I just remembered a story that I'm sure you will all appreciate.
In order for this story to make sense, I have to explain the layout of our kitchen sink. The sink is suspended above a sunken tiled area. The sink drains into this tiled area. The tiled area has a drain which leads to out the back of our house. The drain cover is plastic and partly broken. At the back of our house is an overgrown vacant lot.
Ok, so now I've set the scene... Yesterday I did the dishes. When I finished them I took the plug out of the sink to let the water drain out into the tiled area (as you would). I looked down to make sure the water was draining properly. There was something covering the drain. The light in the kitchen is pretty bad so I couldn't tell what it was. I bent down to get a closer look. What was that thing? A rock? Why would there be a rock there? Hang on, is that... a... tail....?!?
Gaaaarrrgh! It's a dead rat!!!
While I was busy screeching Dan picked up the rat (with a plastic scoop thing) and threw it outside. It's not the first rat we've had (there was one in our lounge room the other night, eeew!), they live in the overgrown bushes and get into our house through the drains. So now Dan has another home renovation job - fixing the drain covers so they are rat-proof.
The sensible side of my brain is telling me that, the rat I saw was dead, better a dead rat than a live one right? To which the hysterical side of my brain screams back: 'But why was it dead?!? Why did a rat come into our house and die right near the kitchen drain? What killed it?!?!' The night before I am sure I was woken up by a terrible screeching noise, did the rat encounter something far worse than it? What hideous rat-killing creature is living in our kitchen?
Our kitchen scares me. I cannot go in there without making a banging noise beforehand to hopefully scare away the critters within. I definitely cannot go in there at night time unless there are a whole heap of lights on.
Who would have thought that our kitchen would be the scariest thing in Vietnam?
I dont want to alarm you, but rats can chew through steel. If rats want to get in, they will get in. The only thing you can do is get a large mountain-lion-esque type cat and not feed very often. It will then be forced to hunt for food and will start killing rats. But be careful, if it doesnt get enough food, it might be yet another thing in the kitchen that can kill you.
ReplyDeleteThanks Lorin, I'm really happy you told me that...
ReplyDeleteSince I posted this entry I have found another dead rat on our kitchen drain. I have no idea what is going on in our kitchen, but it is proving fatal to rats. Maybe we already have a mountain-lion-esque cat living in our house? It's possible, our friends in Bac Lieu discovered a kitten living in their place. There is quite possibly a horde of cats taking over houses in the Mekong Delta.