Saturday, April 14, 2007

The Saga Continues

Junior continues to set up her apartment in the sofa. Oh well, I was thinking about buying a new sofa anyway.

In fact, she's peeking out right now. If I move to capture her, she'll only run back inside. I have a little bowl of water in the corner of the couch for her, lest she get dehydrated.

We tried putting food in the carrying cage and then tying a string to the door. The plan was to coax her into the cage and then pulling the string, locking her in the cage. It didn't work. She's a child and much faster than Rob's middle aged hands. The kids are too impatient and end up scaring her before she gets into the cage.

I went to Home Depot to buy a habitrap. I told the sales guy, "I need a trap to catch a rat without hurting it." I wonder why he looked at me funny. They only had live traps for little mice and for huge squirrels. Nothing in between.

I'm open to suggestions here (aside from moving out and leaving the house to the pet rats, please).

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We've used a number of "have a heart" traps to catch wild rats, which my husband would then release miles from our house (at least, until a ranger stopped him and told him what he was doing was illegal.) The trick to catching them was peanut butter. They couldn't resist it. Just put a large chunk of peanut butter on a piece of paper inside the trap and Junior should be captured! We caught a few squirrels through the same process, which we released to our backyard.

Anonymous said...

Our couches and boxsprings all have holes in them. Rats love em. I'd just leave it there until you can get it- try the live trap. Try leaving the cage open with food ONLY in the cage- not to trap it but so it doesn't see the cage as a bad thing. Sooner or later you'll get her. Females are harder to catch than males as they are far more active. Just don't scare her- everyone ought to move slowly and just hang out in the room alot until she knows you are not a threat.

Maureen said...

Unfortunately, the kids were to aggressive in trying to catch her. Hopefully, it's not too late to gain her trust.