Got a good rat story?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Inspired by the “minutiae books” thread and well he’s back 's recommendation of Rats by Robert Sullivan, I am now entranced with all things rat.

Especially freaky deaky rat episodes.

Anyone got something to tantalize me? Rats leaping on you out of trees? Carrying off your prized possessions? Backstroking merrily in your toilet?

Rat storytellers, come one, come all! Exterminators with appalling stories particularly welcome. Amateur exterminators also welcome, but so are amateur and professional rat-keepers. These furry fiends are fascinating. :smiley:

Mrs. Furthur

2

I have a horrible, disgusting rat story. It’s so bad, I won’t post it here. It gives me the willies to think about it. If you really are sure you want it, e-mail me, and I’ll send it. Put Straight Dope in the subject line, so I won’t dump it for spam.

Are you sure? Eeeeeewwwwwww!

3

I live in a fairly rural area, so I’m not a stranger to rat problems. On the other hand, I also have a few dogs and cats—and they aren’t strangers to hunting rats.

Once, one morning, I came downstairs, and found out that the dogs or the cats had killed a rat during the night.

The thing was, though, that there wasn’t a lot of rat left…just the skin. It wasn’t even shredded, just peeled off. Like a little bearskin rug. No blood. No bones. No organs. Just the pelt.

Later that day, we found a cat chewing on the rat’s tail (assuming it was even from the same rat). We never found any more of it.

Luckily, we have a big cast-iron stove for heat, so if and when we find a dead rat in the fall or winter, well…it turns out a few presto logs make a fine funeral pyre.

4

Not disgusting, at all:

We had a female rat that used to play with one of our cats. Each day they would spend ten or fifteen minutes batting at each other through the bars of the rat’s cage. Sometimes the rat would start it by sticking her snout out between the bars as the cat walked by. Sometimes the cat would start it by batting at the cage if the rat was sleeping. The rat has since died of old age and the cat has never played that game with any other rat.

5

My mother, who has a pathological fear of all things rat, was in the haymow, tossing some bales down before she went to the house for the night. It was winter, so it was definitely dark in the mow. She was bending over a bale, tying the strings back together, when something falls out of the rafters on her back. She hoped mightily for a moment that it might have been a cat, but then she realized that cats definitely have furry tails when a very un-furry tail dragged itself across her neck. She screamed and bolted upright, desperately shaking the rat off her back, and watched as it scurried into the eaves of the roof. She started to cry, and wouldn’t come out of the mow until Dad came up to get her down and stomped menacingly around the eaves.

She didn’t go back up into the haymow for a good two weeks, and even then she carried a pitchfork and had either a child or a husband in tow, along with our barncat Mimi, the best ratter in the world. My poor mother. She’s never been the same.

6

Despite the name, I’ve had all of two minutes experience with a real rat. But, you might want to look into the Giant African Rat (AKA Giant Pouched Rat.) It’s hard to find a picture where it doesn’t look like you’re just looking at a rat, but if you see something that shows the scale properly, you get a sudden “Woah! That suckers huuuuuge!!!” :eek: thing. Quite fun.
Unfortunately, they chew things (like wires and furniture) and I wouldn’t want a caged pet. So I remain ratless.

7

Years back in my student hovel, I was taking my eyes out at the bathroom sink late one evening, when I heard a strangely rhythmic splashing noise behind me. Turning around, I saw that the bath was half-filled with water, with laundry soaking in it, and paddling around amidst all the bras and knickers was an enormous rat.

The foul beast probably been deservedly poisoned and, desperately thirsty, had climbed up the outside drainpipe and through the window for a drink, and then rather incondiderately fallen in and been unable to scramble out. Needless to say, I took umbrage: we were, after all, not running a public watering hole for parched rodents.

Acting with swift resolution, I fetched a tennis racket from my room, and with one graceful forehand motion, and not forgetting my follow-through, I scooped said rat out of the bath and hurled it back out of the window and into the night from whence it had come, and good riddance, too.

The next morning, I lost no time in informing my female flatmates of both my infinite resource and sagacity and the fact that a whacking great rattus norvegicus had been up close and personal with their undies. Cries of horror echoed throughout the land, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

8

I once had a mouse problem in my room at college. The damn thing just kept coming back! It ate through leather bags and plastic boxes, climbed up walls (that was pretty neat to watch!) and hid in hard-to-reach shelves, and once even climbed over my roomie at night. No matter what we did to chase it out, it managed to find its way back inside.

One morning, less than an hour before a major exam, about 4 of us turned my room inside out, chased the mouse out of the room, down the hallway, and out of the building… it never came back. Or maybe it did - the next day, we packed up and left for home. That was the last time I stayed on the gound floor of a building.

9

I once lived in a flat behind a supermarket. The supermarket’s dumpsters obviously attracted rats, our cat often left dead ones on the doorstep to remind us.

One fine sunny afternoon the cat jumped in the window with a LIVE rat in her mouth! My screaming prompted her to drop her “gift” and leave.

Now there is GIANT, manky rat running around the lounge. Ok a giant, manky rat and me SCREAMING running around the lounge.

The screaming alerts my not-so-clever Irish flatmate (he WAS the Irishman the jokes were about…lovely bloke but not so clever). The first thing he did was announce that “I’m not living with some bloody rat”. That was ever so helpful. The fact that I was standing on the coffee table screeching like a banshee may have meant I wanted to take the rat on as a flatmate!

After a colourful exchange, I managed to make him understand that the rat had to go and he had just been elected the one to make it go.

His first plan involved several circuts of the room with a tupperware container. The rat was obviously a marathon runner and poor old Des just couldn’t hack the pace (not to mention that the container was several sizes smaller then the rat).

His second plan was opening the front door and shouting “Shoo, shoo”. The rat didn’t understand his accent apparently.

His third attempt was running around attempting to fling a towel over the rat. To the surprise of all concerned, this actually worked! All of a sudden Des has a towel wrapped rat squirming in his hands. The rats next move was to bite him. He then lept around the room like his arse was on fire and DIDN’T let go of the rat!

Being the sweet chap he was he took the rat to the front door and let it go :rolleyes: the rat immediately raced into the house and went under the couch.

At this point I gave up on Des rescuing me and gingerly left the couch and opened the deck door. Someone must have signaled the rat because he was out that door faster then a speeding bullet.

Ok so the retelling isn’t scary but there was major EEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKK at the time.

(the cat was punished with evil looks all night)

10

Uh, one of my ex-roommates had a pet rat who had allergies. We were alerted by the little rat sneezes we could hear from his cage. [sub]It was cute.[/sub]

Other than that, sorry, no revolting rat stories.

11

Back when I worked at McDonalds, we all had rat stories! I once had some customers pull up to the drive-thru speaker and advise me that there was a rat scrabbling at our back door. I said, “Oh thanks! I’ll go let him in.” Fortunately they laughed (and then ordered food)!

Another time, my brother (who also worked at McD’s) and I had been sent out to the storage shed to find something. We were proceeding with extreme caution and filled with the rat-fear. Suddenly an old work glove fell out of the rafters and landed on my brother’s shoulder. He instantly froze, paralyzed with fright, and gabbled, “Get it off get it off get it off get it off…” Only I couldn’t because I was wetting myself.

calm kiwi, don’t take this the wrong way, but…I love you. :smiley:

12

Awwwww, right back at ya.

Until a GIANT, manky rat is running amok! When that happens you are all alone. Once was enough.

:slight_smile:

13

In WWII, the Soviets had Rat Battallions. No shit. They trained a whole LOT of rats to chew on things of importance, like wires and other important devices. Then they airdropped crates of these rats behind german lines. The rats were very effective at screwing with the german forces, especially tanks and other vehicles, where they would destroy the engine wiring. The rats were so effective, in fact, that the germans had to create Cat Battallions to counter them. The SS units insisted that they would only use jet black cats of course.

There was a serious drawback to the rat tactics. Once the Soviets overran a german position, they became victims of the apolitical rats, who didn’t care whether a wire was fascist or communist.

14

BTW, what exactly does “manky” mean? Because I think I’m going to start saying it.

15

Many moons ago, Mr. S and I were next door at his brother’s place, just standing around shooting the shit, while the late great springer spaniel Miss Emily Kimberly rooted around happily in a pile of hay and manure nearby. Suddenly she went “Yipe!”, pulled her head out briefly, then went back in with renewed vigor – and came out, tail wagging furiously, with an enormous dead rat. (Do they come in any other size?)

It seems that the rat had bitten her a little bit on the nose (not enough to break the skin), and she said, “Bite ME? BITE YOU!!” and went in and chomped him a good one. We praised her big-time. She’d never been much for rats before then, but boy was she ever a ratter afterward.

sniff I miss that dog.

A few years ago when I was watching the Westminster dog show, the announcers told a story about one year when a rat fell out of Madison Square Garden’s rafters during the show – smack dab into the middle of the terrier group. Apparently his life expectancy declined significantly after that. :smiley:

16

When I was a kid, I had three pet rats: Sam, Harold and Alfred.

Sam was given to me by a girl in my class who was moving. When I arrived home with him, my mother was less than pleased. Sam was an old rat, and not in the best of shape. After spending a few days in a cage in the garage, Mom started feeling sorry for him. The only room in the house with a heating register near the floor was my parents’ bedroom. Sam spent his last few months of life in my parents’ bedroom, very warm and cosy.

As an adult, I have had to battle roof rats. We live in a neighborhood with a lot of old trees. There are quite a rats that travel through the trees and hedges in the evening. Once in awhile, we see one walking along the fence while we are BBQing.

Yuck.

The Rat Patrol Man has ratproofed our house. As much as I loved my three childhood buddies, I don’t want to live with wild roof rats.

17

I have 3 wonderful rattie girls who are not scary or gross in any sense of the word. I have several stories about them, but this is the most recent:

My rats are named Bettina, Lola, and Cookie. Cookie is the daughter of Bettina, who gave birth to her and 8 other pups a week after I got Bettina and Lola. Bettina and Lola are quite intelligent and never fail to surprise me with how smart they are. Cookie, on the other hand, is very sweet, but not too bright. “Bumbling” would be a good word to describe her.

I give them a small treat daily. Their favorite treat is peanut butter oat biscuits. One day I handed these out and Cookie, not being hungry at the time, decided to find a place to stash hers for later. Guess where she put it?..

…In the food dish. :smiley:

It was of course seized and eaten by someone else within the hour. 2 days later, I found Cookie frantically digging through the dish with this look on her face like, “Where IS it???”

:smiley:

18

scarlett67 said:

You know, this should have been made a part of the show from then on.

“… and now the rat portion of the terrier competition…”

19

Oooo . . . after living in Baltimore for four years, I HATE rats! Mice, too – I had a mouse in my apartment that would scrabble around in the kitchen, keeping me up all night – but rats are much worse. Stories?

I had a boyfriend for the three weeks before I moved to Boston. Like me, he lived in a basement apartment. The only window was at the level of the sidewalk outside, and next to his building was an abandoned house that was overrun with rats. These were rowhouses, so he actually shared a wall with the abandoned building. When I walked to his house in the evening, I would usually see at least two or three rats running around outside his apartment, and at night we could hear and see them running back and forth on the sidewalk outside his window.

As mentioned above, I also lived in a basement apartment, but mine was at the back of the building, with a back door that opened onto an alley. I didn’t use this door very much, Baltimore alleys not being the safest of places, but I did use it wheel my laundry to the mat in my granny cart. I was always happy to see a rat or two that had been squashed to the pavement by cars driving through the alley. Take that, you bastards! I once saw three squished rats within five feet of each other.

I was walking past another alley that was always filled with trash. There was a white plastic bag, probably from the nearby RiteAid (drugstore) that was tied shut. I saw the side of the bag move slightly; there was something inside it! It could only be a rat, so I pinpointed the location of the rat by the movement of the bag, drew back my steel-toe-booted foot, and delivered a sharp, precise kick. Squeak! And the bag moved no more.

20

Quick note: I should have mentioned that I have nothing against pet rats; they’re very cute and fuzzy. I only hate the trash-diving alley rats.