thin king

Persistence in dealing with an unknown intruder.

This event happened a couple of weeks ago.

The first signs of the presence of an intruder was some nibbled
marks on the plastic packaging of some dried food near the kitchen.
It looked like the work of cockroaches, but there being no damage,
it was ignored.

The next morning, the food packaging was bitten through, and there
was some droppings of the nocturnal visitor. The bite marks indicated
small teeth, and the droppings, though resembling that of cockroaches,
were thinner and twice as long.

Whatever it was, it could pose a health hazard and had to be alienated
and got rid of. I made a trap, fashioned out of a rectangular biscuit tin,
suitable for trapping cockroaches and small house mice, for whatever
the small creature was.

It was unsuccessful. The creature came over the night, left some more
droppings but avoided the trap. But it did something else, it left some
prominent teeth marks on the periphery of a plastic container and also
on the skin of a sweet potato. That ruled out the cockroaches. It was
more the work of mice or something else. For the next night, I enlarged
the opening of the tin trap. We also set up another trap, a contraption
of a plastic gangplank overhanging a large deep plastic container, one
from which all mice would not be able to escape.

That night was unsuccessful also. The creature did come, left droppings
as usual, but was not interested in the baits in the traps. For the next
night, we added other baits, including dried prawns.

On the fourth night, there was some positive response. It came for the
dried prawns over the gangplank. It was lucky, because the gangplank
was not properly balanced; it was wedged too tight and did not tumble.
One dried prawn disappeared while another fell into the container. The
creature liked dried prawns, but not the ones near the tin trap. This was
still a puzzle. We repeated the arrangement for the next night.

Something happened on the fifth night. The gangplank fell into the big
container and half of the dried prawns were gone, but the creature
escaped. We repeated the setting of the traps again, but the creature
never came again. It had got our message.

It could not have been a house mouse, that's for sure. It could have been
a squirrel though. Squirrels did come to our mango tree and ate our green
mangoes. If it was a squirrel, does its droppings resemble those of
cockroaches? Whatever it was, it turned out suitably. It was not trapped,
else we would have another problem on our hands, what to do with it.
We did not want it to come, and it did not come again. That was best.

Persistence did pay off.

Have a nice day.
Ronald