So, because I am really, really tired of this parade of rats coming into the kitchen (last night I trapped the sixth one in a week’s time), today I hauled the stove out of its niche in the kitchen counter, looking to see just where the damned things are getting in, and trying to figure a way to stop them.
I think I found their entry, and it wasn’t up the gas supply pipe as I’d thought before. The copper wool put around the pipe by the pest-control man as a barrier fence was still in place and undisturbed, but in another place there was a caved-in place in the drywall that looked as though the back corner of the oven had caught it a lick at some point and stove it in. The collapsed bit was just big enough that a medium-sized rat could fit through, and I expect that’s what they’ve been up to, the more so since all the rats I’ve caught have been under the stove, and nowhere else.
So I went outdoors and rounded up a piece of galvanized roof flashing left over from the last time we did the roof, cut off and flattened out a piece big enough to cover the hole, and nailed it in place. Unfortunately, there were no studs in the area that I could nail into, so the nails are only holding onto the drywall, but I think that’ll still be more than a rat can muscle out of the way to get inside again.
