What About Pests, Should We Trap them or Prevent Them From Invading?

A little tale about causes and effects., yo, check it!

Having been a bit of a hippy, couch surfer for a bit has taught me some things about some people.
For meow, let us call them, "The Prescott Tribe". A small household on the West Coast that was heavily steeped in drug use.

This, of course, led to complacence. They had this daily habit of not dealing with their trash and recycling duties, which was a free service offered by the city , this led to a literal garbage pile that filled the back yard approximately 30' high. Mostly half eaten food, empty bottles, pizza boxes, beer, and wet cigarette butts. 2 children were being raised there. This mostly food based trash pile led to a rat infestation.

I do not mean any ordinary rat infestation, these effers where HUGE and practical owned the house. If you looked at the electric bill, it may of read, "Mr. and Mrs. Rat". They had a huge family to feed. At least 16 rats inhabited the inside walls and in catacombs deep within the garbage pile. If you answered to any authority here, it was by authority of the rats.

Enter, for the sake of a true story with alternated names, Bob. Bob recognized in a near instant why the Rats were there. Bob noticed that the Rats didn't seem to go for the traps that other occupants had set. Why would they, when they have a free smorgasbord every where they go? Half the time, sliced, uneaten pizza would be still warm, on the floor just waiting to be snatched up by one of these hairy karate masters. These rats would even act haughty towards him, shaking their tail at him while walking away casually. Bob knew what had to be done.

The rats were like a lot of couch surfers. Looking for the path of least resistance. Bob, with the help of his friends JuJu and Raspberry Flakes (Sorry, hippie names...) they removed the trash. They separated the recyclable items from the bags. Discovered the "Rat Catacomb", which was a hollowed out stack of pizza boxes toward the bottom of the pile, and took it down for the count. Rats scattered in a panic, some even jumping up with a gnashing motion in an attempt to ward us off. We meant the Rats no harm. We just wanted to give them a reason not to stay.

Once everything was cleaned up, the Rats slowly started to disappear. They would sometimes enter the house, but that was because the dwellers were still leaving pizza slices out in the open for days on end. Though, in time, Bob got it through their heads that doing that was bringing the rats back and they would have to break the habit for weeks before the rats "got it" and left. This did eventually happen. The only issue with rats from that point forward had to deal with the outside, but that wasn't much of an issue. They just liked getting into the compost.

Causes and effects. Those rats only did this because the environment told them, "It is warm and safe here, these people don't give a fuck." Had those people just utilized the service offered by the City and stuck to it, those rats would of visited once, saw nothing of value was there, then move on to brighter pastures.

I mean, those trash and recycling containers were like, 30' outside their front door. It isn't that hard to do. Every Monday night. Bob was forced to leave not long after. Did the pile come back?

"An ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure"-Benjamin Franklin

"Damn, those be some words to live by, yo!"-LSD

Thanks for reading. Remember, we can probably prevent most things if we put our minds to it. I think Dad said that....

Much Love,
Lucy Sage Dreamtree