Like most people, I enjoy firing up the BBQ grill to cook dinner outside. I’m usually a big fan of steaks, marinated pork loins, and the occasional chicken breasts. Last week, however, I almost tried a new cut of meat… RAT!! Ugh. My husband opened the lid to light the grill and, much to his surprise, a rat was scurrying around under the rack!
Unfortunately, this isn’t our first rat encounter. About a month ago, I was in our backyard and saw two rats run across our wooden fence. I FREAKED! We just had friends in a subdivision a few miles down the road who had one rat do $8,000 damage to their new house when a rat in their attic chewed through AC lines! And now, the nasty little vermin are daring to venture into my yard. Let me make it clear – I don’t do RODENTS!! I immediately called our exterminator who set some bait boxes by the fence and some glue boards in our attic just as a precaution. The exterminator checks the boxes every week and – lucky us – we have “lots of activity”! Do I win a prize? Is this supposed to make me feel good? Apparently, according to the exterminator, it’s a neighborhood problem. Lovely.
So, after seeing the rat in our grill last week, I frantically hopped online in hopes of finding more ways to deter the rats. It seems many people have had success with placing cotton balls saturated with peppermint oil around the house. Yep, you can bet I immediately ran out to buy lots of peppermint oil… I’ll try anything. I’m not sure yet if it works since it’s only been one day. I’ll keep you posted. If anyone has any surefire ways to deter rats, please comment, I’d love the help!
In the meantime, my next project is to clear the patio and only keep the bare essentials so the rats have fewer places to lurk. Right now, we have patio table umbrellas and too many toddler toys stacked in the corner of the patio. So, my hubby Mike and I decided it’s time to put a shed in our backyard to help eliminate clutter from both our patio and over-flowing garage. At first, Mike wanted to make it a “manly” project and build a wood shed. However, we have a sloped yard with lots of trees that really only allows one ideal flat spot for a shed… in the far back corner wedged up against the fence on two sides and trees on the third side. Unfortunately, we quickly learned that a shed with real shingles requires a city permit. The city permit requires a shed to be three feet from the fence… which we can’t do. So, to make a long story short, now we’ve been looking at Lifetime’s sheds. With the realistic-looking plastic molded siding and shingles, it still looks classy (unlike comparable-sized metal sheds). It will be quicker and easier to install than actually building a wood shed and we can even take it with us when we move. And, best of all, since it’s not a permanent structure, it does not require a city permit… so it doesn’t have to be placed away from the fence! Overall, it seems like a pretty good route to go. Now, we just have to do some measuring to see which Lifetime shed is best for us. I’ll let you know what we decide and how it turns out in my future posts. Rest assured though, whatever we choose, there will be lots of peppermint cotton balls inside!
Oh… so what ever happened to the rat in our grill? Well, it jumped out and ran under a storage bench we had beside the patio. I quickly grabbed some rat glue boards. My husband placed the boards on each side of the bench and then pounded on the bench to scare the rat. Bam, it ran right onto the glue board! I am now too freaked out to even think about opening the grill and my husband obviously is still slightly skittish. However, my 4-year-old son thinks it’s pretty cool that "Ratatouille" and his friends live in our backyard! Ugh.