“You have to think like the rat,” my new friend Gregg told me. At the time, we were pushing Gregg’s homemade rat detector through a small hole in my basement ceiling. He had bought an endoscope camera online—the kind a doctor uses to hunt for polyps in one’s nether regions—and attached it to a bent wire coat hanger. The camera’s images would be displayed on his laptop.

Gregg became obsessed with rats when they took over his girlfriend Anne’s house, across the street from mine. Having tracked and conquered her rats, he was eager to bring his rat-buster skills and tools to my infestation. Gregg showed up on a Sunday afternoon with the endoscope and a two-gallon bleach sprayer and