What Comes In The Pet Door - Part II

The Unwelcome Guests

The list of unwelcome guests is long. Mice, rats, frogs and one morning I heard Tom in the kitchen say "Honey is this real?" Charlie had plopped a dead garden snake at his feet! I went out of my way to trap them alive. You can buy humane traps at Home Depot. Once inside the trap they can't get back out until you let them out. I would take them outside let them loose and hope they didn't come back in. I did have one little guy sit at the front door for a long time hoping I would relent.

One morning I stepped on a rat that had been played with by one of my cats a little too roughly. It was still alive but paralyzed. I couldn't just toss it in the garbage or outside still alive so I got the bright idea of putting it in a ziplock bag thinking he would die quickly and painlessly by breathing it's own carbon dioxide. Made sense to me! I put it in the garage and kept checking on it. It took SIX HOURS! I called my friend and said "Do you know how long it takes for a rat to die in a ziplock bag?" She thought it was a joke and kept waiting for the punch line. I can't believe I told that story about myself.

Charlie found a frog pond one summer. (I hope it wasn't my neighbors). We had 5 or 6 frogs loose in the house. He didn't kill them just brought them in to play with. I would look down and there would be a little frog with dust bunnies all over it from hiding behind the dryer. Again shoebox to the rescue!

The last mouse took a while to catch.

He would sneak out from his hiding place (the dryer) and grab a little dry cat food and run back. He was becoming a little too fearless, not afraid of passing Tom on his food break. When Tom named him Scooter I decided it was time to bring out the big guns - Hershey Bars. I neglected to tell you that a little piece of a Hershey Bar has always lured these beasts to my traps.

We have been free of "unwelcome guests" for quite a while. Charlie is slowing down in his old age but I still keep a supply of Hershey Bars just in case. (You know one for me, one for you!)

Some find them a little too enticing! Coming in Part III - Things That Go Bump In the Night!