I Hate Rats
- December 06, 2005
- 4 comments
I hate rats. I’ve never loved rats, but my dislike for them has bloomed into an outright hatred of them now.
Several days ago, a major storm system blew through this area. It had high winds, hail and ended up spawning 22 tornadoes throughout Arkansas. At one point during the storm, we were forced to hide in the cellar. It hailed pretty hard before that, but luckily it wasn’t large enough to do any damage. I wasn’t going to wait for larger hail though, so during a lull in the storm, I parked my car under our barn out in our field. The next morning I brought it back next to the house.
I didn’t drive my car again until Sunday, when I went to help a friend with his Christmas lights. On the way back from his house, my check engine light came on and stayed on. It was late in the evening so I didn’t have time to check it out until Monday. When I popped open the hood to see what it might be, I discovered a HUGE rat nest on top of my engine! Apparently in the short time span my car was under the barn, a rat had discovered the engine compartment of my car and decided to make it her home.
I cleaned out the nest, and eventually found a chewed up wire. I was able to repair it, but the check engine light is still on, so I’ve probably got another chewed wire somewhere I can’t see. And my usual mechanic can’t work on it right now because his scanner is broken, so I’m going to have to take it down to Texarkana to get overcharged by the Honda dealership. Joy!
I’m so glad Shorty, my mini-Dachshund, is such a good rat-killer. When I get some time, I’m going to bring him out to the barn and let him go wild.
12/15: I’ve now got my car back to working order. The check engine light would not go off for some reason, so I figured there was something else wrong with the car. A friend brought over his scanner for me to borrow. I hooked it up to the car and it told me the exhaust gas regulator was messed up. I didn’t know what the hell that was, but another friend down the road did. I took it down to him and he told me I had already fixed the problem by fixing those chewed up wires. All I needed to do was clear the code. My friend’s scanner wouldn’t clear the code, so I disconnected the car battery for a while. That cleared the error, and now the car is back to normal!
Speed Demon
September 22, 2006
I live in the city, where the rat population is out of control.I really hate those slimy little SOBs, I kill them whenever I get the chance, because they do not deserve to live, because they’re filthy, vile, disease ridden creatures!!! And the cats are really useless here, so the rats roam around here like they run the place?
j
I don’t recall ever seeing rats here in MN, but we do have similar problems with squirrels.