A year of firsts: A mysterious intruder lurks

After two months living in a cabin above Scotts Valley, I’ve met dozens of friendly locals, including deer, rabbits, hawks, raccoons and, just the other day, a bobcat that raced down the driveway in front of my car.
A few folks have told me about the occasional downsides of living here, such as the rain — this could be a very wet El Niño year, a woman told me Sunday at Felton Presbyterian Church — and the construction on Highway 9, which I ran into on the way to lunch in Boulder Creek, and the occasional mountain lion that wanders in.
But I had no warning about what I would discover last week.
I set out a bowl of almonds in my kitchen, and the next time I looked, half of them were gone. A day later, the bowl was empty. But I hadn’t eaten any of them! If someone had broken into my house, surely they would have stolen something besides nuts.
It wasn’t until later, when I went to mop my floors, that I found the next clue to the mystery. I reached for the bucket, high on a closet shelf not even close to the kitchen, and inside it found the missing almonds! More were stashed inside my favorite shopping bag.
As if that weren’t enough, fruit that I left out on the kitchen counter overnight was disgustingly nibbled on the next morning. I couldn’t blame my dogs — they won’t touch fruit.
Had I lost my mind? Had I been sleepwalking again, as I used to do in college?
While it’s nice to have a scapegoat for the things I lose — money, jewelry, keys — it was not nice to see that alarming exclamation-point red light flashing on the dashboard of my Prius when I went for a Sunday drive. What was happening here? Was I going crazy?
The Toyota folks solved the mystery. They looked under the hood and came back with this:
“A rodent’s been living inside your car, lady. Left his nuts all over and chewed through several wires. We’ll fix the wires, but you’re going to have to deal with the problem.”
Rats!
I had thought that pack rats referred only to people who can’t throw anything away, like some of my relatives. But a friend insisted there was a better explanation than thieves or ghosts for what was happening in my house.
I googled “pack rat,” and sure enough, up popped a picture of a cute little critter with a furry tail.
Cute, but conniving. The rascals can find their way inside and steal just about anything, including almonds and my missing house key.
Next stop: Scarborough’s, where I will find something that I can use to evict my ungracious guests. Surely, this rat can’t be a valley native.
n Year of Firsts is an occasional column by Cheri O’Neil Matthews, publisher of the Scotts Valley/San Lorenzo Valley Press-Banner. She recently moved to Scotts Valley.