The Rodent Saga

So we had this little problem with a rodent in our house. It started with our broken dishwasher, where we realized something had chewed through the sump, costing us $200 in labor for a $20 part to be replaced. Bill set regular traps and we checked daily for any signs that the little guy had been caught. Nothing.

Then we found a brand new gigantic bag of pancake mix (recently bought from Sams Club) with a hole chewed in it in our pantry. Apparently he worked himself up so much chewing up our dishwasher that he needed a snack. We set more traps in the pantry and waited and waited. Nothing, although he did eat the peanut butter from the traps without setting them off. And for extra insult, he ate the peanut butter part of the Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter and left the nuts behind for us. Grrrr.

I later found that the little guy had been in my bathroom too. I keep tons of lotions and stuff under the sink vanity. I don't go there that often, but when I looked in it recently I saw piles of what looked like black dirt everywhere. I finally realized it was charcoal and filling from some heating pads I had there. He had chewed them up. I also realized there was a big hole in the back of the wall, leading directly into the space between our bathroom and kitchen walls (and most likely with direct access to our dishwasher.)

Bill and I talked about finding another humane way to get rid of it. We went out and got some sticky traps. We set them out, one directly beside the opened bag. For days we had nothing until I went in one morning to find the trap with little gray hairs stuck in it. Apparently the little guy had gotten stuck but then got himself loose.

More sticky traps and no luck. Although now we've gone through another bag of pancake mix, a couple of sandwich bags, a bag of Lime Tostidos, two big bags of rotini pasta, and a small bag of Cheetos. Time for the hard-core stuff.

Bill went and bought some poison last week. We hated to do it, but there seemed like no other choice and this guy was just too smart. We set it out behind the dryer where it wouldn't be touched by us or the kids or the pets. We weren't sure anything was working until yesterday morning. I woke up to find the most awful smell in our bedroom. Bill said he'd heard some scurrying between the walls the night before when he came to bed. We're pretty sure Mr. Squirrel has moved on. Unfortunately for us, it looks like his soul left this world, but his body stayed in the walls of our bedroom. The smell has gotten to where I literally hold my nose to go in the room. Last night I turned on the strongest room freshener we had. It's starting to fade a little, which is good. Hopefully not much longer. We had a raccoon die in our fireplace in the den last year and it smelled pretty much the same way, so we're pretty sure that's what it is. Fortunately, we could close the doors to the den and stay out of there for a few days. We haven't been able to do that with our bedroom. Just pray that the weather doesn't get too hot in the next few days. Cooler weather would be best for us all.