trap things in front of my door and more smelly sashes.
Then a friend told me that rats don’t like the smell of fabric sheets. My new routine before bed is the process of covering my floor with fabric sheets. Not just a few sheets. I covered the entire boat with two boxes full of sheets! The entire house smells like Bounty! My sense of smell is now fading. My nose permanently smells like laundry! Every morning, I pick up the fabric sheets and start spreading again in the evening. Still…
Maybe 12 traps are not enough. I added 6 more. I now have 18 traps everywhere. I am afraid of getting my fingers and toes in the rat traps!
Finally, I GOT him in one of the traps! He somehow got out of the trap and crawled to a nice bed in my anchor locker. Mr. Rat passed away peacefully.
Funny, I thought it would be a climatic ending to the great battle! Instead I just took a shower.
With Love, Robbie Ann