*Of Mice and Men * or, rats on steroids!

If we hadn’t seen, or experienced, this one for ourselves, we might not believe it happened. But I do have some photos to show next time I’m in the States. Now, on with the ever-so-true story.
Sunday evening we heard rustling noises in our kitchen (Our living room, dining area and kitchen are one long room….lower level cabinets are the division for the kitchen from the rest). The noises appeared to be coming from these lower cabinets. Bob checked and could find nothing. But we knew from the sound, it was NOT another tarantula. So, we brought out the big rat traps I had purchased in the States last summer. All they have available here are sticky traps, which do not work well.
We set one in the cupboard and since the cupboards do not extend to the floor, we placed one under the sink cupboard. We thought it strange that the noise was coming from these cupboards, as there isn’t any food in them. Monday morning I discovered where the varmint had been. Our laundry room backs up to the kitchen, there is a door from the kitchen and louvered windows over the stove. On the back side of this window/wall are short cupboards mounted to the wall. That is where the canned goods, and pkgd items are stored. And that is where the critter had been. The signs were obvious. So, I spent a good portion of Monday cleaning those cupbaords. We also have some wire grid shelves with items stored. He didn’t bother that ~~guess he didn’t like the grid. So after cleaning, I placed only canned goods in the cupboard, and anything he might be able, or tempted to nibble, onto the grid. Then I set a trap in the cupboard.
That evening I was in the kitchen. My apartment size stove has 4 burners but only two knobs. The two that are missing only have the metal stud sticking out. In the hole around the stud was what appeared to be cotton (think cotton balls or pillow stuffing) For the life of me, I could not figure out why Bob would have done that. Then it dawned on me, Bob hadn’t! it wasn’t there on Sunday. Bob was gone with a group all day Monday. The varmint did it!!!
Bob came home that evening and I showed it to him. Well I started removing the cotton…and removing….and removing. Finally decided I was going to have to remove the top of the stove to get at it all. When I pulled the stove away from the wall to get at all the screws holding the top, I made another discovery. This critter had plugged all holes on the back with the same cotton!!! Unbelievable!!! I started checking the pillows on the couch for damage…NONE! That is when my beloved informed me that the rat had been running around our bedroom the night before and that even though Bob had turned on the light and hunted for it, I never moved. AND he never found the rat! So then I checked the bedroom pillows ~~they are fine!
So, I proceeded to remove the top of the stove. The little stinker had been pulling apart the insulation around the oven and overnight had made a very nice, cozy nest. It has been cool here the past week, so that’s probably what drove him in.
Fortunately, he was not currently in residence! I say “HE” although the nesting thing makes me think “She” was preparing to increase the rat population!
I removed all the loose stuff, reassembled the stove, and placed a trap on top of the stove and one on top of the cupboard in the laundry room (backs up to the stove wall) Figured either I would get him on top of the cupboard or when he landed on the stove.
Bob and I went to bed, laid their reading for an hour before shutting off the lights. About 20 minutes later, I heard the trap and some flopping sounds. Woke Bob up and we went to investigate. Sure enough…we had ensnared him on top of the cupboard. The wire was across his neck and he was barely moving. I got pictures of Bob holding the trap and the rat dangling.
Bob decided he didn’t want to mess with the trap at midnight, so he put the whole thing in the kitchen garbage and closed the lid. Tuesday morning when I got up, Bob asked if I had removed the rat from the trap. Huh? It appears that this little guy was doing some heavy weight training or on steroids. Bob had opened the garbage and discovered an empty trap! This rat got his head out of the rat trap! How we will never know….I have a picture and his head was in the trap at midnight!!! At 6:30 AM he was scampering in our garbage.
Now the garbage can is a swing lid that only needs a 13 gallon bag, but we have an abundance of big black Hefty garbage bags. These things are big, but they were free, so we are using them. Bob decided to take the entire garbage can downstairs to the street to place it in the 55 gallon drum where our garbage is placed for pick-up. Sounds simple enough, right? The look on Bob’s face when he came upstairs was….WOW! It seems he took off the lid, rat was nowhere to be seen, Bob raised the bag out of the can ~~so now the top of the bad is at Bob’s shoulders ~~when the rat appeared at the top edge, jumped over Bob’s head, landed on the road and ran off into the brush across the street!
But I think we finally won: I reset both traps and the next morning there was a body….clearly DEAD! and disposed of without incident! And no rodents have been caught since!
Life in the DR….never a dull moment!