ethical dilemma

there are rats that have been chewing on the bottom of our house. this comes almost immediately after we spent almost $10,000 to fix the plumbing and the kitchen floor after rats chewed through the old plumbing. there is no doubt that we DO NOT want rats under the house…

so, of course, i have been tasked with the job of trapping them. which, because of the fact that they are “wild” rats, means murdering them.

not just “killing” them, i discovered… actually murdering them. i discovered the difference when i put rat traps below our house two nights ago, and trapped two rats. the difference comes when i realised that they have the same, cute, beady little eyes as tame rats, which bug out of their skulls in a particularly disturbing way when their skulls have been smashed. and that’s not to mention the blood spatter. 😮

and it doesn’t get any easier… in fact, my impression is that it gets harder, because i cleaned up after my first murder, only to succeed in murdering another rat this morning.

so i really don’t want them to be where they are, but i feel really guilty murdering them, even though they don’t really give me much choice. 😥