One of the cats discovered we have the cutest little squatter I've ever met living between our wooden fence and the neighbors'. The old cat looked like she was going to try and make it to the top of the fence to eat her (which would more likely hurt the cat than the rat; she's too old to make it that high). I gave the fence a little tap to scare off the rat, and she dove between the fences. I heard a squeaky scuffle in the gap and the poor thing burst out with a fresh bite on her shoulder and fell onto our patio! I quickly used a plank of wood to shoo the cat inside and keep her from catching the rat. I think the rat made it under the fence, but we're keeping the cat inside to be safe. My family and I have been seeing flashes of something by the fence out of the corner of our eyes for a couple months and the little visitors aren't bothering us or chewing anything up. I'm worried my neighbors are going to start putting out poison (my dog once got violently ill after eating a cockroach I'm pretty sure they poisoned) or they could pass diseases on to the cats. I'm not sure how to go about getting rid of them before they face a grisly end. It would be no big deal to tear down our fence to eliminate the gap they're living in (it's an ugly old fence, anyways). But what if they have tiny babies in there that are hard to move? Or they just move in to our garage? I heard about something called Varpel Rope but Amazon doesn't sell it. Do you know if a place like Home Depot would sell that or another decent repellent? I'd love to live trap them and move them, but those traps are crazy expensive. I live in Orange County, CA if anyone has a live trap I can borrow. I'm not even sure if that's a good idea since I did hear wild animals almost always die when moved away from home like that. Anyone know what to do?