Well its official, if there was any doubt, the mouse the cat brought into the kitchen six weeks ago is a rat. I lost it in the night it arrived behind the refrigerator, it was too late and I was too tired to move the fridge to get it out, and anyway the cat, having brought it in, was showing interest, so I assumed it would catch it before morning.
Should have know better, when the cat dropped the thing it turned on the cat and she backed off, since then the cat has only had an observation role, leaving the thing to eat the cat food in peace. At first I thought it was a large mouse, but it must have been an immature adult rat. It was discovering the stockpiles of dried cat food in the kitchen units that made me realise it was a rat not a mouse. That explained why the mousetraps didn’t work, I put down 8 of them, it had become too big to fit into them. It spends its time mainly under the floor oards with sorties to the back of the fridge, where it is closer to the bowl of dried cat food.
Coming home late on Friday night expecting to find a plate of food on the table, I found the kitchen to be in great disarray. The fridge had been pulled out and bit of wood and hoovers were being waved about, blocking access and attempting to impede the rats exit to its domicile under the floor boards, to no avail. It’s still there now, I think I can hear it quietly laughing, but we have to step up our action the thing has to go.
If I cannot catch it by the end of next week I’m going to have to attempt to kill it, I don’t want to do that really, after all it is the cats fault it’s in the house in the first place, not the rats.
On the up side it appears to be chocolate week, not that it will make much difference in my consumption, it just give it an excuse.