I don’t know if you’ve ever smelled a dead rat, but it’s not pleasant that’s for sure. It was roughly a year ago when my wife Justine and I discovered that our new house (of only three months) had a rat problem; no wonder it sold so easily. It took us a while to realize that our moving boxes hadn’t had holes in them when we moved, and all of our food was intact when it was packed away. The hard part wasn’t getting rid of the rats, but convincing Justine that traps and poison were the way to go. As an animal lover she was hesitant to bring harm to any creature, she wouldn’t even swat flies in the house! At first we tried to just block off any place we were suspicious that they could get in, but then we discovered that the rats had chewed holes in our couch, the one Justine’s grandma left to her when she died. After that there was no mercy for any vermin in the Nielsen home! We set out traps in hopes to catch all the rats red handed.
My master plan didn’t settle well with my wife, and when she found a dead rat under her desk, twisted grotesquely in a trap, she called for a cease fire and told me she would not let me set anymore traps, she couldn’t stand the sight of the poor, dead rodents. I was a little aggravated at this change in my strategies, but they changed nonetheless. I know who makes the rules in my house. As they say in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, “A man may be the head of the house, but a woman is the neck and she can turn the head any way she pleases,” so I set out poison instead, that way none of the rats would die in the house, but in their nests instead. Wherever they may be.
Awkwardly for us, the nest turned out to be underneath the house, and as I said before, the smell of dead rat isn’t an enjoyable one. What was worse was that our cat, Minny, LOVED to catch mice (I know we should have just let her go for the rats but I was ready for war!) and these were bigger, faster, more challenging, and apparently more appeasing. She chased and caught maybe two or three or more of the already poisoned rats, and got VERY sick. Now, not only did we have to live with the smell of the dead rats, but also with the smell and sound of an ill pussycat, none of which I’d like to experience again. We were in and out of the vet’s office for a month, not to mention I had to crawl under the house to clear out the rotting animals. This took a lot longer than I thought it would just for a couple of dead rats.