Domestic drama

[flemmings]

I thought the rats and I could achieve a modus vivendi, at least until Wednesday when the exterminator comes. For one thing, I blocked the cellar door, down which Rat 2 disappeared when I startled him with the vacuum cleaner day before yesterday. Accidentally closed the door between kitchen and bunker, and when I opened it tonight I found piles of woodchips. Rat had clawed and gnawed several inches off the width of the thing, to what purpose I cannot guess, and something else had gnawed a bit on the lamp cord in the kitchen. So have put my wildlife scarer on in the kitchen, on high. Next door is at the cottage and I shall sleep with ear plugs.

Still I'm puzzled. Heard a bang clash last night from the depths of the house, stomped down to the kitchen to discover nothing disturbed. (May have come from the bunker, after all. Who knows?) This morning came down and found a ceramic Japanese tea bowl sitting in the middle of the kitchen counter. Bowl lives in the whatnot/ shadow box on the counter pushed up against the wall. How it fell off and landed bottom side down I cannot guess. I suppose rat might have picked it up in its ratty paws and carefully set it down, the better to examine its provenance, but I doubt it. Bowl is heavy and as large as a rat's body. Poltergeists?

Comments

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

That checking-for-provenance picture is great! :D

But apart from that, ratty activity* is not cheerful at all, and sympathies to you. I will read on to see the next chapter, holding my breath.

*but it was something else that chewed the cord? Different teethmarks?

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I assumed it was another rat that gnawed on the light cord- one not in the bunker/ mudroom. But exterminator tells me rats are bad climbers while mice will climb anywhere (sometimes upside down, I can only conclude) and chew on wires as well.

Must have been a mouse that knocked the bowl off, possibly by shaking the box. My luck that it didn't roll.