Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Animals love us
Specifically, they love to die in our attic.
We fell for this house because of the deck and the view. Took one step into the living room and failed to notice the shag brown carpet, or the kitchen done up with a Brady Bunch palette; headed straight out to the deck and breathed a collective sigh. Even the not-quite-up-to-code narrow stairs bothered us — shag baby blue carpet leading up to a master bedroom with more of the same, a monster bed too large even for king-sized sheets, baby blue tile around the fireplace, livid maroon carpeting in the giant upstairs roomlet that had functioned as clothes- and shoes-repository for the Imelda Marcos of Brookings. The view, man, the view! We’d always wanted an ocean view. Now we would have one.
Something happened between that first viewing and our move-in date. Something very large and very ill moved into the attic and died, right above our front entry way. We thought perhaps a mountain lion had expired up there. Or a skunk. Or both. And the flies! I must have vacuumed up a thousand flies. The only thing missing was the deep, raspy voiceover: Get oooouut of the hoooooouuse.
Several weeks and several dozen sticks of Agarbathi incense later, the smell had gone, but in its place we had rats. Whopping huge thumpers who hosted nightly parties and never invited us. Klump klump klump klump klump klump klump klump klump aw you get the idea. We bought rat traps, baited them with peanut butter, and watched in horror as the rats learned to spring the traps and lick them clean without ever getting caught.
We adopted a cat, a barn cat/experienced mouser, and sure enough she loved, nay, luuurved going into the crawl spaces. She never brought back any presents — not from our attic, anyway — but her presence scared the rats away, for a time.
Then she left us, perhaps for a family who understood her better, and the rats returned. Even adopting two pound-kitties hasn’t kept them away. Their intrusions are tentative now, not wholescale invasions as they once were, in numbers so great we had growing yellow stains on the ceiling from their favorite peeing-areas. But we still hear them up there partying . . . plotting.
So two weeks ago, at Karen’s behest, I placed poison trays in all the various crawlspaces and attics. The kathunks seemed to get louder after that, more frantic, and I prayed that if one died, he would have the good graces to do it near one of our access points. Nothing I hate worse than crawling around our rat poop-filled attic. And voila, two days ago I began smelling some putrefaction in our small walk-in closet.
Yesterday, I remembered to bring home gloves, a face mask, and eucalyptus oil, all the necessary accoutrements of the Rat Corpse Collector. We have two access points in the walk-in closet so I checked the lower one first. No go. Even with the mask dripping eucalyptus oil, I was certain I would smell the bugger. And, sure enough, as I climbed the ladder to check the upper attic, the smell grew more intense.
There he was: dead, bloated, with a ruptured abdomen — outside of the attic, lying on the closet’s unused upper shelf. How the hell did he get there? Has he been living in our bedroom all along? Or — and this is the really creepy alternative — do they have a hole hidden away providing them access to our bedroom?
For now, the attic is quiet. But we know it’s just a matter of time.
D.
Oh ick. More cats. Bigger cats. Meaner cats. Just need more cats.
Would you post a pic of your view sometime?
M
We have a cat who we believe would take great delight in hunting down and murdering your uninvited guests. Maybe we could pack him up and mail him to you.
When I was a kid we lived across a dirt road from a cornfield. Sometimes, in the winter, we’d get field rats and it was *always* a joy to poison them and hunt the dying bastards down. When I was 12, our mama cat had a particular kitten. She was about 6 months old when she killed her first rat – she dragged it from the cornfield to the front yard where she happily munched off its head.
Before her death at the age of sixteen (she’d already lived thru lymph node tumors once, the second cancer did her in), she’d killed, that we know of, a raccoon, a family of skunks, 3 tomcats, 2 large, mean dogs (a husky and a great dane – no shit), a bazillion assorted rodents from rabbits & mice to shrews, and, apparently, every damned rat in that field.
She was an awesome cat. A brutal, ruthless killer, but awesome just the same. I cannot express how much I loved that cat. 🙂
Fwiw, now that I’m a homeowner and not a kid stuck with whatever housing the parents supplied, you could not pay me enough to live in a place with rats. Bill and I had been married about 5 yeas when one night I opened the back door to let the dog in and, looking down, thought I saw a rat. I called Bill at work and told him we were putting the house on the market in the morning. Went back out with the dog, intending to kill said rat. It moved, the dog gave chase and, for the first time ever, she turned into a killing machine.
Sadly, it was a young possum, not a big rat, but I was VERY impressed with the dog after that. 🙂
I don’t allow roaches in my house. There’s no freaking way I’d live with a wild rat.
Our Sparky was a “ratter” when we first adopted him. He left a couple by our family room sliding glass door.
I know this isn’t meant to be a funny situation, but I enjoyed reading this piece.
DM: here’s the view 🙂
Dean: that’s no way to treat SxKitten! (Better still, why don’t y’all come down for the holidays, and bring your cat with you?)
Tam: GREAT cat story! Just read it out loud to the fam.
Sis: and it’s really great when they insist on eating them in front of you 🙂
I don’t know how true this is, but I’ve heard the mere presence of ferrets in a house will drive out rodents. I can’t remember all your weird and wonderful pets, so you probably already have one or two ferrets, but if not, maybe you should get one. Of course, then you’d have ferrets in you house…
I would love to sympathize with you, Walnut, but you are going to have to make your story less funny so I quit laughing. How did the belly rupture? Is there an autopsy?
Mo, we have a ferret. The Ferret Charm does not work.
CD, sorry, no autopsies on stinky rats. Eew.
What about a snake? Just put up a python or something in the attic.
M
That’s your view??? Damn. Just move out to the deck. Let the rats have the house. 🙂
Just kidding. Sorta.
Ah, rats. So, what kind of rat was it? Rats remind me of our rat guru in AIT, who taught us all about rats. He lurrrved rats. Had bunches of them, mostly dead & stuffed, but there were a few live ones, too–not those sterile-looking white rats, either.
In one of those bizarre twists of fate, he showed up 20-some years later, with a different gender, as an English lit professor for one of our daughter’s classes.
And then she died this summer.
Possibly not the best epitaph, being the first thing I think about when the subject of rats comes up, but at least s/he’s not forgotten.
Michelle, trouble with that is (A) those snakes need a source of warmth, which creates a fire hazard, and (B) their poops are every bit as stinky as a dead rat.
Darla, it was a common Norwegian brown. We love rats, too — as pets, not as houseguests. Our favorite was a female named (imaginatively) Brownie. They have an amazing amount of personality when you get to know them, but it’s heartbreaking since they never live to see their third birthday. We were both broken up when Brownie died.
As for your rat-lovin’ trannie (can you call a transgender person a trannie?), that’s an odd story!
I love all small furry animals, Doug, so I’m pretty sure I’m not the killer Dean was referring to. The last time we had a mouse in our kitchen, I caught it and set up a cozy home for it in an old fish tank.
Still, I’m not as bad as my sister (I think I’ve told this story before, but what the hell). When my folks had a resurgence of rats (they were temporarily between cats), they tried rat poison. After a couple died on top of the furnace vents, nicely unreachable up between the joists in the basement, they switched to live traps. Not content with setting them loose in the nearby woods, my sister insisted each freed rat be given a cache of food to help ease its adjustment to outdoor life.