The Rat

When we first moved to Maryland and lived in the 100 year old farm house, we had a severe mice problem in the house. Then, when we had two cats, someone must have told the mice because they disappeared. We were surprised one winter when we heard scratching in our kitchen closet.

At first we thought, oh, it's just a mouse. We opened the closet door and our cat Tansy immediately ran into the closet. Then, we looked up at the top shelf. There was a big rat inside of a container standing up on his hind legs! He wasn't very scared of us either.

I believe that Mark grabbed a broom and I climbed up on a chair. I think mice are cute and I don't like to hurt animals, so I think that we were going to try and chase the rat out. (Rats aren't quite as cute as mice) He wouldn't cooperate, though, and ran out of the closet and hid. We couldn't find him anywhere.

We went upstairs at bedtime thinking that we would be fine since the rat was downstairs. Then in the morning hours around 2 am, I heard this horrible loud squeaking. He had somehow got up the stairs and was in the hallway outside our room! We closed the door so that he could not get in after being unsuccessful once again at catching him.

I won't go into detail because it's sad for the rat, but we could hear the cats after him all night. Then the next day, I couldn't find the rat anywhere. I eventually found the deceased rat later that afternoon. Then we never saw any more rats or mice for the rest of the time that we lived in that old house! It was a creepy experience with the rat. Maybe he wouldn't have, but I kept having visions of him getting in my bed! Yikes!

Even though our house was old and rather haunted looking, I never felt any strange presence there (besides the mice, bats and rat). I've never really believed in ghosts , but I house-sat for someone while in college and had a very strange experience. Something happened that made me seriously wonder about the existence of a ghost. Maybe there is a logical explanation for the strange things that happened. I'll write more about it tomorrow and see what you think!