Saturday, January 23, 2010

What could it be?

Our neighbor yelled across the canal to Hubby that he heard something scratching in his ceiling last night.
These little homes are built so minimalist that we don’t have attics, crawls or basements in them.
So to have the possibility of something making noise above your head during your precious sleep time is just plain weird or more than likely rodent induced.

Now you have unacceptable ones like rats and mice, and even a squirrel by some may be considered not that cute or loveable.
Personally at times I have thought each of those to be adorable, and or icky-poo too.

The mystery may never be solved.
We were fortunate when we heard that familiar scratching under my bathtub in my bathroom. Yes, we had all the tell-tale signs from holes in a dog food bag to chewing through a plastic container where the dog food had been put after, and then finally we fixed the problem by putting the dog food in our car in the garage with the windows rolled up!

Yep, we have experience with this problem, but at first we thought it could be our ghost coming back. We may of have had a haunting way back when our home had to be gutted after Hurricane Charley, and then oddities ensued.
I did consult a professional in the field of ghost busting, a local husband and wife team, and their report from our photo was inconclusive but interesting just the same, and left the door open for the possibility.

But in reality ours too was a rodent, a small rat or large mouse, either way, he or she was brazen, since we did have a cat! You would logically think he/she would have gone elsewhere?
Hubby put a live catcher on a shelf in my laundry room cupboard with bait. Since we were able to determine how the little gnawing darling managed to gain entry through the dryer vent! Hubby then installed that spray insulation, and figured that he/she were either caught in the garage or the laundry room, so traps were put in both.
The little critter was way smarter than you would have thought though since he/she managed to remove the food bait without setting off the traps!
This went on for weeks!
The last thing we wanted to do was to poison it since it could gain entry into our walls and could stink them up pretty fiercely if he/she was to die there, yuck!
We have heard stories of that; people having a disgusting odor emanating from somewhere but never quite being able to quite pinpoint it or having to cut open the wall to get it out when you could!

Our little fellow was brilliant until one day in the wee hours of the morning I heard Casey, the cat running around in our living room. He seemed to be having a heck of a good time!
It was then that I saw what had caught his fancy, our culprit Mister or Ms. Scratching noise maker, dog food eater, non-welcomed guest!
The rat/ mouse, running back and forth behind furniture, and Casey would corner him and just stare, and I screamed! That got Hubby’s attention out of a deep sleep!
He ran in and saw what all the commotion was about and got the broom out of the closet, opened the front door and swept the little interloper out!
He/she did not move for quite some time, and Hubby thought he may have killed it but within several hours it must have been just fine, since it was gone.

And you see that is why we have a bit of experience when it comes to four-legged little rodent type critters. I don’t know about the rest of you but I took to disinfecting any place I thought the little thing had come into contact with, and after all was said and done it was reassuring that he/she had just moved on and that we were not murderers.

On that note I will wish you all a good night and to all count your blessings and we will too!

Good night Mickey or good night Minnie!

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