I walked into my new, pristine, freshly painted house. Looked around, took a deep breath and thought "This is mine!" and jumped up and down in excitement. little did I know that the house was already occupied!!!
I sat down, waiting for the plumber to come, so that he could fix some leaks my flatmate and I had identified. I looked at the wall next to me and let out a little squeak. There were paw prints on the wall. Like actual paw prints where you could see the toes and the pad. What the hell. Now I live on the ground floor. First reaction - it is a RAT! We have giant rats in Bangalore called "Perchadi" in my language, or Bandicoot rat. Not like the cute Australian one. These are GIANT gutter rats.
The other option of my mystery flatmate was a cat. Man, was I hoping it was a cat. Or even a Mongoose. That would have been okay also. Just, no giant rat. I took pictures and sent it to everyone I knew who had cats, or knew anything about them. Everyone responded with "I am not sure" or "I doubt it's a cat". Now, I was psyched. Maybe it was a one time thing. who knows, the house is empty, whatever was running through my head. I purposely left the wind open and went back to my mum's place. The next day when I walked in, there were more paw prints. Shoot.
I then told my mum about it and she very calmly said, oh they are bandicoot prints. I freaked out. I was moving in that day. At 5pm, I shut ALL the windows in the house and when it was time to go to bed, I shut the kitchen door, went up to my bedroom, shut that door too. I couldn't sleep. I live in an apartment where there is SO much noise coming from everywhere that I couldn't distinguish where the noise was coming from. Gah! At around 3am, I texted my flatmate, who was moving in the next day, and she, being the evil creature that she is, told me "Maybe it is already in the house, hiding in the cupboard under the stairs". I flipped out. I needed to sort this out. So I took a broom, put on all the lights and went downstairs, checked the cupboard and the entire house. It wasn't there. Phew. I have no idea what I would have done if there indeed was a rat in the cupboard. Screamed and then tried to chase it out the main door I guess.
There were no new paw prints after that, and I calmed down. As the weeks went by, one day, I noticed four cats in the apartment compound. I asked the watchman and he said that they live in the building and near by. Mystery solved. It was a cat. It definitely wasn't a rat because with four cats around, then the rat population should be non existent. So yay!
It was fully confirmed this morning, when I came downstairs after I woke up and saw a cat chilling on my divan. It bolted out the window when it saw me. I had forgotten to close one window last night and it had come in. Therefore, I can now proclaim that the mystery of the mysterious paw prints hereby resolved!
Posts
