did I already post this here?

When was riding horses I had a special shirt which was part of my riding habit, called a "ratcatcher". I never caught any rats in it, but if I ever needed it, it's NOW!
Our Drohobich bache is on the first floor this year there we've only caught 6 mice, last year we did real well at 11 live mice that we can either let go into the wild, or drown in a bucket of water. After temperatures go down to freezing at night it seems like the mouse are holed up for the winter, and we don't have any more problems with them.
I'd been hearing noises in my room though, enough to convince me that a mammal with a heavy tread is living under the floor of my room, and that he's working on some kind of a project. I told Karen who gave me kind of a glassy look, like "oh really", so I dropped it when I could see she wouldn't volunteer to trade rooms. Imagine my vindication when Karen in making before breakfast coffee agitatedly tells me that "at 4:30 this morning the RATS dragged a chain across the floor" under her room. "We should give him a name" she said, "Sebastian, he's building a torture chamber" I really enjoyed that remark and have shared it with some of my friends.
Then we are expecting company to our bache. Our Polish friends, who take care of our mail are bringing it in, so we scurry around our bache and try to make it seem clean and cozy. Cobwebs in doorways are a big problem, Tammy is taller that both of us, and we don't want her getting spider webs in her hair. They come, we have a great time, Karen cooks delicious Oriental food, and we eat with chopsticks. Our friend Sasha is all pleased that he managed to use his during the whole meal, he and Halya refused at first, but we gave them a lesson, and somehow took away their inhibitions. After the meal Sasha said he had a cramp in his hand from the chopsticks! Our steady listener came, (Anya!) D. S. came, all a great success.
Bedtime, Eleanor has the couch in my room. I use earplugs and am out for all night. In the morning she tells me she heard noises in the night, "Oh yeah, that's Karen's friend Sebastian, he's building a torture chamber" Well, Eleanor had heard things that had made her get out of bed, take her flashlight and investigate. "Do people walk by here swishing plastic bags?" she questioned musingly...I volunteered that there is a garbage dump down the street with lots of plastic bags that the wind might blow.
The next morning it’s back to just Karen and me, "Trude, come in here." A tone of voice which prepares me to expect the worst. The scene which greets my eyes is our dumped garbage pail, the plastic sack is chewed up, (rat tooth doily) and the garbage is perforated with rat's teeth...I fled the scene, leaving Karen to pick up the mess, after she finished making my (and hers!) coffee. I hadn't taken my first sip and again, "come here" in tones that got me out of bed again...this time it was the toilet...on the floor were banana peels and an empty milk carton from the kitchen trash...the wastepaper basket was also tipped over. I backed out of there as quickly as my squeamish bare feet would take me. Closed my bedroom door, got into bed with all my covers on. In this race the rats are winning!

Oh, Karen’s first words were, “let’s not tell the girls huh?” Let’s see how fast it takes for the news to get to Poland !

Update: When I emptied the trash the smell was rank, delicious to a rat of course. I learned that in 3^rd grade when we read about Templeton the Rat in Charlotte’s Web. The land lady came by today and we discussed plugging the rat hole. Her suggestion was to let him crawl out into our apartment and die here…I shot that idea down as tactlessly as possible. She’s coming tomorrow with some goop to plug the hole.