They're ba-a-a-ack!

Notwithstanding previous pronouncements from our PAO that the Rodent Insurgency was in its "last throes," we appear to have a major incursion this month, with forward bases located this time somewhere in the very room from which I post these dispatches. Eight Thunderfucker Mark IV™ Jaws-o-Death™ traps have been laid out on sundry tributaries of the Ho Chi Mouse Trail this evening, and I hope to report slaughter and mayhem before long.

militantly,

The house construction is largely lath-and-plaster, but at some point before we assumed ownership there were some questionable remodeling decisions made in the rear of the house (nothing against the Chinese in North America, you understand, but I have observed in the Bay Area that when they assume ownership of a restaurant—actual Chinese cuisine excluded here, of course—the quality of the fare goes steeply downhill, and when they get their hands on residential real estate they tend to undertake what the realtors here privately call "de-modeling"), and so there is a kitchen larder awkwardly positioned beneath some improvised stairs up to the attic, and the sheetrock that formerly constituted its rear wall was easily penetrated by the fangs of a small rat that did foully compromise sundry foodstuffs stored therein in the flimsier sorts of packaging. Ratus ratus was too light-fingered for conventional traps, but the so-called "Rat-Zapper"—hideously costly at $40; four AA batteries not included—electrocuted his sorry ass on the second evening it was deployed. The larder has since been rebuilt with thick plywood affixed to the sheetrock.

On the other hand, the body count in the present struggle is as yet distinctly unsatisfactory.

cordially,