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Rats! Rats! Rats!

Ratville UK: Fear and loathing rule in a corner of Yorkshire overrun with rodents
By Paul Harris
Last updated at 12:25 AM on 11th March 2009

The first thing that spooks you is the noise.
It's the rustling, scratching sound of countless tiny feet and at times it's so intense that the hedgerows are alive with it. And then you see them.

Rats! Big rats with long, wormy tails. . . baby rats squealing for their mothers. . . rats preening themselves nonchalantly on a doorstep . . . rats taking food from the bird tables or scraps from the bins.

There are more of the little blighters here than it seems possible to fit into an otherwise ordinary swathe of pleasant, rural England. For this is the place where a mass infestation has become so overwhelming that people have been frightened to leave their homes.

Paperboys and deliverymen tread gingerly up garden paths and even cats, it appears, prefer to stay indoors.

I am standing in the epicentre of Ratville UK - the creepy, wriggly, ratty capital of Britain. It is the Yorkshire coastal village of Flamborough, where colonies of the unloved creatures have spent the last few weeks rampaging through fields, gardens and homes.

'There must be thousands of them,' said parish council chairman Ian Woodhouse. 'They're in the fields, on the roads - everywhere. One lady even had them running around her house. It's become a massive problem.'
Steve Crowther, who runs a local DIY shop, said: 'A mate of mine was driving out of the pub and saw two or three hundred of them in the road. There was a carpet of them - just a big brown mass. As soon as the headlights caught them, they darted everywhere.' :shock:

Once the rats get established they breed . . . well, like rats. Two rats can become an extended family of several hundred in the space of a year. In Flamborough, the grass verges boast more rat-runs than the London rush-hour.

Most locals have encountered them, and some still shudder at the thought. One woman said she was so terrified of walking into the village that she tucked her trousers into her wellies and sealed the tops with plastic bags and rubber bands (a curious sight, even in rural East Yorkshire 8) ). Another didn't venture into her garage all week for fear of a rat-pack incursion.

Nearby, retired farmer Richard Greenwood, 84, spent £48 on rat poison but still watches rats boldly preening themselves just inches from his back door. 'I'm not scared of them and they're not scared of me,' he said. 'But the womenfolk don't like them at all.'

It's the same everywhere around North Marine Road, where the main infestation has taken hold. Alan and Julie Sanders regularly spot rats in their hedge, or scurrying along the tops of their garden walls.

Mrs Sanders now puts the rubbish out for a neighbour who is too scared to brave Ratville at night. Alan, 58, told me: 'I've only seen two or three at a time but they do seem to go around in gangs.'

As we talk, Cleo, the couple's tabby cat, comes in from the garden. 'She's normally a hunter,' says Alan. 'She brought a pheasant in through the cat-flap once, but she doesn't tackle the rats.'

Flamborough's rat population explosion is attributed to a variety of factors, some more fanciful than others. Two lunchtime drinkers in the local pub speculated it was punishment for evil deeds, and warned that a plague of locusts would surely follow.

Others simply blamed the damp summer. Favourite theory was that the rats were thriving on strips of corn which a local farmer left growing on the perimeter of fields when he ploughed them. It's a practice encouraged by environmentalists to help wildlife - and whatever your view of rats, they do qualify as wildlife.

But life is about to get tough for the invaders, and they'll find out soon that the chap patrolling the village yesterday wasn't the Pied Piper. With time running out before the area opens its doors for the tourist season, East Riding council's pest control officers have been baiting scores of traps in the colonised areas. The poison is already reducing numbers considerably.
Yesterday I watched a rodent family of about six as they swarmed inside a plastic trap the size of a shoebox, excitedly munching the bait. They won't be back. And soon, perhaps, the word will spread among their companions that it's time to leave the sinking ship.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... dents.html
 
The quote in the second from last paragraph is ringing a bell about massed rat armies. I am sure I read something about this in FT a while back


Rats infest popular seaside village
34 mins ago

Print Story Tourists are being urged not to let a huge rat infestation deter them from visiting a popular seaside village this summer. Pest controllers have been called in to tackle the rodent population of Flamborough, East Yorkshire, after thousands of rats were spotted in recent weeks.

Residents were shocked and disgusted when the village was overrun, with rats seen swarming across main roads, through verges and gardens.

The infestation, which first became apparent in January, has been blamed on rats feeding on strips of unharvested corn left at the perimeter of fields, a practice intended to help wildlife in the area.

John Crossland of Flamborough Parish Council said: "We think there are two main causes. One is the mild winters we have had over the past two or three years, so the basic population of rats has remained higher than normal. The second is that because this is a very large centre for migrating birds, Defra has encouraged farmers to leave corn standing at the edge of fields to feed the birds. Obviously it's difficult to differentiate whether the birds or the rats get the food."

But Cllr Crossland said pest controllers from East Riding of Yorkshire Council had worked hard to eliminate the rat population before the start of the tourist season, and urged potential visitors not to be deterred from coming to Flamborough.

"Basically we're back to normal," he said. "Farmers are not going to leave standing corn near residential properties anymore. This certainly should not put anybody off coming here."

The problem was focused around North Marine Road, where houses are located close to fields and hedgerows, giving the rodents shelter.

Local resident Steve Crowther told the Daily Mail: "A mate of mine was driving out of the pub and saw two or three hundred of them in the road. There was a carpet of them - just a big brown mass. As soon as the headlights caught them, they darted everywhere."

A spokesman for the local authority said: "The council was made aware of a rat problem in Flamborough at the end of January. Since then we have installed 30 bait boxes in the area and have been in contact with local landowners who are also taking action. The council is regularly visiting the area to check for progress and will continue to do so until the infestation problem is resolved. The council is happy that the treatment is being effective."

Source Yahoo HERE

Mr P
 
I remember hearing a similar story about a moving army of rats near where I lived in the late 60's/early 70's. Thinking back, it sounds like a FOAF story but there again, I also 'remember' reading about it in the local paper too.

So, Rat march. Foaf, false memory? 3 for 1.
I can't say that story's made me desperate to check out the tourist haunts of that area though.
 
More than you probably want to know about rats... :twisted:

Why we should learn to love rats
In a corner of Yorkshire, there's a plague of biblical proportions. Across the nation, there's an infestation. We may love to hate them, says Jonathan Brown – but have we got them all wrong?
Thursday, 26 March 2009

The old village of Flamborough, buttressed against the elements by high chalk cliffs that crumble perilously towards the North Sea below, is justifiably proud of its wildlife heritage. [Snip - see above...]

An explosion in the population of Rattus norvegicus, better known simply as the brown rat, has sent shockwaves of horror through the small community here. Locals reported huge packs – numbering 200 to 300-strong – blocking roads, swarming across gardens and bird tables and digging up grass verges. Cat flaps have been sealed, pets and children kept indoors. Flamborough has been dubbed Ratsville by prurient outsiders who gaze in twisted fascination at what is described as a biblical plague, sending television crews to broadcast every scurry and squirm live from this rat boomtown.

Arriving in Flamborough, I must confess to harbouring a gnawing anxiety at the prospect of rocking up in this latter-day Hamelin before the intervention of the vengeful piper. Like most Britons, I suffer from a fear of rats (and their equally flesh-crawling little cousin, the mouse).

My phobia dates back to my childhood, when I lived above my parents' greengrocer's. One summer's evening, as I sat blamelessly watching Blake's 7 on television, my father asked my brother and I to help with a small job in the shop. Armed with hammers and monkey wrenches, he dramatically rolled back the fake grass to reveal a seething mass of rodents, which he set about dispatching with brutal ferocity in a fury of squeaks and crunching sounds. It was an experience from which I have never really recovered, and I've spent much of my life ever since peering anxiously into darkened corners or starting at the slightest sound of rustling.

These are deeply worrying times for people like me and others who suffer from musophobia – the name for fear of mice or rats.

The UK's rat population is at an all-time high and sudden infestations, such as that witnessed in Flamborough, are becoming increasingly common. According to the most recent national rodent survey, the UK's ratcatchers reported a 90 per cent increase in business in 2008. Infestations have grown bigger and more frequent in the past 12 months. Experts were called in to deal with unwanted rats some 378,000 times – the highest figure since the survey began nine years ago.

While it is impossible to accurately know the extent of the rat population of Britain (one estimate has put their number at 81 million) it is clear that humans are easily outnumbered, and the imbalance shows signs of continuing to widen.

The main cause, argues the National Pest Technicians Association (NPTA), is the decision of local authorities to start charging up to £100 a time to deal with rat problems within their borders. Fortnightly bin collections and the decomposing mountains of discarded takeaway food that litter our streets are also to blame. But the well-intentioned householder must also shoulder some responsibility. Inadequately covered compost bins, the allotment boom and over-stocked bird feeders are fuelling the problem.

In Flamborough, it's the weather that's to blame. Waterlogged and snow-covered fields over winter meant local farmers were unable to plough in the rotting stubble, unwittingly providing an unlimited food source for this ever-opportunistic and resourceful rodent.

Keith Green, 70, enjoys the sunshine outside his Flamborough retirement bungalow as he recalls how at the height of the infestation he spotted 30 rats wandering around his immaculately manicured garden lawn and running through the trees like squirrels.
.......
Green is defying council advice to stop feeding the birds in his garden. "I said, it is a free country, they were here before us. There used to be so many birds of prey round here, you could see the hawks hovering over the clifftops, where have they all gone now? They used to keep the rats down, but they have all been shot," he said.

Britain's ratcatcher in-chief, John Davison, is a man with a somewhat less laissez-faire attitude to the rat problem. Now chief executive of the NPTA, he has been hunting rodents for 26 years and has never been busier. "Rats are public enemy number one," he tells me reassuringly. "They carry all sorts of diseases going back to the plague. You can't get much worse."

I find myself in agreement, until he admits that over the years of battle he has built up a sneaking admiration for his furry foe. "They are very intelligent, very astute – I respect them, as does everyone in this line of work," he adds.

The reason ratcatchers admire their prey so much is because of something called "new object reaction". This means if you put down a trap or poisoned bait, they will simply avoid it, which makes them rather hard to kill. "They are not stupid, and that's why they survive. When we are all dead and gone there will always be rats about. They will find a way to survive and we have to be very respectful of them," he says.

Alongside their cunning, rats are well-known for their rapacious ability to reproduce. Each female rat can give birth to eight babies or "kittens" every three to four weeks. They breed all year round and the young can produce their own litters from just three months. This poses another tricky problem for the catcher. "If we go to a factory where there are 1,000 rats and we only kill 800, in one month there will be 1,000 again. We have to aim for a 100 per cent kill rate, and that is before rats from surrounding areas start moving in," explains Davison.

And yet while there are so many, we so rarely see them. This is partly because they are nocturnal and live underground, but also because of their genius in not being seen. Recent film footage taken by a brook where children were feeding ducks revealed families surrounded by swarms of rats picking up dropped crumbs and running between their feet as they carried on oblivious. "I said to one woman, 'do you like rats?' and she said, 'No.' So I said, 'that's a shame, you've just had one sitting on your foot a moment ago.' :twisted: She couldn't believe it," says Davison. "People just don't like them. We've had 16-stone rugby players who won't go into a house because there's a rat there – and women, particularly, don't like their tails," he adds.

Humans have some very good reasons not to like rats. They are the main carrier of leptospirosis, scourge of moat swimmers and canoeists alike. Better known as Weil's disease, this potentially deadly bacterial infection is one of the world's major zoonoses – a condition like bird flu which can cross from animals to humans. It can be spread by rats' urine in water, though they are not the only carriers, and the number of cases remains low, at approximately 50 each year. Then there is rat-bite fever, cryptosporidiosis, viral haemorrhagic fever, Q fever and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome – all linked to rats and some of which are deadly. Yet for all this biological armoury, even those whose main aim in life is to kill rats are forced to admit they can scarcely recall a rat attacking a human, though they can get familiar very quickly and are more than happy to nibble the hard skin on the feet and hands of sleeping people. :shock:

The modern antipathy towards rats dates back to the plagues of the 14th century. The pandemic claimed the lives of up to 100 million people – it was the greatest catastrophe ever visited upon mankind and it was caused by the micro-organism Yersinia pestis, carried by the tropical rat flea Xenopsylla cheopis, which in turn lived on Rattus. Rattus was the forerunner of the modern brown rat. Better known as the black rat, Rattus was at that time the dominant rodent in Europe, having arrived from Asia shortly before the turn of the first millennium but which, like man, fell in vast numbers to the plague.

The black rat's larger and water-loving rival, the brown rat, was misnamed Rattus norvegicus by English naturalist John Berkenhout, who mistakenly believed it had arrived in this country on board Norwegian trading ships. Originally from Asia, it arrived during the industrial revolution and drove out its darker-furred cousin. Unfortunately for rat-haters, this history puts the brown rat and its present-day descendants in the clear as far as plague is concerned.

Not that all cultures demonise rats. Not all teenage schoolboys gorged on the gore-fest novels of James Herbert, with titles like The Rats and Lair, in which giant black rats overrun a post-apocalyptic world ruined by man. Not every culture shared the fears of Winston Smith in George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, whose greatest nightmare is a visit to Room 101 in the Ministry of Love, where the horrors of the rat chamber await.

Many civilisations rather like rats. In India, the rat is the vehicle of Lord Ganesh, while at Rajastan's famous Karni Mata Temple, some 20,000 rats can be found. Many Hindus travel great distances to pay their respects to the kabbas, or holy animals, that guard the shrine, believing them to be reincarnations of the deity's tribespeople. In China, the rat is one of the 12 members of the animal zodiac. People lucky enough to be born in the year of the rat are said to qualities of creativity, honesty, generosity and ambition.

Rats, it seems, also taste pretty good. Though Leviticus ruled them out of the Judeo-Christian diet from as early as 500BC, they are still traded as meat in parts of Asia. Last year, a quadrupling of the price of rat meat brought severe hardship to the poor of Cambodia. Cane rats are a common sight in Africa, being sold barbecued on sticks by roadside vendors. Even in Spain, before the advent of mass-produced chicken, ricefield rats were a sought-after ingredient of the paella recipe of the Valencia region.

So is it really possible to learn to love rats? Colin Arundel, president of the Yorkshire Rat Club, invited me to his farm cottage in Pontefract, to try to convince me. Rats, he explains, have been kept as pets in Britain ever since Queen Victoria's ratcatcher, Jack Black, first domesticated one. They were particularly popular with upper-class women, he explains, forbidden by their families from indulging in most other hobbies and activities on grounds of decorum. Rats became much loved companions.

"Mankind is illogical," explains Arundel, a 74-year-old retired market gardener and grandfather, as he piles a necklace of three huge Rex "fancy" rats on to my taut shoulders. "They are extremely curious, but man can't abide an animal that is as intelligent and curious as he is. They will acquire and they will learn very quickly," he says.

It is of great irony to him that, following a serious blood clot last year, he is being kept alive thanks to the anti-coagulant drug warfarin, a traditional rat poison. 8) "You really can't feel the tensions of life when you have got rats. Everything slows to their pace. You won't find them scratching at the door or howling on the roof like a cat – and you never have to take them for a walk. Compared with ferrets, they are very family-friendly and not sexist, like parrots, either," he says.

There are many amazing things about rats, it seems. They can smell stereoscopically, for example. This means that in a darkened room they can tell whether food is on the left or right of their nose within 50 thousandths of a second. A rat's tail – not at all cold and clammy but really rather beautiful – is a versatile prehensile tool that also acts as a cooling mechanism to make up for the fact that they don't sweat. For that matter, rats are never sick – like frogs, they are incapable.

One neuroscientist has even uncovered evidence that rats "laugh". When happy, apparently, they emit a series of ultrasonic chirps, rather like children. Their ability to feel happiness is further evidenced by their unique method of purring when content in their masters' hands. They will also blow in your ear and lick away your tears, though they do have a maddening habit of ripping off your glasses.

Rat owners will next month celebrate the ninth World Rat Day to help overturn the "ignorance and unthinking prejudice" that surrounds their favoured pet. Admittedly, Arundel's three rats are as different from wild rats as "a corgi is from a wolf" he says, though they are still highly bred brown rats. When you get up close and personal, you do start to see the attraction; though be warned – rat poo is extremely smelly and a bowel movement is easily brought on by handling.

......

10 rat facts

4
April is World Rat Day, an international rat holiday designed to recognise the rat as a pet and companion animal for people of all ages.

229
years after the Great Plague hit London in 1665, the probable cause of the disease was discovered. In 1894, during an epidemic in Hong Kong, two rival research teams isolated the bacillus Pasteurella pestis (now called Yersinia pestis), a disease of black rats and other rodents, spread by their fleas, that caused the plague.

18
How many months rats typically live to in the wild. Domestic rats live for an average of three years.

2,000
The size of a colony that one pair of rats can produce in a year. Females have a gestation period of 22-24 days.

30
The number of grams of food a rat eats on average in a day. This is the equivalent of 10 per cent of their body weight.

50
The number of metres the average rat's home is in diameter.

2020
The next year of the rat in the Chinese zodiac.

20%
amount of the world's food crop damaged each year by rats.

1,000,000
The number of hairs a pair of rats can shed in a year.

25,000
The number of droppings a single rat can leave in a year.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environmen ... 54156.html
 
I'd like to see a fact list about the nasty things humans do. Such as how much fecal matter a minute is produced per second or how many animal territories we invade/destroy every month or how many diseases we carry etc.
Long live the ratties and may they one day take over the world from us dumbass humans.
:evil:
 
Another record breaker!

Bangladesh crowns top rat killer
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8283607.stm

Farmers across Bangladesh are encouraged to kill as many rats as possible


A farmer has been crowned Bangladesh's champion rat catcher of 2009 after leading a team which he says killed more than 80,000 rodents in a month.

Mokhairul Islam was awarded a colour television at a ceremony attended by 500 farmers and officials in Dhaka.

He told the BBC he had disposed of 83,450 rats - more than double the tally set for all of last year.

The authorities launched the annual competition in an attempt to reduce the amount of crops eaten by rats.

Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world and experts say rats consume about 10% of its crops every year.

'Enemy'

Mr Islam - a wealthy farmer who owns about 300 acres of land and six poultry farms near the capital - said it was a great honour to receive the award.



Mr Islam receives his award in Dhaka
He described rats as "the most feared enemy for farmers" and said he had mainly used poison to kill them.

"Since killing the rats, I've saved loads of money on poultry feed and have better crops," the victorious 40-year-old told BBC Bengali after collecting his prize.

Mr Islam told the AFP news agency his livelihood was at stake.

"The rats ravage our farms. If I see one, I don't even stop to think. I just go for it and kill it. I am so happy to get this honour."

Officials say Mr Islam deposited the dead rodents' tails at the agriculture office in Gazipur district where he lives.

There were so many decaying tails that his figure of 83,450 had to be taken on trust.



Wednesday's prize giving ceremony attracted many onlookers
"We couldn't count all the tails because of the stench," local agriculture official Abbas Ali told the BBC.

There are also some doubts over whether the feat took just a month.

Mr Islam told the BBC it had been performed during February - other reports said it had been carried out in the first eight months of this year.

But officials were in no doubt he had smashed the existing record. That stood at 39,650 dead rats and was set by another farmer, Binoy Kumar Karmakar, in 2008.
 
Archaeologists Discover Biggest Rat That Ever Lived: Weight of About 6 Kilograms (Over 13 Lb)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 094909.htm

The skull of a black rat (right) compared with a fairly complete skull of one of Timor's other extinct giant rats (left). The giant rat shown here isn't the biggest of the extinct rats, which was around 25 per cent bigger again. The black rat (Rattus rattus) is one of the world's most common rat species. It is also known as the house, roof or ship rat and is found throughout Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas. A typical adult weighs about 150 grams. The skull of the black rat shown here is 35 mm long. (Credit: Ken Aplin, CSIRO)

ScienceDaily (July 26, 2010) — Archaeological research in East Timor has unearthed the bones of the biggest rat that ever lived, with a body weight around six kilograms.

The cave excavations also yielded a total of 13 species of rodents, 11 of which are new to science. Eight of the rats weighed a kilogram or more.

"East Indonesia is a hot spot for rodent evolution. We want international attention on conservation in the area," CSIRO's Dr Ken Aplin says.

"Rodents make up 40 per cent of mammalian diversity worldwide and are a key element of ecosystems, important for processes like soil maintenance and seed dispersal. Maintaining biodiversity among rats is just as important as protecting whales or birds."

Carbon dating shows that the biggest rat that ever lived survived until around 1000 to 2000 years ago, along with most of the other Timorese rodents found during the excavation. Only one of the smaller species found is known to survive on Timor today.

"People have lived on the island of Timor for over 40,000 years and hunted and ate rats throughout this period, yet extinctions did not occur until quite recently," Dr Aplin says.

"We think this shows people used to live sustainably on Timor until around 1000 to 2000 years ago. This means extinctions aren't inevitable when people arrive on an island. Large scale clearing of forest for agriculture probably caused the extinctions, and this may have only been possible following the introduction of metal tools."

Each of the islands of eastern Indonesia evolved it own unique collection of rats. Dr Aplin has also found six new rat species in a cave on the island of Flores. Some of these might still be living on Flores but they have evaded detection by modern collectors and further surveys are urgently needed.

Timor has few native mammals, with bats and rodents making up the majority of species. Most of Timor today is arid, transformed from the lush rainforests of the past. But there is still room for imagination.

"Although less than 15 per cent of Timor's original forest cover remains, parts of the island are still heavily forested, so who knows what might be out there?" Dr Aplin says.

"During a recent field trip in East Timor, I found the remains of a freshly dead rat which we knew about only from cave deposits."

Until Dr Aplin finds a larger one, today's biggest rats weigh around 2 kg and live in rainforests in the Philippines and New Guinea.


The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by CSIRO Australia.
 
The link is for the spoken word 'Shed Reading' by Henry Rollins about Rattus Norvegicus.

http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/blackflag ... gicus.html

Last summer I nearly got knocked off my bike by a rat on the cycle path between Lancaster & Morecambe. It set off like blazes accross the cycle track and bumped into my front wheel with its nose, emitting a squeal as it did. i nearly came off and said "ooh dear", or somethnig like that!
 
Just finished reading Genesis Plague by Michael Byrnes which is about rats being used to pass on the plague in a modern conspiracy type scenario.
We had rats once a few years ago that came down from the roof and through the heater. Really pretty orange fluffy ones.
I even rang the conservation people to see if they were native but they couldn't help me. They used to chirp as they came in. Sadly I had to get rid of them as they chewed through my linen, some books and the computer cable.
I saw some briefly on tv awhile later and I think they were some kind of pet breed. Maybe someone had let some out and they'd decided my roof was a good place to live.
 
Invasion of giant rats
By ALASTAIR TAYLOR

HORRIFIED neighbours told yesterday how their homes are being invaded by giant rats - including a 30-INCH LONG monster that was shot dead.
The rodents, twice the size of common types, are plaguing an estate in Bradford, West Yorks, often appearing in kitchens and lounges.

It is feared some could be "super rats" from South America.
Pictured above is a monster 2½ft rat killed on the estate.

But the shaken man who shot it in the head - 31-year-old Brandon Goddard - yesterday revealed FOUR others of the same size scuttled away to safety.

And he said: "They were more like Ratzillas than rats.

"I got out of there as fast as I could. Who knows how many there will be if they've been breeding?"

The shot rat, feared to be from a species native to South America, is TWICE as big as common British types and the largest seen here.

The residents of Ravenscliffe estate in Bradford, West Yorks, are used to seeing massive rodents that sometimes appear in their kitchens and lounges.

Even so, the new colony shocked them. Shown a picture of the dead creature, mum-of-five Rebecca Holmes, 38, gasped: "Oh my God! I've seen them as big as cats but never that big."

Brandon toted an air rifle as he went "ratting" with pals on the edge of the estate - which they had heard was rife with rodents.

The group heard "rustling and scrabbling" before the five huge rats shot out from behind a wall. Brandon, a manager at a cleaning firm, said: "The first went right past but we got the second one. Then three more got away.

"I've seen thousands of rats during the course of my work and go shooting a couple of times a week. But I've never seen any as big as this. The one I shot was absolutely terrifying. I was shaking. Goodness knows where the others went. I'm glad I don't live there."

After taking the photo, the ratters dumped the shot rodent in undergrowth. It is thought it was eaten by a fox.

The estate has long had a monster rat problem. Rebecca told how her cat Marie cornered one in her lounge. But it stood and fought as it was just as big as the moggy.
A neighbour clobbered it with a baseball bat.

And he and Marie took five dead rats to the local council's offices, tipping them over a desk to demand action. :shock:

Rebecca said: "They came quickly, blocked holes and put down poison. But people still see them outside regularly."

Neighbour Julie Briggs, 28, told how she and partner Andrew Denton, 24, hear rats fighting and squealing in the walls of their rented semi, which stands opposite open countryside.

Mum-of-six Julie said: "I find droppings on the cooker when they get into the house. I've seen them in the lounge as we watch TV.

"At night you can hear them chasing each other in the loft. They sound like drag racing cars as they screech across the rafters."

Last night experts called the shot rat "extraordinary" and said the colony was worth investigating.

Laura Drake, of the Mammal Society, speculated it could be a coypu - a South American rodent often referred to as a "giant rat".

Coypus were thought to have been eradicated in Britain in a cull 20 years ago. But Laura said it was "not impossible" there had been survivors.

Yorkshire Rat Club president Colin Arundel said rodents, like humans, could simply be getting bigger as food becomes more and more available.

The RSPCA said: "The most likely answer is the shot rat was from a non-indigenous species that was in captivity and got out."

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... z0x2ehcYbo
 
A sort-of follow-up to the story above:

In search of the giant rat
Are plagues of huge rats really overrunning the UK? There was only one way to find out…

....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... -giant-rat

Long article, with interesting facts like this:
There are also suggestions that rats are becoming resistant to rodenticides. Robert Smith, a retired professor, is working on a survey of rats from around six areas of the UK that have become resistant to anticoagulant, the main rodenticide used by pest controllers. "People have been trying to deal with rats for centuries," Smith says. "They used to use toxic plants to poison them, but rats evolved behaviour to counteract that. They developed 'taste aversion'. They are neophobic – they have a fear of anything 'new' – so with a new food, they won't gorge themselves on it, they will just nibble, then go away and see if it harms them. Rodents can't vomit; once they've swallowed something they can't get rid of it, so they are very careful. If something makes them feel ill, the memory of that taste stays with them for their lifetime." What's more, he says, rats can communicate this information to other rats, probably through scent on their breath. "That makes it difficult to kill a rat with anything that makes them feel ill quickly."
 
Rodent boom after rat catcher cull as one in ten councils no longer provides pest control
By David Derbyshire
Last updated at 8:40 AM on 26th October 2010

The plummeting number of pest control staff is leaving streets and homes at risk of being overrun by rats, mice and bed-bugs, experts warned last night.
One in ten councils no longer provides a pest control service and the problem is getting worse.
Just eight years ago, only one in 100 had no pest control department, said the Chartered Institute for Environmental Health.

Over the same period, councils have pushed up charges for eradicating rats, mice, bed-bugs and lice as well as cutting back on the range of pests they target.
Tim Everett, of the Institute, said the survey of 258 councils in England and Wales was ‘particularly worrying’ as the impact of last week’s budget cuts had yet to be felt.
He added the remaining pest control units looked ‘very vulnerable’ as councils were not required by law to provide the service.
‘The people most likely to lose out are those of limited incomes,’ said Mr Everett. ‘It could lead to much higher pest populations and increase the spread of diseases. This is basic public health stuff.’

The warning follows fears of a vermin explosion fuelled by fortnightly rubbish collections, which lead to bins overflowing with rotting food, the popularity of compost heaps and the failure of water firms to routinely bait sewers.

Bed-bug populations have also soared 38 per cent since 1992, said the institute. The blood sucking creatures, which live in cracks in furniture and walls, had been in decline in the 1980s.

Many taxpayers who call their council for advice are told to contact Rentokill or other private companies.
Those who do provide the service are demanding more. In 2002, more than 80 per cent offered free rat-catching or poisoning. Now the figure is around 68 per cent.
The number giving free treatment for bed-bugs has also fallen, from 50 per cent to 30 per cent.
A spokesman for the Local Government Association blamed the ‘huge pressures’ on council budgets.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z13S1DoX00
 
Rare and enigmatic fishing rat soon becomes nuisance
By Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News

The Stolzmann's fish-eating rat was one of the rarest mammals in the world, known from only seven specimens.

But a new survey has revealed that, far from being on the brink of extinction, this once enigmatic rat species is becoming a "nuisance" to local fishermen, stealing their catches.

The rise of the rare rat may be due to the increase in trout-fishing in South America, where the rat lives, providing easy meals for a species that locals now see as a pest alongside other rodents, parrots and pigeons.

Details of the rat's new status are published in the journal Mammalian Biology.

Stolzmann's fish-eating rat (Ichthyomys stolzmanni) is a medium-sized rodent measuring around 20cm from head to tail.
It is one of the least known rodents.
Before the new survey, it had only been recorded seven times.

The rat was first discovered in 1893 at an altitude of over 900m in Chanchamayo, near Tarma in Peru.
Six further specimens were found in the 1920s at a similar altitude, but this time in Ecuador.
The Stolzmann's fish-eating rat was not then recorded by scientists in the wild for a further 90 years.

That was until Peruvian biologists Victor Pacheco and Joaquin Ugarte-Nunez conducted a new survey, searching for the species.
They managed to trap four new specimens of Stolzmann's fish-eating rat in the department of Ayacucho, Peru, more than 300km further south than where the species was originally found.

But they also uncovered evidence that suggests this rat species is far more ubiquitous than previously thought.
Indeed, they go as far as to say that the Stolzmann's fish-eating rat is becoming a "nuisance".

Local people, landowners and workers at fish farms along the Vinchos river in Ayacucho told the scientists that they regularly see the rats scurrying around the town of Vinchos, and that sightings have increased since the 1970s, when trout farms in the area expanded.

The locals also told the researchers that Stolzmann's fish-eating rats regularly eat baby trout being grown in the trout farms, reducing the farm's productivity.

etc...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_ne ... 383327.stm
 
Reading bedridden woman bitten by rat

A bedridden woman in her 80s has been bitten by a rat amid an infestation in a suburb of Reading.
The woman and the family living next door have been evacuated from their homes in Southcote.
James Sullivan, 16, said that his six-year-old sister woke up with two rats on her bed and will no longer sleep in her own room as a result.
Reading Borough Council and Thames Valley Police said they are "investigating".

The infestation has spread in the Byefield Road, Hatford Road and Brunel Road area of Southcote.
Chris Sullivan said that his next door neighbour had been bitten by a rat and that contractors sent by the council had now put rat bait down nearby sewers.
His son James said a rat had gnawed a hole through the draught excluder by his bedroom door.
"I woke up in the middle of the night and heard gnawings so I looked down and there was a rat crawling through," he said.

His mother Alison Sullivan said they have let the council know about the rat problem for the past three years.
She said: "I had a letter from the council last Monday to say that there was no problem with rats.
"Then two days later they were asking us to move out into a bed and breakfast while they sorted it out."


Southcote ward councillor Deborah Edwards, who is also Reading's mayoress, said: "I know that this being attended to and hopefully this will be sorted out."

Council spokesman Oscar Mortali said its environmental health team was "aware of a rat infestation in the general area" and was "investigating possible links with the drainage system and the laying of bait".
He added: "As part of that work we have offered temporary accommodation to occupants in adjoining properties so that the team can gain the necessary access to carry out further work."

Police spokesman Adam Fisher said: "We are working with partner agencies to investigate the living conditions an elderly woman was found in at her home address in Byefield Road in late June."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-14109561
 
Pensioner dies after being bitten by rats thriving under fortnightly bin regime
A pensioner has died just weeks after being bitten by rats amid allegations by neighbours that fortnightly bin collections in the area were encouraging rodents.
10:00PM BST 21 Jul 2011

The elderly woman was believed to have been left helpless in her home as it was overrun by rats while she was bedbound following a stroke.
Days after being attacked the 80-year-old was rushed to hospital where she died more than two weeks after she was admitted.

Thames Valley Police have launched an investigation into the death and were believed to be probing the pensioner's living conditions.
Neighbours in the quiet suburb of Reading, where the woman lived, have been temporarily evacuated while the council tries to bring the rodent infestation under control.
They claim the problem became much worse after the council moved to fortnightly household refuse collections instead of weekly.
They told how rats were entering their homes through pipes and even coming up through the lavatories.
One man even claimed he had found rats under his daughter's bed.

However Reading Borough Council officials, who along with Thames Water, have launched a probe into the epidemic, strongly denied the allegation.
"At this stage there has been no reports of rats using bins as a food source. There is no link between the move to weekly separated waste collections where households follow the advice given to them and keep there refuse in a closed wheelie bin," said a spokesman.

The elderly woman was believed to have been attacked by rodents in her bed as she lay convalescing at the end of June.
She and her neighbours were evacuated from their homes to nearby bed and breakfasts following the incident.
However, the woman was rushed to the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, on July 1, where she died between July 14 and 15.

James Sullivan, aged 16 years, who lived next door told how his six-year-old sister awoke with two rats on her bed and will no longer sleep in her own room as a result.
He also said that a rat had gnawed a hole through the draught excluder by his bedroom door.
"I woke up in the middle of the night and heard gnawings so I looked down and there was a rat crawling through," he said.
His mother Alison Sullivan said they had been calling the council know about the rat problem for the past three years.

It also emerged that the local authority charge almost 12 times more to call out pest controller than neighbouring counties.
In Reading a call out costs £114 pounds – which is a £104 pounds more than the £10 pounds charged in Slough.
The council spokesman said the cost was introduced by the previous administration and was being monitored by the new administration with a view to review them if deemed necessary.

Thames Water has been baiting and investigating its sewage network while the council was doing drainage work in the area this week.
"The current evidence points to a drainage issue and this is where are efforts are being focused at this present time," said the council spokesman.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/enviro ... egime.html
 
Rat race: Scilly islands back plans to get rid of 3,100 rodents
Conservationists on British archipelago to poison brown rats, which are wreaking havoc on precious bird populations
Steven Morris guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 July 2011 10.19 BST

The rat population on the Scilly islands of St Agnes and Gugh may not have quite reached Hamelin-like proportions.
Nevertheless, the entire adult population of the two islands has backed plans by conservationists to rid the place of rodents.
The problem is not that 3,100 brown rats menace the 70-odd human beings – but they are wreaking havoc on precious bird populations.

Tony Whitehead, a spokesman for the bird conservation charity the RSPB, said rats were a problem across the Isles of Scilly, the archipelago lying 28 miles off the southwest coast of mainland Britain.
Between 1983 and 2006 it was estimated that the bird population fell by almost 25%. "The availability of food is a major problem but the rats are also having a significant impact on birdlife," said Whitehead.

Two of the key species under threat by rats are the storm petrel and manx shearwater, both of which nest in burrows and so are easy prey for rodents.
But the rats are not fussy and also target the Scilly shrew, only found on the islands, crabs and even limpets.

A feasibility [study?] concluded that the rat population could be eradicated on St Agnes and Gugh, which are linked by a sandbar, because they are far enough away from other islands to make it impossible for other rats to swim across and take their places.
The programme is also considered a priority because St Agnes and Gugh are close to an uninhabited island, Annet, which has hugely important colonies of seabirds and the fear is rats could reach there and cause devastation.

The RSPB, Natural England and other local conservation groups are asking the European Commission for a grant of £160,000 to bring in pest-control experts to poison the rats.
According to the groups, they asked every adult on the islands and nobody objected to the idea.
"We're all very pleased that they are going to try to get rid of the rats," said Jimmy Paget-Brown, who runs a self-catering cottage on St Agnes.

Many islands have armed themselves with vicious-looking rat traps and poison but a rat census found there are still between 20 and 25 rats per hectare.
Paget-Brown insisted that it wasn't obvious that the island was over-run by rats. "It's not as if you see them running all over the place. I can't remember the last time I saw one but of course they are there and we'd rather they weren't."

Rats have been removed from the island of Lundy, off the coast of Devon, in recent years easing pressure on bird populations.

It is not just a British problem. The RSPB is carrying out a rat eradication programme on Henderson Island in the south Pacific to try to protect birds including petrels.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... nfestation
 
Rats

Does anyone know how to deter these creatures from the garden?

In the past I found I had one and recently Ive witnessed two young ones in my garden.

Although they never cause any harm Im worried about the children playing in the garden and touching something where a Rat has been.
 
Ask yourself why they are in your garden. You got ducks, chickens, put food out for the birds? Store apples in your shed?
Are they nesting under your garage?

The only way to get rid of rats is to kill them, and eliminate the reason they have been visiting. Remove food sources, destroy nest sites. You can't deter them for more than 2 minutes with those sonic things, they'll just go round them, and then before long chew the shit out of them.

You will probably need professional help.
 
Yeah, I'd agree that the key question is why do you have rats in your garden in the first place? Is there something about your garden that would particularly attract them? If so, then obviously you can address that, and there's your problem sorted. Or is your garden merely impinging on their territory?

For example, do you back onto a slow-moving river or stream? Are you near any takeaways with a rather lax food disposal policy? In which case, the only immediate difference that laying poison or traps is going to make is that instead of encountering the occasional rat on its way to somewhere else, you're also going to have to deal with rat corpses. Which - if you're worried about children - is obviously far more unhygienic and unpleasant.

Personally, I've thankfully never had to deal with a rat infestation. However, I have kept rats as pets. They're remarkably intelligent animals - IMHO far more intelligent than cats or dogs. However, they do also seem to be creatures of habit.

One thing I noticed about my own pet rats is that they defined a relatively small area of territory for themselves, and then patrolled it in a very clockwork kind of manner. They're also very tenacious about their nests. I've built what I considered to be amazing nests for them, and then they've totally spurned them and decided to take up residence in the arm of a sofa, or a corner of a cupboard, or whatever, and that's that. (Well, obviously you can forcibly keep them confined to a cage, but personally I preferred to let them have their own way. It was more fun both for them and for me.)

Anyhow, that's about the limit of my knowledge of rats. On reflection, it's probably not that helpful at all...
 
hi i am going through this at this very moment, there's an old storm drain entrance into my garden and a canal just a few feet away, so my garden is the rat's playground and always has been.
I have a compost bin and do put bird food out, and had been noticing the rodents climbing up the birdtable and on one occasion had opened up the compost bin only to find one of the little chaps staring back at me. (not sure who jumped the most :D )
However as my daughter keeps rats as pets i will admit to a fondness for them and an appreciation of their intelligence (and even a sense of humour) so didnt mind too much.
Unfortunately they decided to build a whacking great hideout under my rockery just by the base of said storm drain which is enclosed in a sort of brick box, which didnt do my plants much good.
Anyway giving them leeway i just filled in their entrance holes as i found them but to no avail.
It culminated in a point at the beginning of January when sitting quietly working at my computer one day i saw one of the little monkeys running round the edge of my living room. :shock:
Long story short.. sonic devices do not work, the rats just get used to them after a couple of days and they have too many blank spots to be effective.
Apart from mass murder the only other way is to set live cage traps which you'll probably have to buy a few of (amazon etc) and then take them literally miles away to release them or they'll just find their way home.
Persuasion doesnt work.
 
oh and while you're trying to catch them, bait the traps with something tasty-avocado is a favourite, peanut butter goes down well and chocolate-leave them to get used to them for a few days and dont feed the birds or do any composting to cut out alternate food sources.
Or you could get a Jack Russell.
 
I tried one of those humane trap things and they chewed it up. Get an outdoor cat or a terrier. Or, if you are fed up to the point of cruelty, get a dustbin, half fill it with water, and chuck in some out-of-date food. After a day or two it will be full of drowned rats, but your conscience will trouble you for years.
 
The neighbours ( if i can call him that as he never passes the time of day to anyone) garden is in a right state. Beyond our gardens lie garages and it seems in the past someone had beendumping carrier bags of rubbish! Why the hell would you go about doing that and not place it in bins!!!!!

My Rat problem though seems to have developed shortly after my dog passed away. Also, alot of cats visit the garden and Im hoping they catch the blighters.
 
rynner2 said:
We already have a thread on Rats! here:
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewt ... 924#161924

The OP says According to tonight's Reporting Scotland "nobody is ever further than 10 feet away from a rat". They are very common!

Yep I have heard of that. I used to state this same fact in one of my previous job roles - Personal Development Officer. You always came across the "Im not gunna do this course. Im a victim and have rights. I dont want to work etc" I recall once scoffing to a colleague that such individuals are closer to rats then the rest of us - in their case the rat is digesting inside their stomach!

:D
 
The stupid legend (to give it mildly!) that you are never more than 10 feet from a rat has long been debunked (think about it! it's obvious rubbish!) the only source for it being traceable to an unsupported speech by a 1950's MP. THIS IS WELL KNOWN!!!
 
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