We had gone out for the night ("we" being the three humans that live here and one of Zach's friends) to have dinner and play mini golf. (Yes, I know we're living the wild Hollywood lifestyle. I promise we're trying to control ourselves.) We returned home that Thursday night just before midnight to find Doc whining and unable to come downstairs. After quickly realizing he couldn't put any weight on his leg, we raced to the 24-hour pet hospital in our neighborhood.
I'm sure the people at the hospital thought we were nuts because it was four people sitting in the waiting room worrying and hovering over the dog. After an examination and some x-rays, it was determined that Doc had a severely sprained shoulder along with some abrasions on his paws. He was sent home with pain killers and an order to rest for 3-4 days.
Picture this face with more whining.
One of the reasons we had an extra kid is the fact he was leaving Los Angeles for a few months. Many kids go back home to visit family and save money before pilot season in January. He wanted to hang with Zach for a few days before he left town. The only downside to Zach's friend staying with us was the fact he always left the door open.
Front Door? Open.
Patio Door? Open.
Garage Door? Open.
No matter how many times we asked him to close the door, it somehow always ended up being open soon after the lecture. We kept warning the kid that some outdoor creature might get in the house if he left the doors open. He smiled but wasn't listening to us (typical teenager). We live in an area where coyotes walk down the street, bears go searching for food in garbage cans and the occasional mountain lion decides to explore the city. It never hurts to be too careful.
Between Doc, the extra kid for a few days and work for all three of us, we decided to stay home on Saturday night. Zach's basement lair is known as "The Llama Room". It has a pinball machine, video games and tons of room for teenagers to hang out and do teenage stuff. It also has a refrigerator full of snacks. If it had a bathroom, we'd never see Zach for days at a time.
The Llama Room (refrigerator not pictured)
Zach decided to sleep on the futon Saturday night. On Sunday morning, he told me the fridge was making an odd noise. I was afraid the fridge was about to die but it turned out to not be the refrigerator. We found small poop droppings under our pinball machine.
Uh-Oh.
Dana, Zach and I inspected the evidence and determined that the culprit was a mouse. We searched all around with no luck. Since we were dealing with a nocturnal enemy we decided to spend the day preparing to capture him.
We went to Home Depot and bought some traps and spread them all around the walls of the room. Rodents like to touch something when they travel so we figured he would be touching the walls when he came out for the night. We set the traps around 4pm and proceeded to wait for the results.
By 11pm that night, there were still no results. The mouse was nowhere to be found.
I decided to play at being a ninja and went into the llama room. I turned off all the lights (even my cell phone) and sat on the futon in the dark. After about 10 minutes, I heard a scratching noise coming from the fridge.
I hit the lights and rolled the fridge away from the wall. I got down on my knees and shined a flashlight into the bottom of the fridge to see the cute cuddly little mouse.
The mouse turned out to be about 8-inches long with sharp teeth, evil eyes and a long tail. He looked like a long-haired cross between a rat and a possum.
We had a scary looking rat in the bottom of the fridge.
After letting out a word I rarely say (it has the letters "M" and "F" as it's main components), I called Zach and Dana down to the basement. We discussed our options and came up with a plan. We would simply roll the fridge out the door and then coerce the rat into leaving it's hidey hole. Easy-peasy.
We confidently rolled the fridge to the door leading to the patio. Of course, it was too big to fit through the door. Commence Plan B. I went out on the patio while they wedged the fridge into the doorway. I clanged and banged and hit the back and bottom of the fridge to try and get the rat to leave.
He didn't move at all.
All of this was happening around midnight. Quiet hours in our building start at 10pm so I'm sure the neighbors were loving the noise.
Since I couldn't get rid of the rat, Zach climbed over the fridge in the top of the doorway to come out on the patio. He proceeded to help me hit the poor machine over and over to try and dislodge the scared rat. He was not leaving his hiding spot.
We were wrong.
The next thing we knew Dana was screaming and jumping up and down in the llama room. The rat tried to make a run for it through the bottom of the front of the fridge. We could also hear Doc going crazy outside the closed basement room door. We closed the room so the "mouse" couldn't escape and Doc couldn't enter to get his paws in the traps.
This is the face I imagined outside the door.
I jumped over the fence and ran around to the front of the building so I could get in the basement with Dana. I ran in the room to discover her standing on a pillow that had a rat underneath it.
We had one final chance to get rid of the rat. The first part of the plan was to open all of the fence gates behind the various town homes that lead to the sidewalk. Back inside the llama room, I proceeded to count to three. On three, I leaned the fridge towards me on its side. Dana then proceeded to kick the hell out of the pillow which sent the rat flying out the (now) open door. Zach took the broom and, just like a hockey player, nailed the rat and sent him flying through the open fence gates towards the street.
The rat landed on the sidewalk outside our building and took off running.
We spent the next 15-minutes doing high fives, throwing away a box and rearranging the room. Afterwards, we walked to our neighborhood diner to celebrate our victory. Plus, we were all wide awake after our adventure. We also discussed the marks on the front of the fridge and then the events of the past few days started to connect.
- We got home and took a look at the front of the refrigerator. The marks on the front of the fridge matched Doc's paws. The abrasions were from Doc clawing at the front of the fridge.
- We took a look at the box we threw away before we left for the diner. It had a poop present from the rat.
- The box came with the extra kid we had with us for a few days. The box came from the home of one of the friends of the extra kid. The rat hid in the box and ended up in our place as an extra guest (thanks to our regularly scheduled guest).
- The extra kid brought in the box on Thursday afternoon.
- We left to play mini-golf on Thursday night.
- The rat decided to explore his new surroundings.
- Doc spotted the rat and took off after him.
- The rat ran for his life and ended up under the fridge.
- Doc clawed and scratched at the fridge to get to the rat.
- Doc injured himself trying to protect his family.
Our hero.
Our home is now free of the rat, the extra kid and all of the pillows in the llama room. The room has been sprayed, cleaned and sanitized after our unexpected visitor.
I wonder if there's a blog in the world of rats where he tells his version of the story.
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