it was behind a book shelf. it was not a cockroach. it was too small to be a rat. the droppings i cleaned up after - around the windowsill, where i heard it rustling - were very small. it was a brownish, rather than the typical rat grey. therefore, it was a mouse.
what if it was actually a bat?
that might explain why it's around the window. it might explain why my food is not tampered with - at all. like, it doesn't even go into the kitchen. i'm pretty clean, but i'm not spotless, and nothing i drop on the floor ever gets eaten. i find things a day or two later. it's a pretty dumb mouse.
it didn't run when i found it. i heard something in here in the bedroom so i picked up a flashlight and started looking. a mouse would have recoiled from the light; this didn't. i had to spray it with lysol to get it to move.
there appear to be vents in the basement that go out to the roof because there used to be a working coal chimney down here. the chimney is still there. it has exhaust pipes from the furnace running into it and it's why i can't seal the furnace room other than to seal the door.
the droppings are very small - so small i thought they were roach droppings.
so what if the insect-eating, tiny shitter rodent is a bat and not a mouse? what next?