Home Invasion (or Ratatouille?)

About 3 am I got up and was in the kitchen. I heard a noise coming from our range hood. It was making a clicking/banging noise similar to what it makes when there is a storm outside. The vent has a damper valve to prevent air from blowing back into the house. However it was never installed correctly by the previous owner. Anyways I looked outside and there was no wind blowing.... Hmm... oh well, back to bed!

Around 7am I wake up and go into the kitchen, The noise is still there, and there is a whole bunch of sticks, twigs, and debris on the stove??? I look under the hood and the filter is ripped up (but not all the way through). I wake Kathi up and tell her I think something is stuck in the vent pipes above the stove (I'm thinking cat, cause I have had that happen before just not here).

I pop the vent filter off and clean it, I look under the hood at the same time as Kathi does and a small pair of beady black eyes are staring back. Kathi freaks out."aaaaaahhhhhh! A RAT!!!!"

I quickly locate my pellet gun (luckily it had 2 pellets in it). I pump it up, take aim and...... I can't pull the trigger. I move the safety, take aim...... and can't pull the trigger WTF! Meanwhile the rat is trying to get out of the vent through the fan (which was not on), after messing with the BB gun again I realize I forgot to push the bolt forward. I fix that, take aim and...... Pop! Headshot!.

Ooooh.... right..... rats bleed and flail about after being shot in the head. So the rat falls through the opening and onto the stove, where it twitches and squirms for a few minutes.

Here is a picture, but you will have to click the link as it's a little gory.

SO! Once Remy stopped twitching I picked it up with a paper towel by the tail and put it in a ziplock freezer bag and straight into the trash.

GREAT! now I gots to clean up this mess. So down comes the range hood and everything on the stove gets a bath in bleach water, a salt shaker, and some decorative items on the wall get tossed.

Now a trip to home depot to get all the right parts to fix the vent and block the vent on the roof with mesh. While leaving Home Depot we ran into Gerry Meek. We return and after much cursing, etc. we get the vent fixed, the range hood back up, and I blocked the vent on the roof with mesh. Once on the ground I drink about a gallon of water as it is about 110 outside and I burned my ass, legs, arms, and anything else that touched the roof. But all openings on the roof, etc are rat proof now. I'm gonna take a shower!

Too bad for "Little Chef" though....