Winning the rat race

An experience gave me a firsthand glimpse into the cleverness of rats, which I had only read about in incredible stories during my primary school days.

Relocating to Chennai a few months ago, I rented a ground-floor apartment. Initially, all seemed well, but one night, I was awoken by intermittent scratching noises after switching off the lights and going to bed. I assumed some minor work was underway upstairs, but the noise persisted over the next few days.

Upon closer inspection, I discovered the source of the noise was a wooden almirah fixed to the wall. Checking inside, I found that my new dhoti and a cotton shirt had been chewed through in two spots each. My suspicion that a mouse was hiding in the flat was confirmed by my wife, who mentioned that vegetables and fruits in the kitchen had been nibbled at each night.

A thorough search for the rodent in the apartment yielded no result. Obviously, a rat had been visiting our flat under the cover of darkness, retreating quickly after a quick nibble. Unwilling to use sticky pads or poison, I set traditional snap traps with tomato and onion bait in three locations. However, the traps remained open, indicating the wary rodent had avoided them.

A friend familiar with rat psychology advised me to place a trap with fresh onion near the balcony door, which I assumed was the entry point. In the dead of night there was shrieking and squeaking that ended with a bang-TUP. The next morning, I found a rat trapped, looking pitifully at me. With childish delight, I carried the trap to a nearby ground and released the rat unharmed.

Upon inspecting the balcony area, I noticed rat droppings below the door and concluded that the rat had negotiated the gap between the door and floor. I immediately arranged to install bristle strips at the bottom of all doors.

A week later, my Internet connection suddenly snapped. The technician discovered that the cable connecting the modem inside the house to the post on the street, had been gnawed through at the point where it enters the house through a hole made on the kitchen window frame. It dawned on me that the rat had found an alternate route! It had chewed away the cable at that point before sneaking into the house through the hole. The cable was replaced and the space around it was plugged. The Internet started working and with that the night visits from the rat ended. 

This experience gave me a firsthand glimpse into the cleverness of rats, which I had only read about in incredible stories during my primary school days.