I Smell a Rat

I was lifting weights in the garage and noticed some holes in a bag of dog food I’d left by my rack. More I studied, there were droppings around as well.

Sure as hell, a rat had taken up residence again. Last one ended poorly for the bugger as Jasper flushed him out, and Jethro tore him to pieces.

But my immediate problem was I needed to remove the food source.

So I grabbed the empty steel bucket (I use them to store their normal food). When I did that I noticed the bag of Iam’s chicken & rice that I stuffed on the lower shelf was empty. That rat bastard had emptied the bag. How the hell did I not notice this weeks ago?

When I went to empty the other bag into containers, it had a decent hole in it as well. Jet was there ‘helping’ me clean up the spillage. I finally got it stored, put the bags in the can, and then later on I set a couple traps. The first one is the newfangled kind, made of plastic, with an “L” shaped trap bar, with plastic on the bar, and a little food tray surrounded by a ‘platform’ that triggers the trap. Like this one:

I put that one by the shelf.

The next one, an old style, crush-your-knuckes kind went around the weight rack.

This morning I found carnage.

I reset the trap before taking that image. The trap was closer to the hand truck axle you see in the upper right corner. The rat hisself was on the ground next to the trap where you see that puddle of blood at 5 o’clock or so. But up in the upper left corner you see a series of blood splatters. Apparently Brer Rat was quick enough to duck but caught the bar impact right in the head.

So I cleared out the carcass and reset the traps.

There was probably only one. We’ll see. In the meantime I need to keep the nosey dogs away from that area. Don’t need them getting smacked by those traps.

In the end, I’m guessing he got in from one or both of us leaving the garage door up, since there’s no holes in the walls, door frame, or garage seal (which is new).

We’ll see.

I’ll be cleaning up this weekend.