Rat Wars...It's On!

I don’t mind coexisting with a rat or two. I’m courteous enough that I knock before entering the bathroom so I don’t startle him. Actually, it’s so he doesn’t scare the crap out of me, which happened yesterday.

This rat has not touched my food. Only the soap in my bathroom. I keep my bar of soap in a soap dish. Until a few weeks ago, I kept the soap dish open. Now I close it tight except when I’m using it. I thought it was a good system until yesterday.

In the afternoon he knocked the soap dish off the shelf. I hadn’t sealed it tightly and it opened and the little bugger took the almost whole bar of soap across the room and apparently tried to climb up the wall behind the toilet with it.
I’ve seen him go up that wall to then disappear into the space between the wall and the ceiling. He then headed across the ceiling into my living area. Based on the noises I hear at night, that’s where he has his nest.

I recovered my soap and washed the large rat teeth marks off it. I placed it back in the soap dish and made sure it was tightly closed. I was surprised this morning to see that the dish wasn’t on the shelf where it belongs. It wasn’t on the floor underneath the shelf.

It was at the base of the wall, near the toilet. A distance of about 3 feet. Somehow he’d dragged it behind the pop-up mesh laundry hamper Sister Mary Margaret sent me. It was still sealed, soap safely inside.

That rat must have some kind of jones for bath soap. There were teeth marks on the plastic dish where he’d tried to get his mouth around it.

I’m now debating whether I should borrow a couple of the family’s cats and risk fleas to get rid of the rat or try a rat trap. I’m leaning toward the trap. I’ll let you know who wins the next skirmish.

BTW…my open box of laundry soap is in the bathroom and hasn’t been touched. My food is all in cabinets or the refrigerator and I don’t think he can get at those. I keep garbage in a rat-proof bucket. There are mangoes and oranges on my kitchen counter and he hasn’t touched those but I think I need to start keeping my fruit under lock and key, too.