Living in Adams Morgan, one has to get used to the rats. You frequently see them squashed on the streets during the day, and you always see them rummaging through dumpsters and trash cans, flitting between cars and under fences, secure in the protective cover of the night. I can't stand them. They've chewed belts and wires in two successive cars, left chewed up tin foil through my back yard, scared the living shit out of me when I come up my back yard sidewalk late at night, and in general lowered my enjoyment of the space around me. So one day I decided to fight back.
I used poison. I thought I'd get up the next morning to see rodent bodies stretched out across the yard, victims of their insatiable gluttony. The little green cubes sat in the corners and along the walls in the yard for weeks untouched. I changed to "place packs," which for a while seemed to get eaten, but I never found any dead rats nearby.
I used traps. I hate setting rat traps because they're big enough to put visions of severed digits into mind. I mean, my fingers start sweating when I'm setting that catch under the bait bar. I caught a few rats that way, but I also caught a robin once and that put me off traps for a year or two.
I briefly entertained the idea of trying to shoot them with a pellet gun, but I figured that hanging out in a darkened yard, I had a better chance of being shot by a cop than of hitting a rat.
These rats don't have any nests or holes in the yard. We don't have a dog, so there's no ready-made food supply for them, either. They just like to drag a pizza crust or chicken wing up into the yard, like you'd take a picnic lunch to Rock Creek, but they haven't tried to set up residence yet. It's a convenient jaunt from the alley up the two steps to the yard.
So far my record this spring is no wins, countless losses.
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