Surgical Strike at Home

If you have watched Uri, you will realize what it is to have a terrorist in your backyard, or as in my case, a rat in my kitchen.

This fellow has ruined my life and I can’t eat or sleep without thinking of ways to exterminate him. I now totally sympathize with our government leaders’ stress and state of mind before the surgical strike.

This rat has eaten my doors, the plastic tops of every container (the colorful ones seem to be more appealing) and various food items. He seems to like sampling, because he never finishes anything totally.

My one-woman army (me) had to launch a full-scale surgical strike to solve this problem, beginning with a study of the rat’s entrance and escape routes. I then set up my tried and tested rat-trap, which snapped satisfactorily during the first night. But I didn’t get up to check, and found to my consternation the next morning that he had only dislodged the mechanism and was nowhere to be seen.

In the end I had to call in the big guns—BC, who had once terrorized the neighborhood, including yours truly. Unfortunately, he has replaced alcohol with food, and has developed a potbelly that extends one foot beyond his frame. By the time he managed to lie down and look into the shaft under my kitchen sink, the rat had zipped past him several times without BC having moved.

When I reproached him for not having killed the rat as it passed him, BC retorted, “What do you think I am? Superman?”

We then realized he had entered through the shaft, so our whole strategy had to change. This involved getting all the rat-kill items (including a sticky mat for Rs 100) available in the neighborhood store, after consulting my expert advisors, and setting them all over the house.

Unfortunately, unless I left the house, the rat didn’t surface. So leave I did. I was hiding at my mom’s place, while the rat enjoyed my home and all it had to offer. Free food, warmth, soft beds, and no one to tell him what to do or eat.

The next morning when I returned, there was this huge rat (around 1.5 feet long, including the tail) stuck there. I almost puked as he was alive and kicking. I just took the whole contraption using tongs and dumped it into a bucket of water (I’ve done this twice before in my life and have no qualms about drowning them). My lady helper came by in the afternoon and got rid of it and the bucket.

Whew!

Some Helpful Facts

1. If you bring up the topic about rats in a happening party (while in your spiked heels), several experts will emerge
2. If entering through a drain hole, ensure that you put something extremely heavy over it, as they will just lift up with great ease if there’s something light on top
3. Avoid having stray dogs in the neighborhood, as they end up chasing the cats away
4. Depending on what it’s eaten, you can judge the size of the rat and/or its teeth
5. Darken the rooms/house if you want it to emerge and be caught
6. Don’t put bread in the trap as they prefer non-vegetarian items or rotis (I didn’t have cheese handy that day)
7. It’s better to store food items in glass containers (immune to rats). Sorry about that, Tupperware!