Forecast: 9-17
Attained: 11-15

Well.
I thought there's been a mousey smell in the laundry for some time now. I put it down to the cat's litter - the stuff itself, not what she puts in to it.

I've been temporarily storing the flattened out, good quality, reusable cardboard boxes inbetween the washing machine and sink. It was getting a bit full there so I decided to sort out the boxes...
Ah... I said as I pulled out chewed and fouled cardboard, I wasn't imagining the mousey smell, then. Except it wasn't mice, it was a rat. Probably a young one that KittenKong had brought inside and managed to lose, only it wasn't a young rat now, it was a fully-grown and well-fed rat. Hardly surprising it was in good condition, the cat's food and water is next to the washing machine!
Anyway, I pulled all the boxes out, and KittenKong immediately came to investigate. It wasn't long before nature took it's course and she caught the rat. She didn't kill it outright, but neither did she play with it once it was disabled. I think it was too big for that.
I know it would've been kinder to kill the damn thing but I just couldn't bring myself to do that, so I covered it with an icecream container and left it to - hopefully - die quickly and in peace.
I haven't been game to lift the container yet...

Haven't cleaned up the rat poo and pee yet, either. I'm letting it all dry out before I tackle it cos I know from experience that any brush used to sweep up the wet stuff will need to be discarded as well. The smelly boxes have been thrown out so at least one of the sources of pong has gone.

I pulled this out along with the boxes. It used to be a sock.