Around 5:30 this morning, I got up to investigate the suspicious noises the cats were making. They have occasionally brought in a bird, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary when I went downstairs. However, five hours later, I picked up a plastic bag that was sitting in the middle of the hallway only to discover that it had a resident. I’ll confess that I did not deal well with finding a rat staring back at me. There was some screaming (but only a little). Unfortunately, the rat took advantage of my momentary freak out to escape the bag and run into the kitchen, where he seems to have disappeared behind some cabinets. Damn cats haven’t budged all morning. I guess they were done playing with him.
So. I find that I have a rat in my kitchen. I am going to go to the hardware store, but I’m not optimistic that they have any humane traps. Any advice for getting the little guy to leave without a fuss?
Also, for the record, I’m never leaving the window open for the cats again.
You should be able to find a catch-and-release trap without much difficulty. I’ve used them for rodents in my garage before. You’ll probably have to sequester the cats somewhere first, before setting it up.
My SOL had a similar event in her house except it was a chipmunk I think. It escaped into the bathroom. Her answer was to lock the cat in the bathroom until the problem corrected itself. It did. After the sounds of horror and death chipmunks apparently make. She opened the door to find the cat with it’s now dead for certain toy.
So open your cabinets and leave the cats in the kitchen. Eventually the lazy cats will get bored again and start looking for the intruder.
I’m sure I read it in Desmond Morris’ Catwatching that every cat will stalk even if they are separated from their mother very early, but only cats that have been shown how to kill by their mother actually know how to.
Bad kitties! The worst things my fenced-in backyard roaming cats bring in is dragonflies - my cat brought two in to me last summer - one just a little wet and mouthed-up (he went outside the yard to recuperate, hopefully), and the other mangled enough that I had to put it out of its misery. I don’t like killing dragonflies - I’d rather they stay alive and eat mosquitoes.
Yeah, I’d be getting a rat trap, too. I don’t like the idea of killing a rat, either, but I won’t have a rat roaming my house.
I take a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to the cats’ outside activities. If they want to eat up the yummy rats while they’re outside, that’s fine. But when the rat comes in my house, we are going to take a humane approach to rat relocation. As an aside, both of my kitties are former alley cats. I’m pretty sure that they’ve been taught what to do with something you catch.
Anyway, I now have a Havahart trap baited with Velveeta in the kitchen. I really hope this is successful, or I will have to move out.
This does not jibe with my experience. I had a mother cat and her daughter. Mom was never interested in stalking anything but a piece of yarn or maybe a laser dot, and certainly never hunted and killed anything. She didn’t teach her daughter anything that I saw. But daughter cat was one of the fiercest hunters you ever saw. Lizards, snakes (we lived in the desert at the time), mice, birds, bugs of all descriptions (she loved cicadas because they buzzed in her mouth) and once she brought home a baby bunny. And she’d usually kill her prey, too, and eat it. She and her mother were inside/outside cats (I’ve since changed my catkeeping philosophy) and I would frequently go out the front door to find the feet and feathers of a bluejay or remains of a mouse.
Now, maybe Fluffy (my daughter was a toddler when she named her, gimme a break) was an exceptionally gifted natural hunter. She was certainly not a bright little kittycat. But she was very good at hunting, and her mother never taught her.
I have no humane feelings for any rodent in my home. Or any bug. If they want to live, they need to do it OUTSIDE. Once they are inside, I consider them to be suicidal, and their demise is guaranteed.
That being said, I don’t do the actual killing. Part of my marriage contract: the Husband takes care of the dead stuff. And anything leading up to the dead state. I don’t do dead bugs, I don’t set or clean out traps, and when I scream, he needs to come see what I’m screaming about.
We’ve got a cat now who is a hunter. When we had a mouse problem, this cat made it his mission on earth to clear the house. He didn’t eat them, he just killed them.
And AFTER he killed them, we all had to watch him parade the focus of his attention, and tell him what a GOOD BOY he is.
~VOW
Chocolate. Hershey’s Kisses are ideal, though a professional exterminator I talked to preferred miniature Snickers bars. It can be a combination.
When I had my first encounter with the damned things, I had them chew through boxes of expensive chocolate and leave all the nice accessible cheese I left out for them (in the traps) alone. I don’t know who started the rumor that rats like cheese. Cheese works more like a big warning sign that says “Danger: Trap. Stay Away.”
I watched rodents actually jump over glue traps as they went about their business. But put a Hershey’s Kiss in the middle of it and go to sleep and there will be something stuck in it by morning.
Anecdote: I had a friend who had rats in her garage. She bought those one inch cube bait blocks and put them on a window ledge. They kept disappearing for a while. Then she sealed the box of unused blocks in a plastic bag and put them on a shelf. The next morning, the bag and box were chewed through and the remaining blocks were gone. Poisons are not recommended if you have cats, lest a cat eat a poisoned rat (or the poison itself).
Not likely. Rats and mice aren’t actually particularly attracted to cheese, let alone whatever the hell else is in Velveeta. You’ve seen too many cartoons - the holes in Swiss cheese aren’t actually made by mice!
Try a juicy sultana per trap. As a bonus they stay on the trap better than cheese does.
Hold it RIGHT THERE. Are you suggesting that I SHARE my chocolate with rodents? I can barely tolerate sharing it with my friends and family, who I love. Rodents are gonna have to make do with peanut butter.
Anecdote: we used to have a hamster. This guy LOVED raisins, and would dance for them. He loved them so much that, in true hamster fashion, he’d save them for Later, and then get all upset when we cleaned his cage.