hey, nothing about rats here, BUT...

Miko and I saw the Bryan McGee Band last night in Portsmouth, and they hail from Asheville.

I thought of you while they played a scorching good set - ever seen them?

We've had single-rat rat infestations in our crawlspace before, mgl, so it CAN happen. How likely it is, I don't know. Congrats on finally nailing the little bugger, though.

Should I leave the snap traps around the kitchen for the next few days and see what happens?

Yes.

It is my unfortunate experience that there is never just one rat. Perhaps the rat you trapped was part of the advance team, scouting unknown territory before the invasion.

I recommend putting his head on a little pike in the front yard as a warning to others.

Considering that it took me almost half an hour and a near nervous breakdown, not to mention shouting JESUS at the top of my lungs, to slide the damn thing off the counter and into the trash can (using not only rubber gloves but also the fireplace shovel) I think putting a rat head on a pike, while excellent in theory, might be overly ambitious in execution.

Think of it as a kind of catharsis.

I feel your pain.
Leave the traps out for a bit, but in my horrible experience they get smart real quick and traps don't fool them for long. Listen carefully for scratching or squeeking (which you may not notice at first but once you realize what that noise is you will never forget it) in the walls or wherever you think they may hang out and watch for their shit behind the stove, fridge, etc.
I agree that it would be pretty rare for there to be just one lone rat, but you never know.
That Rat Zapper looks scary. Good luck!

If this makes you feel any better, I had to beat a rat to death with a boot the other night.

With the coming of winter, we have had the mice move back into the shed we are (still) living in while we build our house and set out traps for them, with some success. However; we suspected that bigger things were afoot, so set a couple of rat traps as well, just to see...

A couple of nights later, we had just gone to bed when I heard the characteristic snap of a mousetrap, followed by the most godawful screaming sound, leaving me in no doubt that our hunch about rats was true. Unfortunately, this particular rat had got caught not in a rat trap, but in a mouse trap. As I now know, mouse traps are strong enough to hold a rat, but not to kill one. By the time I got out of bed, it had dragged itself under a workbench and the only apparent alternative was to put it out of its misery. Not being accustomed to taking weapons to bed (and being naked at the time), the nearest thing to hand was a pair of steel-capped boots. Thinking that one swift blow would finish the job, I launched at the beast. Unfortunately, I was unable to get enough backswing to build up sufficient power, so the first blow only made it scream louder. Several swipes with the boot later, the rat lay dead in an improbably large pool of blood (the stain of which still exists under the bench). I picked up the trap by the bit of wire that springs the trap, took it outside and dumped the whole lot in the bin.

Sometimes, in the dead of night, I imagine I can still hear it screaming.

Does that make you feel better about having to dispose of a single dead (therefore non-screaming) rodent?

dg, that is a very vivid picture.

Better you than me, bub. I'd be looking around... don't we have any chloroform anywhere?!!! I suppose I'd have to drown it (if that's even possible)... and no, I'd never, ever sleep again.

I can't even imagine how hard it would be to drown a rat in the sink. You would have to hold it under water, watching little bubbles come out of its mouth, its tiny paws frantically struggling to get a purchase on the smooth surface of the inside of the sink, feeling it gradually grow weaker and weaker until, with a last futile struggle, it finally expires with a pleading look in its eyes that will haunt your dreams forever.

Beating it to death with a steel-capped boot is much easier, I think.

i've had a number of pet rats. when the very first one - Lucretia - was confirmed to be beyond help by the vet, i couldn't face a soulless needle & decided to take her home & put her down myself. only, i couldn't think of any better way to do it other than to suffocate her in a plastic bag. asphyxiation - a bit of panic, then passing into unconsciousness, right?

no such luck. other than the pleading look in her eyes (the bag was opaque & i was blinded anyway from bawling my eyes out) it was largely as dg described & it _has_ haunted my dreams forever.

note to all: don't put your own pets down by suffocation.

aaaaiiiiiii.

Now I'm going to have to come up with a kill-rat preparedness plan. I haven't even come up with an earthquake preparedness plan yet (knocks wood, several times). Do you think people will understand when I say I bought a black market gun just in case we ever have a rat, and it gets caught in a trap, but it doesn't die?

There was another dead rat this morning. My kitchen was not home to the Lone Rat of the Apocalypse after all but instead to the Most Popular Rat, Beloved Rat with Friends and Family Galore.

I can't stand it. I have to move out, like immediately. And there's no way I can kill a half dead rat (ubu, my friend with the pet rat used heroin in your situation and it worked out quite well although the obtaining of the heroin in the first place was a little tricky.) If I come across a half dead rat in a trap in the kitchen I think I will just leave the country or something, like, right then in my dog walking clothes, hitchhiking.

Oh jeez, I'm so sorry mgl. This sucks.

I forgot to ask, is there a reason you aren't using rat poison? Like, D-Con in the little boxes? Are you afraid the dogs will get into it?

That's the stuff we use (putting it where neither the cats nor the dog will be able to reach it). The good thing about it is, the rats usually just go away to die in the yard or the woods or something. The bad thing is, once in a while you'll find a mummified rat in the basement that didn't get outside, and/or your house will fill up with flies because one died in the wall or the attic or somewhere. This happened to us just recently, but I still think I prefer it to dealing with traps and stuff.

I'm worried about the dogs either getting into the poison or finding a poisoned dead rat in the yard or wherever and chewing on that and thus getting sort of poisoned by proxy. So poison is out, I'm afraid.