Battling a Rat Part I

Standoff in the Shower

This is Part I of the battle, which took place in January 2017 and ended in a draw.

You got a rat problem, you get a cat, right? In my case, I already had Trek, a Bengal cat, on retainer (see photo), so I figured the problem was solved. But I wasn’t battling just any rat, and Trek apparently thought of the rat more as a housemate than an enemy.

So how do you know if you have a rat problem? Rats, for all of their stealth, leave evidence behind—droppings, holes in wood and plastic, random signs of foraging for food. My rat took a more direct approach. He boldly made daytime visits into the house, fleeing as a dark brown blur when Trek and I surprised him in the kitchen or pantry. After several “did I really see that?” instances, it was time to find out if the phantom visitor was for real.

Locating the rat’s entry point took a single uncomfortable crawl through the crawl space. I easily spotted a failed joint in the heating ductwork where a round pipe went straight up to supply air to one of the kitchen registers. The peeling duct tape and tattered pink insulation that used to neatly wrap the joint were a dead giveaway. Back in the kitchen I studied the register cover. Instead of installing a conventional rat-proof louvered grate, the previous owner opted for a fancy brass number with a couple of rat-sized holes in the design. The rat had his own private entrance into the house and a warm place to sleep in the heating duct system.

Clearly, the rat was for real and the battle was on.

Overconfident perhaps, I decided to put off swapping out the grate and fixing the failed joint until after Trek and I caught the rat.

I started with two mouse traps, baited with peanut butter—one under the sink and one just inside the heating register. After zero success and another rat sighting, I went back to Ace Hardware and purchased two rat traps. Even with a cat on your team, you need to use the correct equipment. The larger traps, while lethal looking, also failed to catch anything. In a win for his side, the rat knocked one of the traps down into the heating ductwork where it remained frustratingly just out of reach.

Important: If you are planning to deploy a rat trap anywhere near a heating vent, secure it with string so you don’t lose it.

Rat visits and food losses, while not critical, continued.

On confrontation day the rat made another daytime appearance, only this time without a good exit plan. Instead of scurrying back into the crawl space through the heater vent, the rat, hotly pursued by Trek, headed for the master bedroom suite, where he dodged into the tiled bathroom shower. I quickly closed the glass door but not before putting Trek in with the rat to apply the coup de grace.

Trek wasn’t a pacifist by nature. Over the years he shared many of his hunting victories with me by bringing his prey home—songbirds, snakes, other rats. Still, nothing happened in the shower. To my impatient eye, it appeared that Trek and the rat were trying to get acquainted.

Concerned that the rat might scramble up the wall and out of the shower in a break for freedom, I came to Trek’s aid. After all, we were a team. I entered the shower and, with my partner watching, trapped the rat under a small trashcan. Then I went to get my neighbor for help.

To be continued.