So I noticed the pellets a few days ago while taking out the garbage by the side of our house.
Mouse poops, but larger. Thicker. My immediate thought: “Weird, those must be big mice.”
Then, it hit me.
Rats!
Fucking rats.
I put out these enormous traps last night, and this morning two were filled with the lifeless remains of my least-favorite (save for snakes) animals. It’s actually a jarring thing—picking up a dead rat caught in a trap. His eyes are open, so he’s looking at you. Or, at least, it seems as if he’s looking at you. I actually go with the plastic bag-over-hand technique, wrap up the guy, tie it up and toss.
The problems, of course, are myriad.
• One rat leads to two, two to 100.
• Rats shit everywhere.
• Rats like crawling beneath hoods and eating the wires of cars.
• Rats are gross.
This morning, for the first time in my life, I found myself sponging rat head blood off my sidewalk.
This isn’t the way I needed to launch a Thursday.