Ratatouille

nomad97

Resident Geek
Ratatouille, our pet rat, although I use the word pet advisedly. 10 days or so ago we had a violent storm and the high winds from the south, as ever, dislodged a couple of tiles in the girl's bedroom. This then allowed a rat, that has been living upstairs for goodness how long, to jump down into the girl's bedroom. Apparently, the rat was found after I went to bed and the girls, and Bruno, had lots of fun chasing the thing after midnight. The rat evaded capture and escaped to the kitchen where it went to ground. The next day we bought some gluey rat pads and placed 2 of them inside the kitchen. Yesterday morning, my eldest daughter saw the rat for the first time since that midnight charade sitting on top of the Venetian blinds. The back door was opened, its hiding place under the table was cleared of rubbish, expertly accumulated by SWMBO over the past couple of years, an excellent, pre-fabricated rat's nest and the rat escaped through the open back door. Now the escapee had a name - Ratatouille! Later that evening, after SWMBO returned from the village, she heard some scurrying above her head in the living room. Me, I can't hear a thing. Sometime later, we all saw Ratatouille, running around the light on the kitchen ceiling, having climbed down through a hole that allows the water to come through when the roof leaks. That's another story. Clearly, having escaped from the kitchen through the back door, Ratatouille had returned to his old haunts in the roof space. A persistent little bugger.

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Recognising my capabilities and limits, and heeding @FERRET's good advice, I spent 3,180 baht on a new fiberglass ladder with a heavy duty, upper load limit of 150-kilogram. That exceeds my weight by nearly 40 kilograms so I have some load capacity in hand. I also bought a 70 baht rat trap from a hardware shop in town. Armed with both, I loaded and baited the trap and placed it in the roof space. Now I can sit back and wait.

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P.S. I have been waiting for over a year for an excuse to buy a new ladder. The catching of Ratatouille provided that excuse. The ladder will not go to waste as I have many jobs that have not been done as they have been at ceiling height or higher. In slow time I can now get around to doing them.
 
Ratatouille has returned. I saw him again last night running back from the light to the ceiling space in the kitchen. Moreover, there is proof on the kitchen floor that the little bugger is making the hole bigger. The floor has many specks of plaster pieces where he has been chewing at the hole. Maybe he is not interested in the trap placed in the roof space. Umph! It was SWMBO who recommended the use of bread to bait the trap, we did not have peanut butter. I moistened some bread and rolled it into a ball. Placed that on the trigger hook. A fellow member on this forum recommended making a snare near the hole in the kitchen. I will think about that.

Forget about the snare, all too difficult. Back to plan A. SWMBO and I thought we might reposition the rat trap from the living room to the kitchen, thinking that would be a better location. It had been above the living room since yesterday and no one had heard the trap being sprung. I duly ascended the ladder to retrieve the trap from the roof space. 555! I have to hand it to him, Ratatouille is one smart rat. I soon discovered that he had eaten the bread on the trigger arm without setting off the trap. The bread had completely disappeared. Clever bugger! I have now attached some rolled bacon, smells delicious, next best to peanut butter, and replaced the trap in the living room. It's near a T-bar and I suspect one of his runs. I will now wait and see what happens over the next 24 hours. If the trap is sprung, the girls should hear the noise. If he takes the bacon without springing the trap, I will rebait and wire the bacon to the trigger arm! In the meantime, I covered his escape hatch in the kitchen.
 
A glue trap is the humane way to go. ;-)
Oh no, it is not. 30 minutes ago my youngest daughter thought she heard some rat-like noises coming from the ceiling. Out with the ladder and examine the trap. The rat trap had worked well this time around and Ratatouille was now behind bars!

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Ratatouille did lose a section of his tail when the trap door came down but, other than that, he was unharmed. I loaded Ratatouille onto the Ranger and drove him a couple of kilometers away from the house. He was released into a local hedgerow, alive and kicking. A happy ending for SWMBO and the rat. :):):)
 
Next time, try the baitless rat trap. Looks just like a normal mouse trap, but larger. Where the bait would normally go, fix a razor blade in place, then watch as the rat approaches, stops at the trap, looks for the bait but can't see any. Looks left and right for it without success and slits his throat on the blade...

Beware of homing rats. Worse than pigeons.
 
RATATOUILLE - THE SEQUEL.

After releasing Ratatouille to the wild, I checked the cardboard patch I had stuck over the hole in the kitchen ceiling. It was intact. The hole in the cardboard is to allow the water to drain when we get a gale force south-westerly once or twice a year. Notwithstanding the best efforts of 3 different builders, when it's chucking it down from the southwest, rainwater comes into the house. The egress point is where 2 T-bars cross over in the kitchen ceiling, immediately above the drain hole.

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Arrggghhh! Alas and alack, when I checked the cardboard patch sometime after midnight, a new and larger hole had appeared in the cardboard patch.

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There is only one conclusion to draw from the perfect hole in the cardboard patch, Ratatouille has a friend or friends still living in the roof space. I will reset the trap and place it back above the living room this morning. I will put another patch over the hole before this evening. The rats seem to like the wee hours of the morning for their nocturnal fun and games. I will use the patch as a 'marker' - if a new hole appears overnight, I will still have rats in the ceiling space. Once the patch remains intact, I know I will have caught all the rats. Let the games begin, Ratatouille Part 2. :)
 
A successful morning. Ratatouille's friend walked into the trap. The rat was released in the same place as Ratatouille, by the side of the road, 2 kilometers from the house.

2 down, how many more to go.?

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That roll of bacon does the trick nicely. :):):)
 
Because our Surin house had already been standing for several months before we bought it, we had problems, and I got a pest control company - "First Class" - to spray the whole plot.
They were professional and so we have had an annual contract with them ever since - they visit every month.
We have never had a problem since, but it costs money.
I can't quote accurate figures because costs depend on the property and the extent of the routine contract work required.
For us, 10 years ago, it was 7500 baht for the year's contract.
 
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