The Rats Scotched Our Weekend Plans

And I’m the one feeling guilty

“The best laid plans of mice and men “Often go awry!” From Robert Burn’s poem “To a Mouse.”

The quote just about summed up our week.

On Saturday, K and I were to drive to our daughter’s place to spend the weekend with her family.

Friday morning, K got back from running errands. He was driving the SUV.

“Something’s wrong with the wipers,” he said. “They keep running out of washer fluid.”

He drove the SUV to a nearby repair shop. I followed in the sedan.

He handed the vehicle to the mechanics and got into the sedan’s passenger seat.

I started the car. A yellow “Low washer fluid” alert popped up on the dashboard.

“Both cars with low washer fluid?” I said. “That’s weird.”

K shrugged. “I’ll top it up.”

Small black somethings…

I parked the car in the driveway when we got home. We entered the garage.

The space where both cars had stood was strewn with small black somethings.

K peered. “Looks like animal droppings.”

“Looks like bits of rubber,” I said.

He poured washer fluid into the sedan’s reservoir. It went straight through and ran off along the driveway.

The repair shop called a half-hour later. The hose that fed the wipers had been bitten through.

“You might have rats in your garage,” the technician said, confirming our fears.

Later that afternoon, K dropped off the sedan and picked up the SUV.

My Ludo games with the grandkids, and K’s teaming up with our daughter to cook Chicken Parmigiana, would have to wait.

Our first order of business was taking care of the rodent problem.

Things going bump…

It began four months back with things going bump in the night and early morning. We weren’t sure where the sounds came from. The attic? The roof?

The scraping and gnawing started in earnest a month back. This time, we were in zero doubt that the sounds came from the attic.

I checked our overnight Ring video feed every days. I saw cats and possums in the backyard, and once a mouse. But nary a rat.

Still, I called pest control. Their techs placed mouse traps in the attic. They came back and checked it twice but found nothing — either naughty or nice.

The rats ignored the bitty mouse traps. The gnawing grew so loud we could hear them over the sound of the TV.

And now they had gotten into our cars.

This had gone way beyond routine pest control. So, I called in the specialists — the rodent control guys.

“All the years we’ve been here, we never had a problem,” I said to the representative of the third company I called. “Now, suddenly in the last four months — “

“Do you have construction going on near your home?” he asked.

“Tons of it.”

“There you go,” he said. “They were probably living in the places that got torn up for buildings. Now it’s cold, and they’re looking for someplace warm.”

We spent Friday afternoon and Saturday morning showing technicians from various rodent control companies around the attic, garage, a/c unit, and so forth.

The droppings confirmed the intruders were rats.

Texas doing something right…

We compared quotes and finalized a company.

Their tech came by today.

He sprayed the inside and outside of the house with a “ginger and menthol” solution. The aroma was sharp but not unpleasant.

“The rats don’t like the smell,” the tech said.

Seriously? Moldy and rotten is okay, but not ginger and menthol?

The tech will return in a couple of days to seal gaps in the roof, breezeway, and a/c ducts — all entry points for rodents — with foam and steel mesh.

“Can you do it today?” I asked. Why wait?

He said the TDA (Texas Department of Agriculture) requires that the animals get a chance to escape.

Yeah! Texas is doing at least one thing right!

I am relieved…

Rodent control isn’t cheap, but once it’s done:

• We won’t have black pellets — organic or otherwise — mucking up the garage floor.
• Our car cables and hoses will be safe.
• We will be able to park our cars in the garage. Right now, they are parked on the driveway.
• We won’t have to worry about rats in the attic gnawing on the electric cables and starting a house fire. Or tearing into the water pipes and causing the house to flood.

I am so relieved. And yet…

“I’m truly sorry man’s dominion “Has broken Nature’s social union.” From Robert Burns’ poem “To a Mouse.”

There were once not so long ago, stands of trees, farms, and wild grassy patches a ten-minute walk from my home.

Most of the greenery is gone. Displaced by gas stations, theaters, nail salons, and so forth.

The parcel of land on which an apartment building now stands was once alive with wild grasses, sunflowers, and dandelions.

When it was “cleaned up”, hundreds of creatures that crept, scurried, and flew lost their homes and livelihoods.

Home, Sweet Home…

“Home is the story of who we are and a collection of all we love.”

We talk about how a home is more than four walls and a roof that shelters us from the elements. How its true value far exceeds its sticker price in dollars and cents.

We get misty-eyed and sentimental when we talk about “home.” And we see homelessness as a great misfortune — but only to humans.

We have not the slightest compunction about taking, from animals, their homes.

A patch of grass. A modest burrow. A tiny nest.

Here today, gone tomorrow.

We dispossess animals and render them homeless. And yet, they are the villains.

Thanks for reading!🌿

If you’re looking to “improve diversity in your backyard,” do read this article by Jane Frost (Jane Grows Garden Rooms):

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