Rats

Billy Bookcase · July 2008

I've been struggling with rats in my garden for a while now. I didn't realise how much digging they could do. Where are the mangy foxes when you need them?

We have a pond that the rats seem to like.
My neighbours are very careless with their rubbish which the rats also appreciate.

I found one in our cellar over the weekend too. It seems they are exploring from a base next door.

Anybody else battling against the local plague?

Firenze · July 2008

You're not alone. Just today I spotted a rat amongst the usual coterie of squirrels in my garden. I was hoping the squirrels would chase it away but they treated it like a long lost cousin. Not sure what to suggest or, indeed, to do myself.

When you say 'struggling', are you actually having fisticuffs with them?

jandb · July 2008

They seem to like the big bin near the railway arch on Stapleton Hall Road - it's always packed to the brim with tasty morsels. There's usually a fly-tipped bed or chair for them to sit on too.

Mike from London · July 2008

Long lost cousin? Everybody knows squirrels are really mutant rats with good PR and they are set on world domination.

Billy Bookcase · July 2008

No fisticuffs yet.
I struggle in the sense that there seems to be an infinite number of them.
They have eaten a good portion of my shed which I feel quite cross about.
Their backfill from digging filled it to a depth of about ten inches.

dion · July 2008

@ JF - Do you live near the Parkland Walk or a railway line?

Billy Bookcase · July 2008

@ geoff
Yes, I live close to both but this plague is a recent development.
I wonder if the works on the Parkland Wlak may have triggered a dispersal.
Actually a rare venomous American "snub nosed" snake was captured in the allotment recently. Apparently it was thriving on the abundance of local vermin.

Mike from London · July 2008

Apparently it's quite common for rats to be displaced by builders. I have had builders in next door for what seems like decades and when they first arrived, some of the neighbours started having rats - luckily the little darlings moved one way but not the other, so I wasn't affected.

Philistine'sMonster · July 2008

"We have a pond that the rats seem to like."

Are you the REAL Jeremy Fisher? This is amazing!

Can you eat rats? They say pigeons are rats with wings and they taste OK. Just a thought.

Incidentally, I wonder if rats tell each other that in London you're never more than six feet away from a human...

VictorMoses · July 2008

A mouse appeared (crawling very slowly - he didn't look too well) in our kitchen the other night. It was a horrible shock, but my boyfriend overcame his rodent phobia and managed to scoop the little fellow up, take him down the road and release him into a neighbour's front garden.

How bad is it to have a mouse in your kitchen?

Does it mean that there are thousands more hidden in the cupboards etc?

Duncan · July 2008

@ Phil: you can eat rats. Apparently some cities quickly became de-ratted during WWII

@ Tabbie: if you find a mouse in your kitchen, you have to change your name

dion · July 2008

@ Tabbie - we have a mouse or two as well. Not sure how many. I am planning my humane mouse trap extravaganza for this weekend. Or could your boyfriend come round and do his pied piper mouse whisperer routine on my mice? If he was very small, then you probably weren't leaving enough food out for him.

tosscat · July 2008

So, to recap: Tabbie catches mice Jermemy Fisher lives by a pond Is Rainbow Carnage a gay terrorist?

jandb · July 2008

@ Tabbie - We had a small cute mouse that used to visit our kitchen too. We got one of those sonic plug-in mouse scarers, which seemed to do the trick. Well it was either that or the poor selection of food on offer that caused it to go elsewhere.

unaesthetic · July 2008

we have the odd mouse visitor, we named him ezra (although i think there's another one called bruno). I tried a humane mousetrap, which was utterly useless.

the other night, i watched a lovely big rat poking around the strange hole in the ground in front of the billboards next to the cab office at the tube end of sgr. completely unafraid of looming human curiosity.

@tosscat - are you a perpetually self-pleasuring feline?

VictorMoses · July 2008

So it seems like mice visitors aren't unusual, which is reassuring. But if you've got mice, does it mean you're likely to get rats too? I've heard that rats can squeeze through holes the size of a slim pencil. Apparently they can collapse their heads.

I knew someone who woke up with a mouse on her arm.

I knew someone else who woke up with a frog under his pillow. His cat had brought it in from the pond in the garden.

andy · July 2008

"APPARENTLY THEY CAN COLLAPSE THEIR HEADS" WHAT!!!!

jandb · July 2008

I thought it was only mice that could squeeze through pencil sized holes. Rats are massive by comparison. They're pretty clever though. I think squirrels are the worst-case-scenario for an infestation.

krappyrubsnif · July 2008

A squirrel came through the ceiling of the spare room a couple of years ago. Scared the pants off the woman who was sleeping there at the time.

unaesthetic · July 2008

i always thought that rats and mice didn't mix - so if you see one, you won't see the other.

how do rats collapse their heads??

tosscat · July 2008

It is very stupid - it's like the ridiculous thing that people say if you can fit your head through it then you can fit the rest of your body through it - what a load of shit.

andy · July 2008

I had to go and look it up. Not true, I'm afraid. They aren't collapsible. Just sneaky. And bendy. <http://www.ratbehavior.org/CollapsibleSkeleton.htm>;

jandb · July 2008

... but they can fly ... right?

Philistine'sMonster · July 2008

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgfpzttx_25cv9p7hc8

tosscat · July 2008

[phil's link](http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgfpzttx_25cv9p7hc8)

Duncan · July 2008

@jandb I walked past those bins on Friday: Rat heaven. No longer surprised that everyone has rats.

VictorMoses · July 2008

Last night we found a hole in the bottom of a bag of oats. We've bought one of those things that are meant to give rodents a headache, but how do you know if it actually does anything? It might just be a huge scam. Does anyone have a rodent that we can borrow to test it out on?

tosscat · July 2008

I think it's a scam.

katiejane · July 2008

Cool - this is what PETA recommend - a trap that traps the mouse then releases carbon monoxide to kill the little bugger. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/apr/22/ethicalliving.comment>;

krappyrubsnif · July 2008

I thought PETA would recommend a trap that catches the mouse, then releases carbon monoxide to kill the human being, then releases the mouse.

tosscat · July 2008

CO poisoning is supposed to be okay.

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