What To Do About Rats?

The front view of our "home", here at Sunshine Orchard

As you can imagine those of us that live in the little bamboo huts have other creatures that would like to call it home such as geckos, lizards, termites, spiders, rats and the occasional snake or scorpion. I do not believe God intended us to live with these creatures after sin like this. Studies even show the dangers and risks of contracting diseases when rats, dogs and cats live inside of our homes. Although we use to have a dog and 2 cats inside our home, after finding out Miles was very asthmatic and that having pets inside was contibuting to the problem, we gave our cat away to another family who loved her and who wanted her inside, and we had lost our inside dog several years earlier and decided to not start that over again. Miles’ lungs greatly improved without the cat dander around, although we still had cats outside, that didn’t bother him. Well, none of us like menagerie of living things that comes uninvited into our hut. We haven’t known of a snake or scorpion to come in yet which I am very grateful, but we do have at least 2 rats that frequently come in, yuk!  

Thurston & Eugene dreaming of catching the big rat!

I have known people that are petrified of mice/rats, going into screaming extremes from fear. I’m not that way, I’m just not a screamer, but I do NOT like mice or rats in my house. In fact, trying to get rid of them is a goal of mine. Some missionaries who just recently left Thailand gave their 2 cats to the Adams since they could not take them back to America with them. We didn’t want to poison the rats because of the cats. Paul said he would get some live traps, but they have been gone and unable to obtain them yet. I thought, what is better rats or cats. Well, I definitely vote for cats. So Laren went up and “kidnapped” one of the cats (not sure if it was Thurston or Eugene), and brought him down to our hut. He was as happy as could be to be here with us. He was purring, wanting to cuddle and sleep with anyone of us. That of course would not work since we are all in our mosquitoe “tents”. How would he get to the rats when they came if he was zipped in? Besides, it wouldn’t be to healthy to cuddle up with him either. 

He stayed down the whole night and all the next day, but after that he would rather go up to the house were he got more attention as more people are always around there than at our place. I don’t think he got either of the rats, but it was comforting having him here even though it was brief. 

Looking out the master bedroom window

One day Laren and Davis came into our hut to do something in the middle of the day. Guess what they found? At the time Davis was getting over his illness and so was still blowing his nose quite frequently, sometimes with quite a little mound of used toilet paper before he would throw it into the trash due to the zipping and unzipping of his tent. Well, one morning he did not take care of his dirty tissues leaving them in his tent. It was that morning that he and Laren came into the hut. There in Davis’ tent was a big, ugly rat which had chewed his way into his tent and now was trapped inside, running around trying to figure out how to get out. He was after those dirty tissues!

Wow! There are a lot of lessons one could learn from this story. The first one is keeping our room, tent, or house clean is very important! Just as it is important to keep ones mind clean from evil thoughts, or unhealthy conversation where the “rats” would come in and chew holes. Or, cats (or put anything here that may be distracting from the most important parts of life for you), are wonderful pets, but do they pull their weight contributing to the overall scheme of things or are they just a “want”, something fun to have around, but an extra? Do I have things in my life that are just “wants, fun, comforting or extra”, that are keeping me from doing what God has for me to do or to believe? Or is that thing, whatever it is just comforting but not made of any real substance? I'm afraid as I begin to really ponder these thoughts, I will find those things that are time consuming, but not life enriching. But that is a good thing; to learn and to grow, even if sometimes painful! God bless as we search out those useless things in our lives for Him.