Our Completely Uninvited Guest

Our Completely Uninvited Guest

Have you ever seen the movie Lady and the Tramp? Remember that part when the rat runs into the baby's room and everybody freaks out? But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.

It all started on Saturday of last week. I woke up and went into the kitchen to get myself a piece of bread to eat. I picked up the loaf (brand new, unopened) and saw that the back corner had been chewed through and that a good chunk of bread was missing. And there were pieces of the paper and plastic from the wrapping on the counter right beside it. At this point I decided that Clint had slept in long enough so I woke him up and informed him that we definitely had some sort of animal living in our house. After he inspected the loaf and the evidence around he located what we thought was the hole where our little friend was coming from. Then we cleaned out our kitchen from top to bottom. We went through every shelf, rearranged all of our food items, threw out old things - the kitchen looked great! Clint then bought some rat poison and left it near the hole in the wall in our dining room.

By the next morning the whole bag of poison was gone. Not just opened and nibbled upon. Not emptied out. Completely gone. Good sign, right?

Then, this evening around 9:00 I was in my room when I heard Jacob crying from his room at the end of the hall. I stepped out of my room (on the opposite end of the hall) to make my way down there and see what all the fuss was about. Just then something caught my eye and I looked down just in time to see the back half of a rodent running into Lizzy's room right next to me. Ok, at this point I think my heart stopped. Pretty sure it stopped. I saw Clint near Jacob's doorway so I said (in what I'd like to think was a fairly controlled voice), "Clint. I just saw the mouse run into Lizzy's room. It's in Lizzy's room. Right now." He passed Jacob to me and then went into the kitchen to find something with which to catch the mouse. All we could find was a mixing bowl. (Luckily, one I don't use any more!) Right about here I thought it wise to put some shoes on so I went into my room and slipped on some boots. Bigger shoes, more rodent protection, right? We went into her room and turned the lights on and closed the door behind us. Lizzy has been sleeping in a little port-a-crib lately because she's having issues with staying in her big girl bed at night so I clambered up on top of her toddler bed and stood there, boots and all, holding Jacob while Clint meticulously went around the room trying to figure out where the thing was hiding. Of course he left the closet for last which was, of course, where it was. By the time he found the mouse (no. correction - RAT. a very BIG RAT) Lizzy was wide awake and standing up in her bed talking to Jacob. I knew that once we found the rat it would run out like a shot and sure enough it did... right under the bed where Lizzy was standing. As you can imagine, this did not go over terribly well with her. But, all things considered she held it together pretty well.

Clint went after it with a broom which got it to crawl up her 7 foot tall bookshelf, on top of her stuffed animals on the top, then across her curtain rod, then back down the other side, then into another corner behind another book shelf, and then once more toward the towering bookshelf where it ran behind (yes, I am seriously thinking about rearranging her room so there are no bookshelves angled in corners from now on). I took Lizzy out and put on Caillou cartoons for her to watch in the living room and then went back in. Clint was trying to move the bookshelf to get at the rat, but you have to understand I have about a thousand children's books so it wouldn't budge. Eventually he just started taking out all the books and moving them into the hallway. My job was to stand there holding the baby and to watch to make sure that the rat didn't escape.

10 minutes later and with the hallway now full of books and stuffed animals and other random things from Lizzy's room, Clint was finally able to move the book shelf. No rat. Where was he?? Clint started banging on the bookshelf with the broom when suddenly the little bugger appeared from somewhere and made a dash out into the open. But before we could throw the bowl on top of it, it crawled under the door and made it back out into the open house. Clint raced out after it but he was too slow. We saw it disappear into it's blasted hole and then he was gone. Argh! After all the work and adrenaline! So in the end Clint just shoved steel wool into every open crack and hole in that particular wall and then covered up the original hole with steel wool, duck tape, and a board. He then looked up the rat poison he's used online to find out more details about it. Apparently it takes 1-2 weeks for the rat to die. That's just great. 1 week down.

Now, by this time Lizzy was completely transfixed by Caillou, but when I turned off the tv she kept saying, "I'm scared of the mouse." "I know, honey," I'd say. "But it's gone now. It's ok." Still, we moved her little bed into our bedroom just in case. Clint's trying to sleep right now and I finally got Jacob to go to sleep as well. I don't hear Lizzy in there anymore so she must be out too. Not me. I'm still feeling a little queasy and not at all tired.

So I thought I'd take this opportunity to share our evening of excitement on my blog. I sincerely hope that none of you have been trapped in a room with your two small children and a rat while your husband goes forth bravely armed only with a bowl, a broom, and two pot holders. I wouldn't wish that on anybody!