Rat Tales, Part 1 - A Thump in the Night

After hours waiting to fall asleep, I finally dropped off. I was suddenly startled out of a sound slumber by a loud

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

I huddled there in bed under the covers, trying to bring my mind out of the fog of sleep.

There was the sound again.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

“What in the world is THAT?” I wondered.

Slowly, the sleep fog lifted, and I could finally identify the sound.   (story continued below)

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Way back at the end of September, I came up with an idea of once in a while doing a story about one of the variety of creatures that share my home here in Bali. I call this series The Critters I Live With.These stories probably won't have any deep spiritual application. But they will give you a taste of my life here in Indonesia.

For the first post, I introduced you to Greg the Gecko, the twelve inch long barking lizard that eats mosquitoes and makes me jump out of my skin whenever he sounds off. You can read about him in the post entitled “Not Your Average Geico Gecko”.

I’m finally back today with #2. This will be a three-part story as it is kind of long...and because this month, I am spending most of my writing time on a first draft of a book for children about the parables of Jesus.

Anyway, for this story, I have to go back more than a decade to a period of time when rodents made life miserable. Other rats may be bigger. Others may be more threatening. But my tale is about Ralph the Rat, a particularly persistent rodent.

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Rat Tales, Part 1- A Thump in the Night

The Critters I Live With #2

It was sometime in the late 1990’s. I had been in the United States for about six months to visit family and supporters. As I recall, I had done a semester of study at Columbia International University on this trip. This meant that I needed to find someone to house sit my home in Bali while I was away.

A young Indonesian couple agreed to take care of my home. They were newly married and were expecting their first child about the time I expected to return. It seemed that the timing was exactly right. I’d be back in Bali about the time my friend would want to go stay with her mother during the last weeks of her pregnancy.

Unfortunately, she decided she needed her mother earlier than expected, and the young couple moved out. This left my house empty for a month before my return.

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Here in Bali, an empty house does not remain empty very long. At least, if there are no human inhabitants, the local rodents are happy to move in. That is what happened.

For weeks following my return, every morning I would find evidence of rats in the kitchen. Sizable droppings left here and there, including in the lower cupboards where pots and pans were kept. Bits of garbage drug out of the small trash can under the sink. Even deep tooth marks in a cake of soap by the kitchen sink. (I have no idea what kind of nutritional need soap supplied for a rat.)

I had an extremely heightened awareness that there was rat activity going on in my kitchen. Sleep was often slow in coming, as I lay there in bed imagining I heard rustling sounds in the kitchen. In light of all this potential rat activity, I took precautions.

I had bought a strong metal rat trap, but didn’t have the nerve to set it. I figured the likelihood of the trap catching my fingers was much greater than the chances of catching a rodent. So the metal trap lay there unused in the corner of the kitchen.

Since my offense was weak, I bolstered my defenses.

The lower cupboards in the kitchen didn’t have any latches, so I took to securing them at night by pushing something up against them so no rats could get in. The gas can for my table-top stove sealed off one pair of doors. The trash can took care of another pair. A strategically-placed brick closed off the final set. It was part of my nightime routine to secure the kitchen cabinets, and was rarely forgotten.

With the way my house was laid out, I had to go through the kitchen to get to the bathroom. Thankfully, there was a door that I could close at night to keep the kitchen rats from getting into the rest of the house…especially my bedroom. During this time, I always left a trusty broom by the kitchen door, so I could arm myself if I needed to use the toilet in the middle of the night. I never actually had to use the broom to fend off a rat attack, but it made me feel good to have it there anyway.

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One night in particular stands out in my mind more than ten years later. After hours waiting to fall asleep, I finally dropped off. I was suddenly startled out of a sound slumber by a loud

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

I huddled there in bed under the covers, trying to bring my mind out of the fog of sleep.

There was the sound again.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

“What in the world is THAT?” I wondered.

Slowly, the sleep fog lifted, and I could finally identify the sound.   (to be continued)

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Click below for the rest of the story.

Rat Tales, Part 2 - Ralph the Rat Does a Houdini

Rat Tales, Part 3 - Rodents Rule?