Living on a plot has an upside and a downside. I love the fact that I am half an hour’s drive away from the big city, away from the freeway noise, yet being close enough to nip down the road to the Pick & Pay for groceries. I love giving my dogs the freedom to roam a large piece of ground…to be able to bark their fool heads off at all and sundry without having a neighbour calling the Metro Police about disturbing the peace.
However, the one thing that drives me wild is having rats in my roof. Great big fat hairy buggers with long tails and an up yours attitude to their human host.
I have tried everything from traps to poison to lying in ambush with a pellet gun. Nothing works.
Rat traps?. I bait the trap, (after much swearing and pinching of fingers. Whoever designs these things must be a twisted engineer), put a tasty piece of cheese on it. Where to put it? Top of the cupboards, behind the stove, in the ceiling, next to the geyser. Ha! These buggers could teach a burglar how to steal. Not one trap worked. Every morning I would check the traps. Cleaned out: no cheese, no dead rat! What I was doing was opening my fridge, taking out the Gouda in bite sized chunks and feeding these damn rodents! Rodent heaven! In the mean time, my books are being shredded for rat bedding, rat droppings everywhere!
Ok, poison. Not a good idea…these blue squares contain warfarin. Major warnings on box – do not use where pets or domestic animals can be find the stuff. MMM. How to do this? Can only be used in the roof…at least the buggers can die in the dark and stop their three in the morning jogging in my ceiling. Into the crawlspace I go, spreading blue blocks of poison as far as I can throw.
I might as well have thrown blue toilet blocks up there. I must have the toughest rats in Midrand living in my roof. I looked in about three days later when the scratching in the ceiling had not stopped…where were the blocks. Nowhere? Eaten? Gone!! No dead rats to be seen!
Desperation! I borrow my neighbour’s BB gun. Buy a box with 100 pellets in it. How hard can this be? Aim, fire, and kill the fucking rat! I did my two years national service, shot hundreds of rounds away with an R4, 7.65mm semi automatic rifle. OK, let me have a few practice shots at a tin can. Line of ten old coke cans on the wall. First three shots missed. Are my glasses dirty? Quick scrub! Shoot! Miss! Shit!Miss! Maybe if I stand a bit closer? Miss! Closer? Miss? I either am going blind or suddenly developed Parkinson’s disease? I don’t think any right thinking rat will hang around until I can press the muzzle of the BB against his skull. Shooting is out.
What about a cat? Not a good idea. I am allergic to cats. So is my Rotweiler. We exhibit different symptoms for the same allergy. I sneeze. She eats them. After chasing and killing the cat. Slowly. Exit the feline solution.
I have given up. It is the new South Africa after all,…we all need to live in harmony. I have given up collecting books, and the rats have given up eating them.
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