The Cat Conundrum

Since living in the Pacific Northwest, we've had a variety of experiences. The first one in this series, I'll call the Mouse Massacre. Let's just say about a month before J was born, we discovered many traces of these little creatures in every nook and cranny of our house. This involved a major cupboard cleaning (at 8 months pregnant, you can picture reaching into the back of my furthest most cupboards). We trapped 8, I think, and then my dear husband sprayed foam insulation into every crevice he could find. Thankfully, we haven't had any since, and hope it remains that way. The next in the series could be labelled the Chipmunk Chorus, as we thought there was only one, until we found 2, then 3 and 4 and finally 5 (I think it was that were finally eliminated). Chipmunks are cute little guys, or so I thought. This little one would come eat peanuts off the deck railing, and the boys loved watching his antics. That is until he got in the house one day last summer when a screen was left open. Then, not so cute when he's under my stove and won't come out. We (L and I) finally steered him out the laundry room, with a detour behind the washer and dryer for a while. After that we decided he needed to go. So, dear husband again was called upon for annialation. He eventually killed 5 of them, and we decided they are cute someplace else. The latest excitement (if you can call it that) has been a noise under the house that we always hear early in the morning. After investigation we found out that one of the vents under the house was broken out, so now we just needed to figure out who broke it, and if the animal was inside or out. We got a live trap, and last night around midnight the trap went off. So, G & I lay there wondering what to do. Do we (him mostly) want to deal with a possum or raccoon at this hour, or do we want to leave it in the trap until morning, with the possible sounds keeping us awake. So, we wait and listen to the noises, and then decide to trudge outside (myself only for moral support, and the flashlight holder) and find an empty trap. The noises sounded definitely cat-like which is a relief, but also a pain, because we didn't catch it. We don't want to seal the hole if the cat has kittens under the house, but if it's catching mice, that might not be such a bad thing. Anyways, we'll see what happens tonight...wish us luck.