I live in an old house with places for rats to get in. This is common in older homes, but not the new ones. I’ve been live trapping them and returning them to wild after several hours of detention.  I just wanted to be kind. I would keep them outside in the cage where the many cats of the neighborhood could come and discuss their trespass with them and convince them not to come back. The rats were perfectly safe inside the cage, but appropriately terrified.

Unfortunately, I saw one cross my living room, and previously they were limited to the kitchen, where the food is.  I used to catch one a week or so.  Well that has all changed.  About the same time I saw the living room rat I was trying to release another one from the live trap.  The little ****er wouldn’t let go of the inside of the cage. Finally I just dropped the cage and rat into a bucket of water, and that settled the defiance. I’m still after that living room rat. This is war . . .

PS: My Chinese friends think this is ridiculous. I should have been killing them all along.