Cats and Rats and Ratigan- Personal story time

Around five years ago my family moved to Texas. When my parents purchased the house the previous owners asked if we could continue to feed/ take care of the tomcat (named Anna) that lived in the garage. He was old and sick and they told us that he would only live for a few more months. We were perfectly content with this. He was a nice, blind and cuddly cat, he got along with the dog, and cats are useful to have around for things like catching mice and keeping snakes away.

Almost five years later(this last May) he finally died. 

So we took my sister to an animal shelter and had her pick out a kitten sometime in June. She selected a tiny black and white male and named him Morticus (no idea where she got the name, but whatever, we tend to call him either “Mort” or “Little Shit”). He is, of course much too small to live out in the garage right now, so he spends most of his time in the house (though he is taken outside every day on a leash).

Meanwhile, the rats moved into the garage immediately after Anna’s death (yet another reason not to let the kitten out there… for now). They’ve destroyed several belongings and have made the garage almost uninhabitable. We cleaned out the garage a few days ago and I still feel ill when I think about the copious amounts of feces and the terrible smells I endured that day. It was awful.

But this evening mother nature sent us a temp worker. My father had opened up the garage doors earlier in the day because he was working in there and when he shut them this evening something fell off the doors and huddled into a corner.

It was a snake. 

A rather large snake.

He thought it was a harmless rat snake, but he called myself and my brother out to the garage to help him inspect it, just in case it was venomous. He was right. It was an approximately 30” long rat snake. So we left him alone to see to the vermin until Mort is big enough- he won’t hurt us. 

Also we named him/her Ratigan

Because lol