Unsolved Mystery

 So as Jo alluded to earlier, we have an unexpected roommate/critter running around the house that we're renting. It's driving me nuts. It will eat any food we forget out on the counter tops at night. I feel like Carl Spackler (Bill Murray) from Caddyshack trying to catch this thing---it's eaten more fruit than I have in the past 2 weeks. I really want to catch it badly. Not so much to kill it, more to find out what it is.

Each morning we rise and jump out of bed like little kids on Christmas morning to go "check the traps." Never any luck, occasionally another clue---but the mystery remains.

Here is the list of failed plans:

1) Mouse trap. This thing shed a mouse trap with ease---clearly larger than a mouse.

2)Sticky trap + mouse trap. Again, we brought a knife to a gunfight. However, the sticky traps gave us our most promising lead to date. Left behind in the stickiness was short gray/white fur. This helped us rule out any flying animals (we briefly considered bats.)

3) Sticky trap in the bottom of a cooler positioned so that it would have to jump onto the sticky trap to get at the food. Failure again, no attempt made to get the fruit. This lead me to believe that it is a fairly smart animal (i.e. squirrel, less likely a rat.)

4) Rat trap. Escaped again. At this point we slightly worried for our safety given its apparent size and intelligence. We began wedging a towel under our bedroom door at night---- just in case.

5) Varmint Trap. TBA, no luck yet. I checked out a large cage style trap on base from the vet clinic. As of yet it hasn't worked nor has any bait been disturbed. Maybe the run-in w/ the rat trap scared this thing off?? I really hope not. We've come too far to not get closure at this point. It can eat all the fruit in our house just so long as I get some answers.

6) Cat. Our landlord's mom lives 3 houses down and has offered the services of Mittens for a night or two. We haven't taken her up on it yet mostly b/c I don't want to see the Discovery Channel played out all over the living room carpet some morning before work. If we get desperate we'll eventually call Mittens out of the bullpen.

Here are the Vegas odds at this point:

Squirrel......2 to 1 odds. Clearly the favorite given the fur, the ability to get up to the counter, its apparent intelligence and the rat trap escape.

Rat........1 in 4 odds. Can a rat make its way up onto a counter top w/o assistance from a chair? Also, you would have to believe that a rat trap would catch a rat, right?

Possum-    1 in 7 odds, the Dark Horse. According to Judy (Jo's mom) they love fruit and are stealthy.

Raccoon.......1 in 40 odds. It hasn't made a go for the trash yet and we haven't heard anything, but the fur is a match.

Please call us at 701-641-1162 w/ any leads (and yes, you may remain anonymous).....