I live in a rural area. Sometimes I see mice in my house, but I have three cats and they mostly seem to handle it. Occasionally I have to clear up one the cats addressed before my young kid sees it. No big deal - I knew what I was getting into when I moved here.
However, just now I saw a rodent I couldn’t identify. I’m home alone and therefore feel no need for restraint; I yelled “what the fuck are you?” at it. It rudely failed to identify itself, simply running away instead.
Maybe thirty seconds later it appeared at the opposite end of the room. I didn’t really know what to do about it so I yelled “hey!”
It ran away again and I haven’t seen it since then, but now I’m paranoid. It looked like a small ferret but I don’t have one of those anymore and I don’t think there are wild ones near here.
I don’t want to get rabies or even my toes bitten.
edit: Temporarily ignoring safety concerns, especially those regarding my kid … The rodent was pretty cute.
According to a search I did last night, while that’s not impossible, it probably isn’t a marten as they tend to have dark coats. The animal I saw had a pure white coat. In fact, I think it came through my crawlspace, which isn’t clean at all; part of why it startled me is because its coat was so clean and bright coming out of a likely at least dusty space.
From the same search, I suspect the rodent might have been a black tailed ermine. I didn’t see the tail, though, so I can’t confirm that part.
Thank you guys for your suggestions!
Neat, thanks for the update!