To hell with a better mousetrap; I need a better rattrap! Yes, I have rats, and they have apparently migrated from the garage (where I first saw them after the flooding during tropical storm Allison) to somewhere under the house. And I wouldn't really mind them being under the house all that much except that they have also made forays into the house and have destroyed some of my stuff (the refrigerator, for one!) Now, I am basically a humane person, and I don't go searching for creatures to kill. However, if a creature violates my demesne and then also destroys my shit, well, then, it has to go. And by go I do mean die.

Yes, die. I kill roaches, and I will kill rats. Rats are just giant furry roaches.

So I spent a couple of days putting out mousetraps, hoping they'd be sufficent. I mean, these rats are not like sewer rats; they're just like really Big Mice, with a body about 5-6 inches long (plus the tail.) I was really hoping the mousetraps would work, because when I tried setting the much bigger and nastier rattrap, it damn near took my finger off. And since I'd baited it with peanut butter, I also had peanut butter sprayed everywhere when it went off. I tried a few more times to set it, but finally gave up on it--it's just a little too sensitive, and I can't even get it down on the floor before it snaps shut.

But the mousetraps didn't work. Oh, they were all sprung the next day, but either they're way too small for these rodents, or the rodents have telekinetic powers and are springing them from a distance.

Therefore, yesterday I bought glue-traps. I bought four of the covered variety, and four of the plain expanse-of-sticky-paper variety. I set them out in various locations in the garage and in the house where I'm pretty sure they've been coming in, and this morning I dutifully checked my traps. Not a single rat on any of the traps, however, I did find a great deal of short grey fur on one of the glue-boards in the garage. I'm figuring that a rat got trapped by one and managed to struggle its way out, losing a good portion of its body hair in the process.

So now I'm looking for a bald rat.