We have been enjoying our cosy old world kitchen, feeling very capable handy people and project managers. Having spent several thousand dollars renovating, precipitated by the need to seal the floor to stop the rodents getting in, it was a bit of an anti-climax to find it was still happening. Hmmm, but I’d removed all the furniture including built in cupboards and nailed down stainless steel mesh robustly over any hole bigger than a pencil, and curved it up under the masonite walls before nailing on the trim with pedantic satisfaction; a job well done. So where could the rat be getting in?

Ah: under the stove was a small hole. Not to be thwarted as the mightier, larger and supposedly more intelligent creature, I took some quick set epoxy putty and plugged the hole. That’s that!

Over the next  couple of days, I heard sounds like the shed door closing loudly. Metallic sounds. I assumed it was the westerlies although I couldn’t see what was making the noise. The dogs kept going toward the back door and barking. Then I realised the sound was coming from the oven area, but as soon as I walked into the kitchen, the sound stopped. Undeniably, the sound was still happening periodically… a loud sound… could a rodent be trapped in the oven? Repeated examinations and openings of the oven door and sneaking ins with a torch revealed no rodent. I started to worry I had somehow sealed in the living when I blocked that hole in the floor, but why would it sound metallic?

Just when I thought I was going insane – well I am, but anyway – after tapping the floor of the oven compartment trying to mimic the exact kind of metallic noise, through a gap at front under the door hinge, I saw the rodent, exhausted under the bottom tray of the oven with a look that said, “OK you got me. I can’t get out. I suppose you’ll kill me now.”

Well at least I had finally SEEN the rodent, so at least there was a diagnosis, but looking at the oven construction was bringing to mind some very destructive and expensive scenarios for getting the little fellow out. It clearly couldn’t get itself out as it had been rattling around in there for a couple of days, poor thing. There was some sort of black tray in the compartment with it and I wondered if that had slipped in position as the rodent got in, trapping it there. Luckily, while feeling around to see how the very bottom panel might come off, it opened effortlessly to reveal a storage compartment for oven trays! I didn’t know we had a bottom compartment in this oven. So I looked in and the frightened rat disappeared up the back wall, into the cavity behind the oven compartment, which I assume is where it had fallen in, from the gaps at the top.

So I left the compartment door open, turned off the light, put the dogs in the bedroom and left the back door open. Problem solved I think. The only thing is if it likes it in there and chooses to return, although I hope it’s learnt its lesson. Extreme vigilance will nevertheless be required prior to lighting the oven. I think we’ll open the bottom tray first, just in case a quick exit is necessary. THAT may deter a long term settlement but I’d hate to roast a live rodent, or realise too late and have a flaming furry rat charge about like Halley’s comet, setting fire to everything.

So the good news is that:

1)      At no time had a rat been in the actual oven space where we cook food to eat, and

2)      The tray in the storage compartment turned out to be the oven griller shield we have been looking for for months now, ever since the oven was installed! I will obviously need to CLEAN this, but at least we can now use the griller after all.