The problem
I live in an intergenerational household. One of my parents has taken to feeding the birds. They love waking up early and filling the birdhouses in the front and back trees. For the most part, it’s wholesome. But they overfill the houses, spilling seed everywhere, attracting squirrels, raccoons and even rats! The other day, I saw a squirrel kick a rat to get food from our lawn! The city has come by and asked for changes, and my parent complied. But they are still overfilling the seed, so the rats keep coming. I’ve tried talking to them about it, but they’re stubborn.
I don’t want to “rat” them out to the city, but I feel like I’m running out of options. What should I do?
The advice
Christine, working remotely at Coffee and All That Jazz
I think you should adopt at least three cats to take care of the rat situation. If they don’t fight the rats, then maybe they’ll become friends and live beautifully together. My neighbour adopted two black cats that he named Big Guy and Little Guy to take care of his mouse problem at his place, and it worked beautifully. He also lent the cats to the local post office to take care of their mouse problem. Everyone was really happy.
Nate, serving at Reunion Coffee Roasters
The serious answer is you get fox pee. It smells vile, though, like 10 times the smell of cat pee. You can get it online for 10 bucks. You have to squirt it every time it rains or whatever. Birds don’t have a sense of smell, so it doesn’t bug them. It’ll even keep raccoons more often than not away.
Random advice: Have you ever used fox pee?
For other things. For other mischief. Like, put it on the door of a person you don’t like, and they can’t understand why their house smells so bad. My other answer would be to get four baby turtles and introduce them to the rats. And then the rat will raise the turtles.
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