Things have been a bit quiet the past couple of days. I have the water barrel trap up there and the repeating rat and mouse traps up there but DS had also thrown a bunch of big poison pellets, which are all missing.
The good thing is I don't yet smell anything. He just finished his first night shift and is sleeping and the girls are going to be leaving this PM to spend the weekend with DH, so I will check the situation later. Hopefully I have a bunch of cold, dead rats floating around. It would be almost like they'd be in a fridge between the cold weather and the water.
I've joined the club, believe it or no, we have a mouse problem. I finally sussed out the strange tearing/tugging/bumping/rattling noises in the night is not coming from outside/the chimney, it's in the hollow bits in the wall and the floor... My bedroom's. Did I mention the middle of the night?
How do you get into the walls/floors of a rental property? You don't. I checked. Not without damaging the place some. And the mouse did not show any signs of leaving that safe zone, even into the kitchen, where there is lots of easily accessible food, which made catching it very difficult. The other day DS did me a big favour though. He had some instant oatmeal and left the empty tub just inside the backdoor. I didn't notice it until the next day and in the meantime, walked past in the middle of the night on my way to the bathroom and heard a scuttling noise. Mouse was out and about and looking for that oatmeal… <evil> Traps will be set in strategic places soon. I like to sleep.
I suppose I must admit that I am afraid to climb the ladder, for the most part and usually leave it for DS. I have left it in the middle of the house though....an eye sore, so we can run up whenever we want. It doesn't stink in here. I might have a few dead rats in 3 separate kind of traps up there.
I know the problem goes on, but less. I sometimes hear things, but not as much. But, it really has not been very cold these past few days.
I think I'd rather mice. I think I could maybe even catch a bunch of them alive. Sometimes it sounds like a doberman is running on my roof or in my attic.
It could be squirrels, on my end, but I do know we have rats. And I found a hole, in one of my pilings, toward the bottom of all places. Its not on the corner, but I need to see if its a tunnel. I suppose the best thing to do is poison the hole and apply cement to fill it up.