A small rat tripped an old fashioned spring trap and fell into a trash can. The trash can is plastic with a square cross section, maybe 10 inches on a side, and about 3 feet tall. The cover has dual doors which swing down.
I could hear the rat scurrying around so I pushed one side of the cover down and peaked inside; he was not caught in the trap. As I was considering my options I saw him near the top so I whacked the lid. He was crawling up the side of the plastic bag. He actually made it over the cover a couple times but I whacked him each time to knock him back into the trash can. Yes, I was playing whack-a-rat.
There was nothing handy to completely cover the lid, just a large circular platter which left about 1 inch exposed at each corner, and lots of trash bags. What would you have done to get rid of the rat? I’ll come back soon to post what we did.
A heavy glove and a shotshell in the .38; the glove more for ricochet than for the rat. If that wasn’t an option I would go all mortar and pestle on his ass with a baseball bat.
My Siamese would look at me in disbelief if i sic-ed them on it. My pups would look like the lights weren’t on.(kinda dim they are)
I’d be on my own. I’d throw in some rat poison, seal him in. Put a trash can outside, far as i could get it away from the house. And wait.
I briefly considered this, but I am sure he could have torn the bag and escaped. Also, since he had demonstrated his ability to climb the side of the bag, taking the cover off to tie/bunch the bag seemed risky.