I have an actual pack rat in my garage. They got their name because they hoard non-food things, especially shiny ones. If they are carrying something and see something else they like better, they will drop the first one and take up the second one. The story goes that a man left out a dime and the packrat left two nickels in its place.

This sounds kind of cute, but they are still pesky rodents.

They can get up into the car engines and chew on the hoses that transport wiper fluid to get to the antifreeze in there, and chew on the electric wiring.

It showed up a few days ago and is wreaking havoc out there. Last night it chewed a bunch of the bristles out of a new push broom, and I lose sleep worrying about what else it is getting into.

It had a spot in the back corner where it had assembled leaves from iris bulbs, a plastic knife, a tea bag wrapper from the trash, and lots of poop.

I cleaned that up yesterday, hoping the rat had left when I left the garage door open overnight, but today was disappointed to see he'd repopulated the spot with an iris leaf and and a pine cone.

I'm going to have to do something about this sooner than later before more damage is done. I can trap it, but will have to deal with finding a way to dispose of him if it's a live trap.