A rat?

Hmm. It would appear that we have one or more rats living in our garage and walls/ceilings. Yes rats. (No evidence of them being inside the house itself, just in the walls). A couple of months ago Mom actually saw one in the garage, and we've finally realized that's what all the scurrying noises are: rats in the walls and ceiling, not squirrels on the roof. They also have been eating mom's peppers. She has some bell pepper and banana pepper plants growing in big plastic buckets out on the back porch. The first time we discovered this was when we came back into town after Ike. We had dragged all Mom's plants into the garage. When we came home, all the peppers were half-eaten. Then they had still been disappearing since then, but the buckets are back outside so Mom thought it must have been the tomato horn worm caterpillars. But this morning she found a half-eaten banana pepper dragged halfway under the garage door. So now she's finally put out some traps and poison. We will see what happens...