I've written about feeding peanuts to squirrels before. And once I sussed out locking up the squirrel feeder at night, I ended any raccoon's costly raids. And so squirrels remained pleasant, energetic visitors.
But some six months ago, I heard the scratchy sounds of small feet scampering in our attic. I knew the hospitality had gone too far. I called a local pest control outfit that promised responsible removal. When Ricky from EcoCare Pest Control showed up, he went into our attic with a miner's light, gloves and shoe covers and after setting out some baited traps, he returned to say, "Your problem is roof rats, not squirrels." Ricky knows scat and our attic had some larger than squirrel-sized.
My first impression of Ricky was, here was someone who is all smiles doing his job and can talk pests and their behavior to any level of detail you want. I said my sister in Texas hired pest control for an armadillo in her backyard. Ricky's eyes lit up with seeming envy and he admitted Oregon has a pretty ordinary ecosystem for pests. When I told him I'd seen flying squirrels in Austin, he said, "Yeah, they put out their legs and they're like flying frisbees."
In his return visit a month later, Ricky again donned his miner's light and climbed into our attic. He emerged with carrycase in hand, saying, he was "removing several bodies, including a juvenile." He said this with the decorum of a funeral director. He baits his trap with "food," not poison, and that euphemism aside, he takes pains to explain he is removing pests professionally with a minimum of suffering for the pests.
We mentioned at our old place, we once caught a Norwegian rat with a Havahart trap and released the rat by the Columbia River. Ricky said, rightly, "any time you take wildlife out of its ecosystem, it won't adapt and starves." Obviously, Ricky doesn't endorse Havahart's approach.
As for the rats in our attic, on his visits Ricky might have taken out five bodies and several more at the feeding boxes he placed around the house. He also had an associate seal off with metal flashing several entry holes where the roof rats were getting into the attic. Are we rat-free? I'd say yes. But we'll continue paying for Ricky's quarterly visits for now. It's insurance against future rats causing real damage--like gnawing electrical insulation in a house.
I once scoffed when I saw a billboard sign, NO OUTDOOR FEED FOR RATS IN NEED, thinking that was Portland's killjoy nanny-state sentiment. No more.
Image credit: vecteezy.com
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