Because of the winter cold & an abandoned house next door, I’ve been sustaining an infestation of roof rats for several weeks. They started darting through the kitchen, squeaking behind the walls, & showing up in the bird room. No way could I let them endanger my birds or dogs or give me the bubonic plague so an exterminator is waging a war against them with poison. He thinks there may be dozens of them.
Now I see them laying about the yard dying–some young, some old & quite frankly it is heartbreaking. Killing little creatures trying to make their way in the world, even at our expense. When I told that to the exterminator who has spent his life battling their infestations, he listed all the ways that rats take you out, none of them peacefully. True but still sad.