It’s a kind of loss of innocence when you first have to deal with rats. We discovered them in our home two years ago: they were coming from the basement through the floor, behind the refrigerator, into the nursery. We found droppings behind the crib when cleaning one day, then the hole when we moved the refrigerator.

We called in an exterminator (they’re always weird men who do this kind of work), and he moved swiftly around the house with flashlight and clipboard, offering tidbits of information about rat behavior.

At the end of the day, we just paid him to set traps and remove the corpses. There’s also the option to rent a box with poison that you put outside the house, to defer the population to your neighbors.

We discovered rats in Beth’s house this morning, in the garage. Dawn told me there’s a large bag of fertilizer they’ve been feeding from, and some droppings beside it. I offered to set the traps and take out the bodies myself.

Categories: Diary