Simply Authentic...Your Soul Voice is Calling. The Family of Rats Under Our Porch: There's Always a Creative Solution

The Family of Rats Under Our Porch: There’s Always a Creative Solution I believe it was Harville Hendrix, in Getting The Love You Want, who wrote “there’s always a creative solution” about romantic couple relationships. Mary Morrissey, creator of the DreamBuilder Program and Life Mastery Institute (and someone I’ve learned a lot from) http://www.marymorrissey.com/ says when she feels stymied about her next step in a dream/goal, she looks at it from a different angle. Literally. She lays materials (images, words, etc.) on the table and walks around the table looking at the issue from every possible angle. George and I had to get creative recently when a family of rats decided to make our home their home. Although, in all due respect to my partner, I can’t take credit for any of this. George was the one looking at all the different angles. I just nodded my head, smiled, or shook my head, frowned, and at one point said, “Please, just don’t let me know.” Yes, I actually said that. I love to feed birds. It brings me so much joy watching them fly around and come to the feeder. I proudly provide Premium Sunflower Chips, an avian delicacy, from Backyard Bird Shop. http://www.backyardbirdshop.com/ (They have great earrings, too, by the way. Not for birds, for human females. Just so you know.) Feeding birds often comes with hungry squirrels. Now, George and I love the squirrels, and give them their own corn or nut log in a separate dining area. But they happen to like the avian delicacy even more. Have you seen a squirrel hanging from a bird feeder pouring the contents into their mouth like they’re at a keg party? Or doing shots? They’re not very polite about it and bird seed falls everywhere. It took some doing (weeks) on George’s part to figure out the exact place to hang the bird feeder with the exact deterrents for the squirrels, so the birds could eat freely at the feeder, with the squirrels happy at their “kid’s table” log feeder and cleaning up any debris from the bird feeder off the porch. Until the rats moved in. Then tunnels began showing up in the yard and holes multiple places under the porch. Okay, let me make one thing very clear. I know people have rats as pets. I hung out with some when I volunteered at the Humane Society in Salem https://whs4pets.org/. I know rats can be super cute, inquisitive, and loving. I know this to be a fact. I also know it can be creepy, or at least irritating, to see them digging holes all over your place while the squirrels run off and go elsewhere. The rats started eating the corn logs and the scattered bird seed on the porch. My guess is squirrels don’t like rats much. So we, or rather George, set out to get rid of them. We asked them nicely to leave. We really did. We also yelled at them. George sprayed water at them. He tried edible poison. They didn’t take one bite. He decided to get some traps, which horrified me. (That was my “don’t want to know about it” moment.) Thankfully, the traps didn’t work. We kept asking them to leave, even as we started feeling some fondness towards the little rodents. One poked his cute little head out of the hole to look at us with long whiskers and shiny eyes. He suddenly had a name: Ratatouille, pronounced Rat-a-too-ee. (Apparently this is from a movie.) Then the final (I hope it’s final) creative idea came. Put bug bombs in the holes to fumigate. Then, fill in all of the holes and top the most used ones with rocks. Move the squirrel log, and the bird feeder. If the rats keep digging, keep filling in the holes. Add serious doses of cayenne pepper. So…that’s where we’re at. The bird feeder has been moved and I hope the birds find it soon. The squirrel log has been moved and I know they will find it as they always run along that fence. No rats have died – at least not that we’re aware of – but they can’t get back under the porch as long as the holes are continuously re-filled. George has committed to keep re-filling and keep re-filling. This might sound sentimental and unrealistic, but I hope the rats somehow know our intention; that we don’t want to kill them, respect them in our way, but don’t want to live with them. I hope they find a different environment where they can live and thrive in the best rattish ways. We have literal rats in our life. Where is the rodent-like, creeping energy in yours? Have you needed to find creative solutions to rid yourself of something or bring something in? Let us know on the blog. If you found this post helpful, please share it with your friends! Authentically Yours, Laura