My usual routine in the morning goes something like this: sometime between 7am and 7:45am I'll hear Chester moving about. I know I have to get up then and let him out or there'll be a "problem". And guess who gets to clean that up? Yup, me! So anyway, I get up, the other dogs get up and I let them all out. Then usually I'll take care of my business and afterwards I'll fix the dogs their breakfast, clean the cat box, and feed the cats.
This morning while the dogs were out and I was taking care of my business I heard a scratchy noise but thought nothing of it. It sounded to me like one of the cats taking care of her business. The cat box is in the "laundry room" which is adjacent to my bathroom so I think the assumption was logical.
I finished up and proceeded to take care of the animals. As I was fixing the cats their breakfast I heard the scratchy noise again. The only odd thing about that was I was in the laundry room and both of the cats were sitting on the floor waiting for me to put their breakfast down.
I ran back into my bathroom and now the scratchy noise was louder. I yelled out to my husband that I thought there was something in the wall. He came in and looked around and then we saw the hole. (Right in the middle of the picture.)
We actually saw the nose and whiskers of the rat while it was working on the hole! (I did not get an actual photo of that. I think it was too early for my brain to be working properly to think about getting a photo.) He banged on the wall and the rat took off.
We had to leave to go look at the property we're interested in (more on that later) but when we got home we stopped by the realty management office and let them know. They took the info and said they'd call their pest guy.
For info I took the first two pictures just about thirty minutes before I took this next picture. The pest guy showed up around 6pm and my husband showed him the hole in the bath surround. When he came out he said there were now two new holes.
The pest guy sealed the holes with expanding foam. He found a possible hold where the rats might be entering (near the chimney) and sealed that. Then he crawled underneath the house and set several traps.
He said he'd let the property management company know they'd have to replace the tub surround and he'd be back tomorrow to check the traps.
Let's hope the pest guy "took care of business"!
1 comment:
That is CRAZY! I am absolutely blown away at that! We have pack-rats that get into our walls every 5-6 months or so. They are almost always above our shower/tub one piece insert (you can hear them thumping around on the top and running around behind). A few times now I've heard some louder gnawing and had to bang on the walls of the bath/shower to get it to stop! I had visions of them chewing through a water pipe or chewing through the wall but I always passed them off. NOW I am paranoid that this is going to happen to us! YIKES!
One of these days I will find the holes they are getting into. We get the pack-rats because we live out in the "bush" and we have a hay barn just a bit away from our house, we live above a shop/garage that isn't overly sealed up and they search for a heat source in the winter. They also re-use nests so I think they
"smell" where past pack-rats have been and where they possibly nested in the past. I don't know if there is anything I can do about that though.
I'm glad you got one though, hopefully before they bred. YUCK!
~M~
Post a Comment