Heh. I live trap the mice that get into our house each winter. My gf relocates them 75 yards away in our barn where she has food, water, and shelter for them.
Assuming they overwinter in the barn, the rat snakes will gobble them up come warm weather.
Raccoon would really be pushing it! But I have pictures of myself holding up a central rat snake over 6 feet long with impressive girth. He’d been eating a couple of hens eggs each day. I relocated him and our egg production soared.
My childhood friend was in town for a visit. She told me a harrowing tale. She lives in SE Washington state. She has a beautiful yard with many gardens including a vegetable garden. She said that something has been eating her vegetables. She went outside one night with a flashlight and saw rats, lots of rats. When they sensed her they ran up the trees and were running through the branches! Every time I think of big rats running around in the trees above my head, I get the heeby-jeebies.
Stay away from SCal. Urban area are plagued with roof rats. Some idiot people set up lawn chairs in their yards and spend summer evenings drinking beer and watching roof rats running along the utility wires going from house to house.
Mr VOW bought special pellets for his BB rifle and shot the damned things. He even duct taped a flashlight at the end of the barrel, so he could aim for their red eyes.
I told him to make sure the dead ones fell in the neighbors’ yards.
Additionally, in the United States, cats kill between 1.3 and 4 billion birds each year. This is the second-largest human-caused cause of bird deaths in North America, after habitat loss.
I was once walking home in the city late at night, looking at the shop windows, when something large, soft and oddly sharp fell on my head from the building above. I spun around and saw a brown shape scurry off into the dark. Looking up, I saw a group of teenagers, staring at me with their mouths open. One of them said slowly, in awestruck tones, “A rat fell on you, dude.”
It’s the middle of the night. I hear the cat galumphing through the house.
Ba-dump ba-dump ba-dump. Ba-dump ba-dump ba-dump.
“Fritz, what the hell are you doing?” I come out of my bedroom; squat down. Fritz comes prancing up to me as proud as can be with a mouse in his mouth. He drops it at my feet. Of course, Mr. Mouse wasn’t dead and wanted to get away from the spiky furball as quickly as possible, so he jumped at me. Out of pure surprise, I swat at the mouse - hit him in mid air. He bounces off of the bathroom door and into the bathtub. Now the mouse is running around, trying to get out, and can’t climb up the sides. Then Fritz jumps into the tub. He’s not sure what to do - he just sits there batting at the mouse every so often. I end up doing the humane thing - catch the mouse in a cup, then flushed him down the toilet.
So, yes, even indoor cats will bring you live mouseys.