It's July?

[kyburg]

Oh, that's right.

Inside stuff today, outside stuff tomorrow.

Last night? Baby rat stuck in the laundry room sink. Jim, who can't kill it and doesn't want to leave it there, informs me of the "mouse" stuck doing donuts in the laundry room sink.

So I send him out there with a mason jar, and lid - and I grab the car keys.

Maybe we should have headed for the local reptile house - but the corner of Normandie and 190th ought to be okay - that's where the new SquallMart has gone in - when nobody else in town would allow it, they put it on some unincorporated Los Angeles County land. Hates it forever.

Then came home and found Mama and some of his siblings making merry...and one of the little squirts had the nerve to "eep" at me when he discovered I had feet and knew what to do with them.

Have. To. Do. SOMETHING. They're quite localized to the crawlspace of the converted house - and if we lock it down as we've been told to do, and begin bait stations (you know what's in them, right?)...

Jim still thinks they're cute. He's right.

All that food in the laundry room, and they haven't touched it. They only want the water leaking in the sink.

Plugged the holes, scared them off - and cleaned up after them. Again.

I really don't want to kill them. I really don't want them in my laundry room.

*sigh*

The Tanita scale arrived yesterday - and has been put to much good use. Hiroshi is 16.5 lbs. I paid twenty-five cents for the privilege of discovering I was 174 lbs. last weekend (and got a set of lotto numbers, and was forecast to retire earlier than others - fat chance) - stepped on the scale last night and discovered I was 171.3, and then this morning was 167.6. That can't be right.

If it's that big a delta tomorrow, I'll be noting it. WHACK.

Oh, and Jim now needs to lose more weight than me. Looking around the house, that's not news. Everything around me is overfed. It's a bad habit, nothing more - fifteen years with a type I diabetic, and then years before that being so underweight (and anorexic) than any missed meal was a DANGERDANGERDANGER issue...that, and I need more exercise. I'm afraid of most weight training programs - I get just enough instruction to "do this, do this, do that and then" - and the time's up. I've got a dance studio that has classes for my level, and I've got a gym membership - but finding the funds to pay for the bit more to actually use those resources...*sigh*

I did get the scale, though.

In other words, Karl Rove did the dirty, did he? I am SO surprised. Look at me die from the surprise....

Comments

[jadegirl.livejournal.com]

That can't be right.

Actually, it can - a variance of around 5 pounds can easily be attributed to water weight, which fluctuates throughout the day/night.

[sun-berry.livejournal.com]

can you trap them ane release them somewhere else?

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

If I could! They'd be gone now -

Little buggers are noctural - and just scatter when something bigger shows up.

[elfwench.livejournal.com]

" stepped on the scale last night and discovered I was 171.3, and then this morning was 167.6. That can't be right."

Yes, it can! Most people way heavier at night due to water weight (It's the opposite for lord_keeper on a hot work day, though, as he's dropped up to 8 lbs. in a shift in water weight.) That's why a person should weigh themselves at the same time of day each time they weigh in so as to be more accurate.

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

Which side of the mississippi are you on? Not to be paranoid, but rats and other vermin on the Western side are known for carying more diseases than the ones on the eastern side. Hanta, for example, is spread through droppings, urine, and saliva. Oh, yeah, and bubonic plague is actually endemic to the American southwest these days. (It got here by steamship from china during the last great epidemic in the late 1800s. No one ever hears about that one because it didn't strike Europe, but it killed millions of Asians.) At any rate, penicillin and the like can now treat bubonic plague, so it's not anywhere near so deadly, but you still don't want to *get* it in the first place.

I try to kill as few animals as possible, but a house is no place for wild vermin. I know when we had squirrles in our attic, we put out humane traps for them. catch and remove... if you do end up killing them, a local raptor rehabilitation center (if there are any locally) may accept them as donations. at the very least some other poor animal could be helped.

at any rate, good luck.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

I was a camp counselor the year after they'd had to close all the campgrounds in my part of the country due to bubonic plague. That time, it was blamed on the squirrels.

We're not dry enough to deal with the dust issues yet - and I'm keeping the scat issues at bay by cleaning them up (over and over), wearing respirator masks.

Hmm. Raptor rehab center. That's a VERY good idea. They might even know how to catch them....

[pseudicide.livejournal.com]

Actually due to morning/night water retention you will often be about 5 pounds different from the times.

[missus-emm.livejournal.com]

Nice post! Rats are a problem. In our house, Stephen is terrified of all things rodent in nature, and I get to "save" them. But then we started getting rat olympics in the roof at night, coupled with the fact that the couple before us had such a sickly baby. Then we knew we had to do the right thing, and we called in professionals. They do that thing where they lay down poison, and it leads the rats out of your home in search of water. And when they drink the water, the poison goes into their tummies and they die. Not exactly humane for a animal person like me, but apparently we had a high-level infestation, and apart from being toxic for babies and children, we would soon begin to feel the effects on our health too.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

The only thing they want in my house appears to be water. Shutting down everything out there when it's not being used appears to help - but they never completely leave...which is the idea.

[bleudaisy.livejournal.com]

I'm the same way about killing nusance animals. Rather than rats or mice our problem is cats (and the occassional racoon or opossum). Most people in Memphis are firm believers in the "it's a cat so it NEEDS to roam in order to be complete as a cat" philosophy. As an owner of a new cloth top convertible I can't have them shredding my top so we catch them and relocate them to other nice areas of the county. Plus, we have a backyard wildlife habitat and they keep killing our birds and fish so it's not good to have cats around. So far we have been very successful. It seems kinder than taking them to the pound where they won't even have a chance because we have a horribly high rate of cat euthenasia in this area. People won't often adopt an adult cat here. I just wish people wouldn't let their pets roam. I love cats, but to let them roam is unhealthy, unsafe, and other people don't want them in their yards.

Sorry, I'm rambling; but I feel your pain about the rats. You hate to kill them, but they are unhealthy and unsafe to have in your home.

Good luck! :)

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

*nods* The old condo in Ontario had a HUGE feral cat problem when we first moved into it - think five litters of kittens found in the dumpsters one weekend bad - but only one complete round-up was required to get it under control. Just one. That's catching every cat, every kitten and humane trapping the ones you can't catch.

That condo was on Mountain Avenue, 55 miles per hour if they were paying attention. MUCH faster, and five lanes across, if they weren't. Just keeping the cats from dying under the car tires was enough for me.

[bleudaisy.livejournal.com]

Just keeping the cats from dying under the car tires was enough for me.

I whole-heartedly agree. Wow...scary.

[yuki-onna.livejournal.com]

SHOES!

You are too good to me. Thank you!

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

They fit and you love them?

[yuki-onna.livejournal.com]

They do and I do!