I called The who acts as an intermediary/translator between Steven and I and our landlord and asked him if he could ask Mr. Phuong to stop by one day soon to investigate the scratching (because there was no way I was going to lift the ceiling tile and come face-to-face with an enormous rat), since he was already over due to submit our most recent Visas to the police and needed to replace the lock our front gate which had been giving us trouble over the past month. I got the usually response from The, "OK," and after a few days, the usual response to my requests for The to contact Mr. Phuong - Nothing. So I texted The for Mr. Phuong's phone number and asked one of my coworkers to call him for us.
The following evening, Steven and I were home when Mr. Phuong, in his usually cheery disposition, stopped by with a new lock and a sticky mouse trap complete with poison "bait." While I was glad to see him, I was less glad to see the poison, as I had discovered that morning that, the scratching from our ceiling was now accompanied by what sounded suspiciously like the mewing of baby kittens. Worried that I might have misidentified our upstairs guests, I asked him to check before he put the trap in the ceiling.
After setting up the ladder under where I'd heard the scratching, Mr. Phuong climbed up, removed the ceiling tile and peered into the crawlspace. About five seconds later he started to make what can only be described as excited exclamations in Vietnamese and dashed down the ladder, down to our kitchen, only to return moments later with a little yellow plastic bag. He scrambled back up the ladder and proceeded to reach into the crawlspace and produced to day-or-so old kittens which he placed in the bag and handed to Steven.
We all stood there gazing at the kittens for a moment, wondering what to do with them. Finally Mr. Phuong started taking down his ladder and began downstairs. We followed him with our little bundle. We all walked to the door and proceeded to have a semi-nonverbal discussion with smiles and fingers pointing in regards to the fate of our new kittens. Steven and I briefly considered keeping them before wisely deciding against it, but wanted to be sure that they would be well taken care of if they rode off with Mr. Phuong, who seemed keen for us to keep them. We called The for translation and Mr.Phuong said that he would take them and find them a good home if we didn't want to keep them, so we handed them over and watched him drive away with the little yellow bag dangling from his handlebar.
Unfortunately, never having newborn kittens ourselves, at no time in this discussion did we consider the mom or the debilitating effects on both mom and baby when kittens are removed from their mothers too soon. A fact that we were soon reminded of that evening, when the mother cat discovered her missing babies and proceeded to sit on our roof and cry all night. And the following night. And the following night.
I researched the negative effects of removing kittens from their mothers too soon and found that while it is traumatic for both baby and mother, both sides, if properly cared for, can eventually move past the trauma and thrive, something that didn't make me feel any less guilty for what we'd done, but somewhat pacified by the hope that they'd eventually be okay.
And finally the mother did stop crying on our roof. And hopefully the kittens are faring well in their new home. And from all of this, I have learned an important lesson and will think before immediately adopting the "finders-keepers" mentality in such a situation in the future.
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