The mouse from hell

[onformula1]

I've always wanted to build a propane powered gun that shoots ball bearings and has no rifling. I say no more

Go with Nitrogen and don't ask me why.

[El Camexican]

Well Mom managed to find the last two rat stories, but can't find the photos. I'll post them up one day if I can find them, but basically they are of the dead rats beside a tape measure and one has a Sharpie outline of the rat on my floor and the letters "C.S.I." next to it with blood around the head.

Enjoy...

[El Camexican]

Mexican Safari Sept/07

After years of being told I could not use the pellet gun inside the house my wife finally caved in and allowed me to fulfill a fantasy, of course this was preceded by two blood curding screams that still have my ears ringing, but never the less I was granted permission to use “Whatever it takes” methods to track and kill the beast.

Armed with only a pellet gun and a keen sense of what makes women scream at over 200 decibels I managed to track the monster to the kitchen area where I spotted him foraging on the floor, my not so trusty woman guide having long since run out of the house to buy a trap and a bag of Rat Treat.

Without the aid of a scope I was able to bring him down from a distance of over 18 feet with only open sights and a steady hand. Good thing too, as my weapon was only a single shot model and God only knows what could have happened had I angered him with just a wounding glance

The beast measured up a full 9 inches from nose to nugget hole (We Canadians don’t include the tail in our measurements). Unfortunately he was taken with a head shot, so a wall mount will not be possible, but the hide is available to anyone interested providing you let me know before the garbage hits the curb tomorrow morning.

Now I just have to figure out where he managed to get in as we didn’t have any holes in the house that big the last time I checked.

In an unrelated matter we will be having a BBQ this evening if anyone is interested…

[El Camexican]

THE TOILET MONSTER July/08

Finally! For those of you not familiar with the restroom anomalies we have been experiencing these past months let me bring you up to speed.

A few months ago my wife questioned me as to why the water in our bedroom toilet occasionally “moved” when she entered the room, to which I swiftly answered that it was a result of air currents creating a vacuum in the vent pipe as they passed over the roof of the house.

Most women would have been impressed with my rapid and scientific explanation, but not the wife. No! She wanted to know why only our toilet and not the other three were subject to the effects my hypothesis so I responded “vent location” and gave her one of those “Don’t ask stupid questions” looks that generally ends such conversations.

Weeks passed and occasionally I would notice that the entire toilet seat was covered with water droplets, which I quickly dismissed as having come from our daughter making a dash from the shower to the toilet without drying her little butt. In hindsight I should have realized that not even my butt could have covered such a vast expanse (I would have used the wife’s butt as the example, but I have plans for the future which require me to be alive).

Then one day about a month ago I noticed that not only was the seat of the toilet covered with dried water droplets, but that the under-side of the cover had also received a good splashing. It was just a few hours later at about 1:00am in the still of the night that I turned on the light of our hallway restroom to hear a splash and see the water in the bowl still moving as my eyes became accustomed to the light.

Given that there was not a trace of wind outside, my Einsteinian theory of “toiletivity” had literally just gone down the drain with a splash.

I went straight to the Internet where the answers for everything are stored, or so I thought. I typed in toilet creatures, toilet rats, toilet snakes, toilet gators, turtles, fish, eels, etc. and all that came up is that rats and snakes can come up through pluming, but that they never go back into the water if they can help it. In fact there are videos on YouTube of rats stuck in toilet bowls because they can’t climb out and rather than brave the 16” swim they just made successfully through the drain they are willing to sit there and spin their little claws on a porcelain treadmill while squeaking for a camera and a room full of yelling people, so what in the world could possibly be coming up through our pipes AND climbing back into the bowl and swimming away when not even spooked??!!

At that point I had to wake the wife up to explain that although I was right about the air flow making the water in the bowl move that there may also be other forces at work which may not be as friendly as say the Tidy Bowl man.

At that point she confessed to me that she had heard and even thought she had seen things in the bathroom at night, but was sure I would have her committed to an asylum if she had told me about them.

It quickly became obviously that we needed to adopt new methods of bathroom etiquette. The rules were laid out as follows:
Step 1 – Leave all toilet seat covers down regardless of gender
Step 2 – Keep bathroom doors closed at all times
Step 3 – Turn bathroom lights on and look around before entering the bathroom
Step 4 – Open toilet lid with a fully extended arm and be prepared to close it quickly if need be
Step 6 – Wipe the toilet seat to be sure it is clean and flush the paper before sitting down
Step 7 – Do your business ASAP, if your business has not concluded within 60 seconds reach back and flush the toilet, repeat as fear dictates.
Step 8 –Get up, flush, close the lid and exit as fast as possible never turning your back to the commode.

About that time my daughter and I headed out on a fishing adventure leaving the wife behind with the option of using any of our four functioning toilets, two of which had not yet been proved to sustain life.

Shortly after our arrival to Canada she called from home in a state of hysteria to say that the night before she had heard the toilet lid drop and make a sound loud enough to be heard some 20 feet away through the closed door.

She also said that the day before that our dog was growling at the bathroom door from under our bed and insisted that she was going to live with her Mother until we returned home and killed the creature.
I told her to relax and follow the rules we had come up with when using the toilet because whatever it was I was confident that it could not swim upstream when fired upon by a “turdpedo”.

When we arrived home and were greeted by my sleep deprived and very constipated wife I knew action had to be swift and strong. Going against her demands to pour large amounts of poison down every drain in the house I went out and bought a variety of traps thinking that her method would end up with a plugged drain and no answer to what had been terrorizing our toilets.

Over a week went by without anything taking the bait, so last night I added some Doritos crumbs to the mix and threw a large piece into the bathroom garbage can thinking that if the creature was large enough to get back into the toilet it should also be able to get into the garbage can.

In the morning I opened the door to find that the trap had been picked clean without going off and that the garbage can was knocked over! I put the can back up and went about the day thinking that tonight I would place all three traps in a circle and use meat and Doritos as bait.

I returned to the restroom a few hours later and saw that the garbage can was knocked over again! This thing was making rounds during the light of day! I set the traps up ahead of schedule and sure enough by 4:30 this afternoon the beast was dead on the floor due to a blow to the nose from one of the traps. In a relaxed state it measured a bit over 16” nose to tail tip, but I’ll bet if I had the guts to touch it’s stinky wet corps it I could have stretch it to a full 17”. I included the tail in the measurement this time as some friends scoffed at the numbers of my last trophy which was a bit smaller and a whole lot easier to kill.

At the suggestion of a friend I went to the Boon and Crocket website, but this species is not listed as of yet.

I hate to be the one to ruin the moments of peace some of you may experience when seated with your shorts around your ankles in what was formerly thought to be a time of solitude, but you can forget what the Internet tells us about rats not making return trips down the drain, they can and will return as they desire, so the next time you THINK you felt something touch your butt while you were reading on the toilet YOU PROBABLY DID!!!

[hublake]

Need a pic of that monster.

[tripledog]

Need a pic of that monster.

That's what she said.

[bkm]

I need the Readers Digest version. Did you kill the damn thing(s) yet?

[El Camexican]

I need the Readers Digest version. Did you kill the damn thing(s) yet?

No, but the war isn't over yet!

[tripledog]

I need the Readers Digest version. Did you kill the damn thing(s) yet?

My guess is no, as his avatar remains the same.

[El Camexican]

My guess is no, as his avatar remains the same.

Good point. I may even mount it... hope the wife doesn't catch me.

[tripledog]

She may not give a rat's arse about a rat's arse. No pics of the "mounting procedure" necessary...

[Kismet]

OK. The kitchen rat got shot (from 18 feet with iron sights in a remarkable pellet gun display of marksmanship,) but there is ANOTHER rat that had SEAL training and was entering the house via the toilet plumbing? And this one got dead with a baited trap?

So, lemme see here, that's TWO big honkin' rats in your home?

Might be time to get a ferret.


Best wishes.

[El Camexican]

OK. The kitchen rat got shot (from 18 feet with iron sights in a remarkable pellet gun display of marksmanship,) but there is ANOTHER rat that had SEAL training and was entering the house via the toilet plumbing? And this one got dead with a baited trap?

So, lemme see here, that's TWO big honkin' rats in your home?

Might be time to get a ferret.


Best wishes.

Yep, up and down threw the toilet and it was the biggest rat I've ever seen. I had 4 traps set up and he somehow managed to set two of them off without getting caught, but one broke his nose. Don't be too impressed with the pellet gun shot, I was motivated to not dent my fridge

Here's last nights attempt on the advice of one of our esteemed members along with a little camouflaging for good measure. Note the matching orange cable ties

[Chopsaw]

WHAT ? Bait a fish hook all ready ! I want to see suffering .

[tripledog]

Nicely done, El Rambo Camexican!