Thread: Rats..... a first time for everything

When we moved into the house here it took about 3 years to rat-proof the place (f-ing cat bring the things in). First event was with the wife breastfeeding the firstborn daughter in the baby's room one evening. The cat walked in and went weird, basically indicating on a bookcase. What the you stupid bleating animal...

Until I went to move the bookcase, and the cat disappeared - huh? Changed plan and went looking for dork, he's hanging upside down off the bottom of the baby's crib where he's got prime time viewing behind the bookcase. Hmmm - maybe he knows something, back to plan a. Moved the bookcase, simultaneously all hell broke loose the cat impacted the bookcase and just about knocked it out of my hands, the wife screamed, the cat started this hellbeast level growling followed by a sickening crunch and a squeal, then the wife vomited all over the baby. And the cat high tailed it outside growling all the way... This felt like it all happened in about 2 seconds, with me still trying to right the bookcase and wondering what the hell had just happened as I hadn't seen the cat claim his prize.

Wife now has a lot more respect for the cat that's for sure - bloody rat maybe the same size as the one in the photo up there but healthier condition wise had decided to move into the daughter's room and apparently it's a thing with breast-fed babies. Wife just about abandoned the house after that effort. Took a few hours cleaning up under the bookcase, so it had been there a few days. Bloody things...

Now the kitchen has four gaps blocked up, the curtains are all lifted off the ground to stop the rats climbing straight up them, the back of the firebox stand has mesh on it to stop them boltholing behind there, the couches are all hardened and a few other places are rat proofed as well. The first few I nailed with the handspear until we decided that was too damn messy, and the air pistol kept chipping the tiles shooting through. So ended up with a butterfly net and a solid bottomed bucket as that stopped the shoot through problem with the CO2 air pistol to dispatch them. The handspear and kitchen knife combo was a bit feral and too much cleanup (the wife loosing her lunch not due to the rat). After that we started poison stations and trapping and that lowered the numbers to a tolerable level anyway (mice became the prey of choice for the cat, if there are mice the numbers of rats are pretty low).