Guide hunts a common household infestation trigger called, Entry Hole Disorder. It happens when one or many of her wild creature friends test a human Homefront, finds it OPEN FOR BUSINESS, and then they decide to make their home in the human’s home. Earth creatures colonize new territories all the time, but (like kindling to fire) human homes can provide rodents with predator free shelter, lots of nice pink nesting material, and an abundant food supply, all the environmental conditions an infestation-waiting-to-happen needs to begin. The rats don’t benefit from becoming infested in a predator free shelter. The social dynamics suddenly shift in a despirate attempt to control their own population. They abandon thier natural, wild family-based territories and begin to form a hierarchy. Without a predator to keep them in check, they attempt “self-domesticate,” create “false predators” (like cops, social workers, and lawyers), and begin to prey on their own population in an attempt to control it.
No matter how hard the rats try to control The Infestation, they will fail. They won’t be able to stop eating the abundnat food, or nesting in the predator-free shelter, and the population will continue to thrive and boom with the regular inputs of false/irrational/uncontrolable fears from its hierarchy of false predators.
Guide knows what the rats know (but won’t say aloud), “There’s no subsitute for the control that comes from a healthy predator/prey relationship with a good rat catcher.”
And Guide is a good rat catcher. Unlike her teammate Pest Predator, she doesn’t use anti-coagulant bait to poison her rodent friends. She dawns her owl mask with the spirit of an ancient rat catcher, a half wild creature who uses a potent mix of exclusion and classic rat traps to guide those who crossed The Line to their final resting burrows in Volehalla.
Here’s another draft of the same description:
All the voles, field mice, and rats living on your farm or garden know is, “game on.” Food is everywhere, and their natural predators are eating Science Dietfor their urinary track infections. The Master Switch flips and their population explodes. Now, instead of facing predators, they begin to police themselves and form rank structures and hierarchies. No wild creature enjoys being policed by their own (it’s humiliating), so the brave ones—the missionaries, soldiers, and astronauts—explore in hope of a better world. “Oh utopia! Oh heaven! Oh shelter! Oh Portland!” They see that dark, unexplored hole in Predator’s box and snap! Their ancestors welcome them through the gates of Volehalla.
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