Pests @ MindSay 
mice
OK, so last week I told you about the hazards of the world's dumbest and ugliest animal, the Kangaroo. Today we will talk about the other great Australian nuisance - The Golden crested Cockatoo.
I am a shift worker and I tend to want to sleep during the day while I work at night. One of the difficulties of this, is that during the day things are noisy. There are trucks and cars and people talking loudly and all the other noises we hear all day. The one noise that really keeps me awake though is the horrid screeching of the bloody cockatoos. There are hundreds of the little lice-ridden buggers around here and they make a noise like a cat being strangled.
In some countries, people pay outrageous amounts of cash for these disgusting birds and I fail to understand why. They are dirty, noisy and they destroy houses. Oh yes, they don't tell you that in the brochures do they? Cockatoos will pick at and destroy any wooden structure they can get their beaks into. This includes the eaves of your house and the branches of the very large gum tree that sits in your yard and whose branches reach out over your house.
The sound of falling gum tree branches is pretty scary when it's in your yard and over your head. The sight of your eaves after the birds have had at them is just infuriating. They literally pull the eaves to bits and leave the splinters all over the path.
I hate cockatoos, I hate them and I wish they would all die!
It's the only room in the house (I think) with an unfinished ceiling. The cats used to get up there, when they were half-kittens, and somehow get over the bathroom. Chai especially - nice quiet space, good for hiding.
So far, the general debate is whether it's a bird or a bat. Honestly, to me, it sounds like a rat, or some other small scritchy squeaky rodent, but rats aren't so great at climbing drywall, so the general guess is that whatever's up in the beams has wings.
I'm hoping it's a bat. I like bats.
Pippin's been sleeping on the shelf under the laundry chute, and every time said critter makes another frantic series of noises, his ears go up, but he doesn't always look at it. I'm not having much faith in counting on the predator to take care of the problem - he's lazy, and ate Chai's kitty food this morning. He may watch with interest if it scurries or flutters out, but Chai's the one I'd count on to do something about it. Admittedly, 'do something about it' may mean tear off in the opposite direction because something unexpectedly moved, but she'd come back.
She caught some small rodent in the basement yesterday. I know there was a young rat that tried living in our woodpile through last winter - didn't work out so well for him. It's the time for creatures that don't believe in hibernating or migrating to try moving into new places, and the cats seem to enjoy this.
It's better than spring - THEN we're usually finding half-destroyed baby rabbit carcasses twice a month. Chai particularly - Pippin just beats them to death and plays with the body. Chai seems to prefer them as a food source, and gives us looks of deepest disgust when we remove them. Honestly, she's up to date on her shots and meds, I don't know how much we'd care if she just didn't drag them inside.
Scritchy-scratchy frantic squeaking. The squeaking has me most interested - I'm used to regarding it as a distress thing. When you're at the bottom of the food chain, you don't make noise for no reason. Again with the rabbits - some rabbits actually do vocalize a fair amount, but these are usually hutch-bunnies, who have little fear for their lives and more concern about why supper is late. They kind of talk - grunting and sometimes chirping. For the most part, the only sound you'll ever hear out of a rabbit is a scream - and it's not a sound that makes you happy. It seems to be reserved for high-stress or death situations.
Mom thinks maybe the whatever-it-is got stuck somewhere. Dad was looking for it, and I've been wandering in there whenever I hear it again. The laundry room is right next to my room, and sound carries easily through the wall. Admittedly, there's also a hole in the wall where the piping for the work sink used to be (the original design of this house was slightly eccentric - if you ever take a good look at my 'closet', it's clear that we knocked something else out of there), but I'm not too concerned about little invaders.
I mostly want to know what it is. I have an inner kitty, too.
Goodnight, sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite. We've all heard that growing up, right? Well until recently, I hadn't given too much thought to what exactly bedbugs were. I was reading the New York Times this morning and came across another wonderful article. Click here to read the full article.
It turns out that not only are these creatures real, but they seem more frightening the more I learn about them. Look at some of these quotes fom the article:
Unlike mice and roaches, which are abetted by filthy surroundings, bedbugs do just fine in a well-scrubbed home, although bedroom clutter gives them more places to hide and breed. When engorged with blood, they grow slightly plumper than the O on this page, although the nymphs, which appear almost translucent before their first meal, are not much bigger than the period at the end of this sentence.
Worst of all, bedbug sufferers say, is the stigma of living with an insect that feeds on blood - though it does not transmit disease - and leaves behind a trail of red bumps that many dermatologists mistakenly identify as hives or scabies.
What a delicious pyschological creature the bedbug is; it is such a classic manifestation of the fears of modern Man's subconscious mind. Beware the invisible, lurking terror that will strike as you sleep, leaving behind the dreaded marks that will tell the world that you are a filthy, wretched beast unable to keep your home free from insect infestation.
Wow, that's a true horror story for the middle class.
ew ew ew ew ew Mice are everywhere!! Well we know we have a few mice in the house but my mom saw one today on the stove! Then later I go to step outside and theres a dead mouse on the porch! Then I saw buddy chasing one but not killing it. Then Sean goes to try and pick it up and I'm yelling at him not to but luckly he couldn't catch it. Then I go to get Ruby to catch it but on my way I almost step on it. (I'm barefoot) So I get Ruby and when I pick her up and walk a few steps I see one on the sidewalk!!! She just sniffs it then walks away. THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!!!! Yeah is it you can never get rid of pests. The bugs are gone but now there are mice. And you can't just squash a mouse. (well you might I've never tried but mice guts are bigger then bug guts) I'm going crazy with all these things. I'm not so bad now I had some self-therapy (apperantly thats possible) Well I'm going to put this out of my mind.
~Rhiannon