Pack Rat Redemption

Murder and Survival in the Homeland

The Pack Rats had been living under the smelly shed a long time before Cheap Dude and offspring moved onto the beat-up property.

The place had been a rental unit for 15 years so no one bothered to fix anything or evict the Pack Rats. Perhaps folks had tried and failed. Either way Cheap entered the property dispute ignorant and innocent.

The shed stank of rat. Never quite finished, gaps in fake wood paneling made perfect nest sites. He swept it, sprayed it out with water, and piled in meager camping gear and third-hand bicycles. Over time, pieces of home repair leftovers. Six roof tiles. Broken lamp. Every seldom-used object without a specific daily purpose or home. The crap they didn’t need but were too cheap to throw out.

The smell came back. Among marginal junk the Pack Rats rebuilt their homes and stockpiled many pounds of dry dog food nuggets and native tree seed pods. Thrived, far as he could tell. He was too busy working and raising kids to do much about it. He shuffled stuff, halfway cleaned foul nooks, sloshed disinfectant about, and--screw it for now.

They continued to thrive. Nestled under scrap lumber, piled under thorny trees, still crapping and stockpiling in the shed. They also munched on everything plastic, garden hose, tools, bicycle seats.

War was not declared until they began eating automobile wiring.

The old truck was all Cheap and gang had back then. He repaired the headlight wires, and retaliated with a small box of commercial poison. They were supposed to eat it and bleed to death internally. Somehow it seemed the least violent way. More importantly, he didn’t have to look at corpses, they sort of disappeared.

Within weeks the disdainful Pack Rats were defecating in the boxes of poison, warning off the others. (Years later he tried this again, and the poison was crapped in almost immediately.)

He tried other traps, and killed a few with the big old fashioned cartoon spring-loaded type. Peanut butter was bait, they couldn’t leave it alone, WHAP! He didn’t like to handle the dead, though, because he was a soft-hearted daffodil. He would talk to the nests, “Stop wrecking my cars and I’ll leave you alone.” They’re rats, Cheap, you idiot!

No matter how many were murdered, more wiring would be eaten. A newer car had much tastier, and of course more expensive, wiring. Time now to try cats.

Weren’t cats supposed to frighten, intimidate, even eat, rats? Cheap and Dudine took in every stray, every litter of kittens given away in front of the market. For a couple years, five to 20 cats crawling all over the yard.

Not one ever killed a Pack Rat.

In fact, all but one became a different link in the food chain. Several years of drought had driven all the coyotes into town, and a huge owl started swooping down close to the porch nightly, looking for warm kitten snacks. (The one survivor of The Cat Years escaped minus a chunk of rear leg, and hung around for years, friendly but nervous.)

Meanwhile, the Rats, though reduced in numbers, ran amok. Nests destroyed, wires still nibbled. Frustrated past murderous anger, he finally realized that rousted shed nests were being relocated to warm car nooks. The intermittent terror of travel, or sudden fan dicing, was no deterrent.

Glue traps tortured a few to death; attractively scented glue held fast the curious. Some died relatively quickly, faces and bodies twisted in panic but stuck. Others tore off patches of fur, tails, or chewed off paws, to escape. The horror!

Another newer car. Delicious expensive computer wiring. By now the Pack Rats toyed with, then crapped on, all traps. They learned to steal peanut butter without springing the big ones. Nestled in the fiberglass, they kept cranking out families one after the other. He would never be rid of them until he tore the shed apart. One day, in a sour mood, he did.

Weeks later, he discovered the main tribe settled under an acacia thicket at the edge of the wood pile. Angrily he thrashed into the vicious brush to tear off their plywood-scrap roof and destroy their new home. But breathing hard, on hands and knees, face and arms dripping blood from ragged cat-claw thorn scratches, he stopped. A dozen years the futile war had raged. Every weapon had been spent. There was nothing else to do. Let ‘em keep it. He even threw an old refrigerator door upgrade on top. Truce.

Later when Cheap gave up TV and tore his satellite dish off the roof, he tossed it on theirs. In a few generations they would figure out how to hook it up. He flung old wires for snacks, too. In peace they fortify their new stronghold, no more death-defying engine apartments.

Meanwhile, the wooden shed skeleton whistles in the winter wind. Two years unfinished. Half the former shed junk scattered in closet and crawl space, the other half given or thrown away.

And they all lived happily ever after. The Pack Rats, that is.