The Zap Is Back!

A kill!

But first, a recap: a couple of weeks ago, we had the Zapper in the house for a few days. Nothing. Then, about a week ago, we noticed at least one rat -- maybe more -- in the backyard.

As it happens, our friend Jim was down from Manhattan for the weekend. Jim knows his rodents. He said rat, definitely. No mouse about it.

So we put the Zapper in the backyard, and we had a bad run of false positives. A couple of slugs gummed things up. Reset, false positive, clean, repeat. It got old fast.

But we gave it one more try. And the missus overruled me on placement. I wanted the Zapper where it had worked well before. The missus wanted it on the other side of the yard, near the new holes.

Yesterday, the missus moved the Zapper. This morning, we woke to a false positive, but at least the reset took. And today - a kill.

Sometime in the early afternoon, we think. Early enough for nature's undertakers to get busy before I came home and did the bagwork. When I dumped out the rat, a cloud of flies exploded from the Zapper.

The only downside is that the city picked up trash this morning, so the deceased will sit in the can for a week. Double-bagged, but there's definite ripeness potential nonetheless.

Still, we're back in the groove! Stay tuned.