The zombie rat is winning.

Life in an RV includes unwanted critters, more so than with a regular home. It’s a fact of RV life… you’re often in or near beautiful, undeveloped areas, the kind of undeveloped areas where most wild critters live. I’m about ten minutes or less from civilization, but still in a fairly undeveloped area. It’s lovely and peaceful and full of everything from deer to mice, and a few mosquitoes.

I began hearing things “go bump in the night” a few weeks ago: a bump on the underside of the RV, a bump in the front. I wondered what critter had enough body mass to make a thud that reverberated through the chassis. And then Pye started sitting in the well of the driver’s seat, where your feet go, staring at the wall that separates the peddles from the engine.

She began sitting there all. night. long. So, I began searching for evidence of what she heard.

I found rodent foot prints all over the engine, some evidence of chewed insulation and wire covering. (Rat 1, Kernut 0)

I got out the mothballs, covered the area with them. I was unable to get the round mothballs to stay put in the vertical engine, and the rat seemed undeterred by the mothballs in its path. (Rat 2, Kernut 0)

I graduated to a metal snap trap, and set it with cheese… The rat stole the cheese and snapped the trap. (Rat 3, Kernut 0)

I bought poison pellets and put a large pile of them in a piece of tinfoil in the engine. It ate all the pellets. Yippee! (Rat 3, Kernut 1)

I celebrated too soon… Pye was back at the driver’s seat, staring at the wall behind the peddles, all night long. (Rat 3, Kernut 1) (Zombie Rat 4, Kernut 0)

I bought flat mothballs, the kind that come in pairs of two, wrapped in thin, breathable paper. As they could sit well around the engine block, I put them wherever I saw rat footprints. The rat took the flat, paper covered mothballs. It took them all. I can’t find them anywhere. (Zombie Rat 5, Kernut 0)

Zombie Rat now has a belly full of poison pellets and mothballs.

I refilled the piece of tinfoil with poison bait. This time it took the pellets AND the tinfoil. WTF? (Zombie Rat 6, Kernut 0)

I look all over my rig and find new evidence of chewed wires – the monster chewed right through the wires that go to my propane tank! (Zombie Rat 7, Kernut 0)

That does it! I’m really pissed now.

The snap trap came out again. This time I used the smallest dab of almond butter, and put it under the part that holds the bait. I wanted to make sure that little monster was good and under that trigger when the trap snapped.

This morning I go out to check the trap… what do you think I saw? One of the normal, possible occurrences? An unsnapped trap with bait still in it? No. A snapped trap with a rat, or some other critter, in it? No. A combination of the above scenarios? Nope.

What I found was…. nothing. No rat, no trap. The little fucker took the bait AND THE TRAP. (King Zombie Rat 8, Kernut 0)

And he left a bunch of rat poos in its place. (Touche’, Mocking Zombie Rat, touche’.)

I am beginning to fear I may be outmatched.

Long time readers know how much I detest glue traps, but I am about to go get enough to cover every inch of ground under my rig.

To be continued… hopefully with a dead rat.

The saga continues: Tales From the RV Park: Kernut vs. Critters.