I was tired. Even triumphant, a little bit - but only in that way you are after accomplishing a difficult but mundane task (in this case having to do with a washer with a blocked drain). A couple of bags of trash left to deal with - just the dirty rags and such from a job well done.
Two trash bins in the driveway - I’d gotten a second one because we rent out our basement apartment to a family of 3, and thus we generate twice the trash we used to. Two bins, one full, and one empty.
Or not so empty, it would turn out. There was a pile of strange plastic shavings at the base of the new bin. Afterwards I realized they were from a new hole that had been gnawed in the back of the bin near the top.
Gnawed, presumably, by the new resident of the bin - a rat about as big as my forearm. Shaking and huddling in the corner.
Why’d he go in there? It was empty. Maybe a few peanut shells at the bottom, a few dirty fast food napkins. Not much of a meal, even for a rat.
What did he think when I opened the lid and stared down at him? He didn’t react immediately - at first I thought he might be dead. But then I saw the shaking. It wasn’t that cold, so it must have been fear.
I felt sorry for him. But I knew this couldn’t be allowed to continue.
Rats are not strangers to my street. The little security cam in my yard sees them in the wee hours almost every morning. There’s a plastic drain line from my gutters that they’ve burrowed into and made a home, despite my many attempts at eviction.
But they stay out of the house, thankfully. I’m sure a big part of that is the design of the house - old and brick, with a single main entrance. No connection between the basement apartment and main level. Rat teeth are tough, but not so tough to burrow through brick.
And maybe they see no need - they make a comfortable living from the trash bins.
But this one was trapped. Normally there’s something in the bins - something to climb, jump off of.
Not today.
For a full minute I was certain I had to kill him. What else to do? Let him go? Is that really the message I want to send? That humans can be trusted? That they’re safe?
I’ve got a family. The rats need to understand that they may share our street, they may get our trash… but they do not get to stay within our sight. If they see us, they better run.
So he had to die, I thought. But how?
There’s a big stick in the yard. We found it on the beach years ago - a perfect piece of driftwood, gnarled but straight-ish, and strong. We sometimes use it as a walking stick. Maybe I could crush it’s skull with it.
There were stones. Big honking stones, bigger than my fist. Almost cubic - I don’t know if they were building stones at one point, but they were a good size and shape to hold down the trash lids when it gets too windy. I could drop one on the rat.
But killing is not easy. At least killing things this big. I knew that there was a very good chance I wouldn’t get it with my first try. I might just break a limb, or its back. It didn’t deserve to suffer.
So no killing today. But I still had to do something. And I didn’t want to just let him go. Unsure of what to do, I looked around my yard, as if the things I see every day might hold a solution. I looked at the cars, the neighbors’ houses, the street, the drains…
The drains. The drains! I live on a dead end street, and it slopes down, and at the very end there’s a big wide drain, no grate, no cover, big enough for a toddler to climb in, were they so inclined (and luckily my toddler is not). I went down to look - part of it extended down into the blackness, with no apparent way to climb out.
That was it. I just needed to get this rat into this drain, and he’d go live a rat’s life of dreams in the sewers. And hopefully away from my house.
But how? I couldn’t just dump him. Who knows where he’d run? Maybe some big sturdy gloves, and just grab him? No, I wasn’t up for that.
I had a grabber - one of those tools some old folks use for reaching up high for things. I use it to pick up trash that blows into our yard sometimes.
So there I was, grabber in hand. I wheeled the bin down to the drain. I thought about it, strategized… what the hell, let’s just do it.
Did you know rats can scream? They sure can. I tried not to be rough, but this rat wasn’t having it. He screamed and cried and bit, I could almost feel it through the shaft of the grabber. If I grabbed him by the body or the leg, he’d just twist around, bite and pull, and get free. Too slippery - I couldn’t hold onto that greasy fur.
But there’s one part of the rat that’s free of fur. So I grabbed the tail. It took a few tries, and I think I tired him out, and I eventually got that tail. Right at the base, so he couldn’t quite twist around to pull himself free. No leverage.
So as quick as I could, I picked him up, angled the grabber into the drain, and tossed and let go.
Success! I heard a little thump, and a scurrying sound, and he was gone. Onto further rat adventures in the sewer.
I sighed the good kind of sigh. Mission accomplished, and no need to kill. Goodbye, rat. I’ll remember you. Tell your friends to stay away from this house.
