Now it's f***ing personal
The other day I walked into my greenhouse, perfectly relaxed and certainly not expecting anything bad. Imagine how p***ed I was when this greeted me:
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It got worse from there...
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...much worse:
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| Nothing left here! |
Weirdly enough, nothing else was eaten, just these Astrophytum cactus — and there definitely are other tasty morsels in the greenhouse. I don’t “collect” a lot of plants, but I did collect these astrophytums.
I knew immediately who the culprit was. It’s always the same one. It starts with an r, has an a in the middle, and ends with a t. Let me spell it out: r-a-t. If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you might know that rats are my arch nemesis. They’ve done more damage in our garden over the years than anything else. Not just ornamentals: More than ¾ of the vegetables and herbs my wife planted in recent weeks have been gnawed down to stubs.
Poison traps aren’t an option because of Stella, and I don’t love the idea of live traps: What am I going to do with a trapped rat? Drive it to the county line and set it loose?
So I did what I typically do: Set out our electronic rat trap. When a rat steps on the metal plate inside the contraption, it gets killed by a high-voltage electric shock. All I have to do is dump the lifeless carcass in the garbage without ever having to touch it — no guts, no gore. The model we have (Victor M2) is even Wi-Fi enabled and comes with an app that tells me when a rat has been killed. I know, a bit ludicrous, but that’s what it does.
When I got up the next morning, I immediately checked the app. No kill. I was disappointed but not surprised. Rats are exceedingly wary of new objects in their environment so it takes them a little while to get used to the presence of a trap.
When I made it to the greenhouse later that morning, this is what I found:
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Of course that’s silly anthropomorphizing, but it makes me feel better, so please bear with me.
I put my remaining astrophytums in a tray, including two that have some damage but may grow out of it, and hope to keep them safe from the voracious fangs.
I put my remaining astrophytums in a tray, including two that have some damage but may grow out of it, and hope to keep them safe from the voracious fangs.
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Please keep your fingers crossed that I’ll catch the f**r soon. Sorry for the swear words, but that’s the mood I’m in.
Day 3 update: I added another electronic rat trap (we have two).
Day 4 update: Still no kills.
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Vicious critters!!!
ReplyDeleteTruly! I've switched to peanut butter as bait. Fingers crossed THAT will work.
DeleteHe’s a tricky one! Death soon. ☠️
ReplyDeleteVirtually everything my wife has planted in her vegetable planters has been chewed down to the nubs.
DeleteHow did it get in? I echo your vocabulary with great sympathy. š¤¬
ReplyDeleteFor me, it's squirrels! I had a particularly obnoxious one this winter who harvested crocus like onions leaving roots and top sprout behind neatly stacked on the arm of my garden bench. š It also ate a bunch of sempervivum.
I've heard that rats can squeeze through impossible narrow openings. There's no way I can keep them out in a greenhouse resting on top of gravel.
DeleteSo sorry to hear you're similarly afflicted.
Do you have any cayenne pepper? Dust your cacti?
DeleteMaybe mr. rat doesn't do spicy?
I second your f**k this dirty rat!!! We actually have neighbors on the next street over who leave out food (seed, peanuts) for the squirrels (I guess?) and twice I've seen a RAT eating the food...during the light of day!!!! I see your frustration and raise you a head explosion. ;)
ReplyDeleteI am so sorry...I hope you get them dead soonest. Or they change address. I once used traps and staring at their begging cute face made me feel sorry the next morning and I stopped. I used sound sensitive gadgets they danced around it; sticky tapes jumped over,...outdoors vegetable beds no luck. I feel like I grow vegetables for the birds, rats, grashoppers, caterpillars, snails, baby turtles, hegdehogs and what not below the ground: good luck to your wife.
ReplyDeleteI have wire mesh double doors and windows at my greenhouse. And I tightly tuck alimunium wool to any tiny gap. Aliminium wool is the only material they did not chew until now. I even use them around gutters and any outdoor cupboards, tool shed, you name it.
A few times they discovered inside my Rubicon to chew on plastic pieces and to nest only rival to Zaha Hadid designs. At that time I was advised to use mothballs: apparently they do not like the scent of it. You may also try putting generaous amount of mothball around your pots in the greenhouse. And watch out Stella does not develops a sniffing addiction.
I wish you good luck in catching them or they simply leave your propertyš¤,
CeylĆ¢n
OMG, that awful. I had major rat problems last year and trapped 30 and ended up with 9 broken traps. The plastic traps don’t last long. I used to have great success with electric trap years ago but never caught anything with it last year. Oddly, I’ve not seen any evidence of rats this year. I guess I’m also lucky that they didn’t do any sort of damage like you are experiencing. Just only herbaceous plant eaten….I never figured out what else they were eating.
ReplyDeleteAsk Andrew Hazlett. He had the same problem in San Jose. I recall him using ugly A. asterias in the rat trap as bait instead of peanut butter. I never followed up to see how successful it was.
ReplyDeleteYour anger is justified. It's ironic how they instinctively damage/destroy your most valued plants. Our nemesis here are porcupines who love to chew tree bark. I have 2 acres of native trees on the property but they choose to destroy those I have laboured to grow for years. Something new I am trying this year is called a CatScat Mat. It's a roll of plastic matting with spikey bits they don't like to walk on. It's relatively inexpensive so you could try lining your shelves or around the base of the greenhouse with it. Works well around raised planting beds too. Good luck moving them on or catching the b...ards!.
ReplyDeleteNO! Oh, ugh. Darn it - I've just put up seed feeders for the birds, and I'm taking them down. It will only attract rats. Even with Dr. Feelgood out there, I'm not risking it.
ReplyDeleteYup, we can't have anything nice, can we? I'd be Yosemite Samming it up too with the curse words. That kind of damage means war!
ReplyDeleteDamn varmints! I'm so sorry, seeing those photos hurts, I can imagine what you felt. I swept up a bunch of gnawed on bamboo shoots the other morning, they'd had a nice buffet on the patio overnight. They being rats of course, or so I'd been told. Then later that afternoon there was a fresh mess, and I'd been working outside. Could it have been rats in broad daylight and I missed them? Or are the squirrels to blame? Between them and the crows it's no more Ms. Nice Guy from me.
ReplyDeleteI’ve only had luck with traditional old-fashioned snap traps. I also have a dog so I wedged the trap in a spot where it was completely inaccessible to him between a large rock and a raised bed. The added bonus was forcing the rat to step on trap to get the food.
ReplyDeleteThat 5th picture has officially killed me. RIP.
ReplyDeleteWe had a rat get into my studio where I keep a couple shelves of small tender plants like Madagascan Euphorbias and Aloes, Haworthias, a few cacti and such. That little bastid did a number - scenes not unlike your photos during the period before we finally got rid of it. We laid half dozen snap traps in there, it was like a cartoon set-up. Peanut butter, candy, jerky, nothing! Night after night it kept doing its thing rummaging, snacking on my plants. One night I heard it scuffling around in the corner near the sliding door and went in and banged the stuff in which I was sure it was hiding and to my total joyous surprise it made a mad dash passed me and out the door. I was elated! We saw it trying to get back in shortly after and wondered if it had a nest/babies. It really persisted trying to get back in. We saw it a few times, climbing up stuff trying to get in. It was like a dog or cat scratching at the door. We set up traps around that door area outside and we've caught a couple then and just this week a couple more. We had success using snaptraps with fruity taffy (super smelly) we got at the dollar store with a dab of nutella on it. I think we also had luck with tootsie roll. It needs to be something that sticks and isn't easy for them to just lick off (we have surmised). This year has seemed to be a boom rat year.
ReplyDelete