Nailed ‘em!
The critter was indeed a rat, yet a small one at that… no Di, I will not get a cat… in a hat.
Ok, I’ll stop now.
But yes, he has been caught. Sharon brought home 3 rat traps. I placed two in the attic knowing it was a long shot that the rat would be hanging around up there on occasion. The third I went directly to the source.
I removed the air vent cover from our bedroom ceiling, unlatched and pushed back the flexible duct pipe, and slipped the rat trap above the ceiling. I tied a piece of kite string to the trap and set the spool on an unstable surface in our room. Two reasons for doing this: 1) it would serve as a telltale that the trap had been moved the slightest bit 2) in case the trap was a bit slow in doing it’s work and the rat tried to drag it off, I would have something to pull it back in.
Thanks Allen for the great advice. The cotton-cheese ball worked like a champ. Marc, the same technique might work for those campaigners…

Good job! I’m glad the ordeal is over.
You should have just put the darn Mouse Trap game in your closet up in the attic. It would have been easier compared to the contraption that you did. Oh, and the campaigners have elected a pied piper that is currently leading them over a cliff.