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December 30, 2005

Step 1: Get Yourself Some Rat Traps

Maybe you need a dozen of them? Golly, I hope not, but I and the good people at MCVC don't recommend using poison in the house, because you could end up with a stinky, maggoty rat corpse hidden somewhere in the walls (maggot imagery courtesy of Fred Allen). Plus, I think it's a lot more moral to inflict a good swift kill rather than a slow poisoning. I gather from Mr. Allen that rats need to eat the poison more than once to get fully poisoned and rats will sometimes wait until they smell a food source -- like bait -- in another rats' poo before digging in themselves, as a safety mechanism. Just one of the many fascinating factoids -- dare I say ractoids? -- I've learned in this whole process.

Next -- just say no to glue traps!