This Means War

Little sons of bitches need to get out of my house!

Little mother fucker keeps getting peanut butter or cheese off without triggering the guillotine. This is completey unaccepable. We will be adding poison into this scenario. Then we'll take out his girlfriend.

Does anybody else experience critters being in your home that aren’t supposed to be there? I don’t mean the bug variety, but actual critters. Anybody?

I bought my first house in 1989. A cute little 1950’s brick ranch. 1000 sq. feet. My two cats lived there with me. I was so proud.

There was a spell of time, maybe 3–4 days/nights that I thought my cats were acting strangely. Knocking things off my desk in the night, pooping outside the litter box, stuff like that. It turned out that a couple of possums had taken up residence in the house. THE CATS WERE ABSOLUTLEY OBLIVIOUS. What’s up with that? Not a hiss, nothing.

One night I came out into the dining room and there was a possum on my dining room table! *$!@ That’s when I figured out what was going on.

I’m not especially afraid of possums, they’re just so darn ugly. So for 3 or 4 days possums were eating the cat food and doing whatever they wanted and I didn’t even know they were there. They got in through a hole in the dryer hose.

The one on the table jumped down and went under my corner cupboard. I opened the front door and tried to hide on the couch, hoping it would leave. I was only 28 so I wasn’t that bright apparently. It never came out.

Eventually I called Animal Control even though it was 3am. A guy came. He reached up under the cupboard and grabbed it by its tail. Then he stood there talking to me! Every now and then he would swish the possum around by its tail as he talked.

Inside I was screaming Ye gods, man! Take that thing out of here NOW! Finally, he did. He said it would take it out of the neighborhood and let it go. WhatEVer.

Fast forward to 2025. If you read my story about our peanut butter thief, you know a rat is terrorizing me. Scott turns out to be somewhat amused by the whole thing. (Once I’m sure there are no more rats, he may be smothered by a pillow).

You know I surmised that there’s never just one rat. I did capture footage of TWO rats. It’s not always great to be right.

https://youtu.be/wRvcQoM3pis

You may know that we live in Portugal. While we are learning, we don’t speak a lot of Portuguese. In preparation for going to the Bricomarche to get a mousetrap, Scott drew a picture of what he wanted. Sometimes he’s very resourceful. Maybe I WILL keep him around.

For the last 2 nights we have baited and set the trap. I’ve also set the camera so we know what happens. Good thing because the DAMN RATS are perfectly able to get the peanut butter or cheese without triggering the trap. We haven’t been able to believe our eyes. Scott reset it several times last night. One finally tripped it last night, but was not in the line of fire and escaped. Son of a bitch.

Just for information, this apartment has what I guess you’d call a sun room the whole length of it. And there are sliding glass doors on one side that lead to our terrace and to the other side leading to the interior rooms. If I see these rats on the interior I’m going to have to leave. I cannot take this.

I’m now pushing for poison. Does anyone have any other ideas?

Oh, and, not surprisingly, the dogs are no more useful than the cats were.