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Rats! Rats! Rats!

Went into the shed today. And on a bench was a part eaten apple. Damn, He's back.

So I left the rest of the apple where it was, and prepared a small offering of 'afters'.

Did you know that rats don't appear to like apple peel ? All around the apple were small shavings of peel. It seems that they remove the peel to get at the soft fruit inside.

Ginger Tabby,

You really aught to report those rats to the local council, or put some poison down yourself.

It may seem cute for the security to give them names. But they are a real menace.

INT21.

That's sensible advice, INT21. Putting down poison wouldn't likely go over well with the powers-that-be at my place of employment but reporting the rodents is definitely an option.

To be honest, I found the naming of the rats to be a bit peculiar but it occurred to me that the security guard may have been trying to wind up my colleague. If so, he succeeded.
 
Damn rats.

There is one (or more) in the loft above my head.

First sign of frost and they are back. Now I'll have to go up there and prepare them a snack.

With the number of cats around here I am amazed there are any rats left.
 
A choice of toxic substances now on offer for my new house guest(s).

So, ratty, eat, drink and be merry; for tomorrow you die.
 
"With the number of cats around here I am amazed there are any rats left."

We have a cat. Next door has two (who often come to visit).

And yet I still spotted a fair-sized brown rat scampering along the top of our fence a couple of days ago.
 
Our cat spends all his time out there some place. Only comes back to eat and sleep.

His predecessor used to catch rats and line them up on the doorstep.

I hope to stop this years rat run before it really gets underway. No idea how they get in the house. But I suspect it it via the hollow wall gap. Very difficult to do anything about that.
 
Our cat spends all his time out there some place. Only comes back to eat and sleep.

His predecessor used to catch rats and line them up on the doorstep.

I hope to stop this years rat run before it really gets underway. No idea how they get in the house. But I suspect it it via the hollow wall gap. Very difficult to do anything about that.

There's an epidemic of visible rats in the UK due to the flooding.
 
I like this. Admirably opportunist little critters!

Coronavirus: Why more rats are being spotted during quarantine

The closure of restaurants and the retreat by humans indoors is having an effect on the eating habits and behaviour of rats, say experts.

Late last month, the French Quarter in New Orleans had new swarms of visitors wandering its famous streets.

Not long after the coronavirus closed bars and restaurants in the Louisiana city, rats were coming out of hiding.

That more rodents were being spotted comes as no surprise to renowned urban rodentologist Robert Corrigan.

"When you have a colony of rats on a block that has been depending on tourists littering and lots of trash put out at night - it could be DC, it could be New York - anyplace where rats have been depending the easy handouts, and that disappears, then they don't know what to do," he says.

As Claudia Riegel, with the New Orleans pest control board, told journalists: "These rats are hungry."

Humans around the world are changing their behaviours due to the threat of the coronavirus pandemic.

Quite a lot more here:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52177587
 
I like this. Admirably opportunist little critters!

Coronavirus: Why more rats are being spotted during quarantine

The closure of restaurants and the retreat by humans indoors is having an effect on the eating habits and behaviour of rats, say experts.

The very wet autumn and winter has already increased the amount of visible rats because their dens have been flooded and they have been seeking out new ones.
 
Well, I finally gave up the unequal battle with the rats coming into my house. I had managed to block off all their access to food, and (I thought) bunged up the way they were getting in to the house, and even having caught one in a trap, Because they were eating my carpet, for goodness sake.

So I called the council.

Amazingly a chap came round yesterday and has laid traps and poison all over. He was from the council's pest control and was masked and gloved. (COVID-19, not rats). He was very confident that they won't last a week. My only worry is my terrier eating a dead one. It's only a slight worry, because although he has never caught a rat he's caught a couple of mice before, and he's dropped them as soon as they are dead. But I am by nature a worrier, a ridiculous and contradictory situation in one who is also a fatalist :)
 
I think it might be going to be a cold Winter because friends are reporting mice and rats around their houses.
I'm still using the talon pellets which usually gets rid of them quickly.
However I'm having to put out a bait station's worth every couple of days although I haven't heard any in the walls.
So I either have very sneaky ones, a silent plague, or maybe a rat with heart problems that needs to use blood thinners.
 
Because Covid-19 just isn't enough for some people.

In 2018, infectious disease experts at the University of Hong Kong came across an unusual patient.
The 56-year-old man, who had undergone a liver transplant, was showing abnormal liver functions with no obvious cause.
Tests found that his immune system was responding to hepatitis E -- but they couldn't actually find the human strain of the hepatitis E virus (HEV) in his blood.
Hepatitis E is a liver disease that can also cause fever, jaundice and an enlarged liver. The virus comes in four species, which circulate in different animals; at the time, only one of these four was known to infect humans.
With tests for that human strain of HEV negative, the researchers redesigned the diagnostic test, ran it again -- and found, for the first time in history, rat hepatitis E in a human.
Since that first study, 10 more Hong Kong residents have tested positive with rat hepatitis E, also known as rat HEV.


https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/08/health/hong-kong-rat-hepatitis-intl-hnk-scn/index.html
 
Because Covid-19 just isn't enough for some people.

In 2018, infectious disease experts at the University of Hong Kong came across an unusual patient.
The 56-year-old man, who had undergone a liver transplant, was showing abnormal liver functions with no obvious cause.
Tests found that his immune system was responding to hepatitis E -- but they couldn't actually find the human strain of the hepatitis E virus (HEV) in his blood.
Hepatitis E is a liver disease that can also cause fever, jaundice and an enlarged liver. The virus comes in four species, which circulate in different animals; at the time, only one of these four was known to infect humans.
With tests for that human strain of HEV negative, the researchers redesigned the diagnostic test, ran it again -- and found, for the first time in history, rat hepatitis E in a human.
Since that first study, 10 more Hong Kong residents have tested positive with rat hepatitis E, also known as rat HEV.


https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/08/health/hong-kong-rat-hepatitis-intl-hnk-scn/index.html
Because somebody ate a rat that was improperly cooked?
 
Because Covid-19 just isn't enough for some people.

In 2018, infectious disease experts at the University of Hong Kong came across an unusual patient.
The 56-year-old man, who had undergone a liver transplant, was showing abnormal liver functions with no obvious cause.
Tests found that his immune system was responding to hepatitis E -- but they couldn't actually find the human strain of the hepatitis E virus (HEV) in his blood.
Hepatitis E is a liver disease that can also cause fever, jaundice and an enlarged liver. The virus comes in four species, which circulate in different animals; at the time, only one of these four was known to infect humans.
With tests for that human strain of HEV negative, the researchers redesigned the diagnostic test, ran it again -- and found, for the first time in history, rat hepatitis E in a human.
Since that first study, 10 more Hong Kong residents have tested positive with rat hepatitis E, also known as rat HEV.


https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/08/health/hong-kong-rat-hepatitis-intl-hnk-scn/index.html
More reinforce for my hatred of RATS! Don't mind spiders, snakes, bugs, ells, etcs... Rats are the animal I hate and this post provides additional reinforcement. Also the buggers are smart. Chipmunks, mice, squirrels are easy to trap when they invest my house, but rats nada. Took me > 6 months to get rid of a small group of rats in my basement. They were amazing at getting the food and not getting caught. Got them fu.king rats eventually.
 
Are times are coming.......but for now lunch..
pastarat.jpg
 
It's a boy, the large set of conkers are just out of shot. Now his cousin is a real chubby chap..
IMGP0588-min.JPG
 
"Skrat was the first to volunteer for the Experimental Archaeology paper provided he was named in the credits"
 
Maybe Geldof could be soaked in formaldehyde and wrapped in plastic and put on display in the Natural History Museum (er, after he's dead of course).

Bob Geldof has said that a publicity stunt by the Boomtown Rats which saw 1,000 rodents posted to radio hosts was “basically the end” of the band’s chances of finding success in the US.

The musician and activist told the BBC’s The One Show that the band sent rats that had been soaked in formaldehyde and wrapped in plastic to DJs across America.

He told the programme: “It was 1,000 dead actual rats which were ordered from the sanitation department of New York City and sent out from Chicago to 1,000 disc jockeys who were busy playing disco in the middle of the Seventies.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/break...-stunt-ended-hopes-of-us-success-1002087.html
 
1,000 dead actual rats which were ordered from the sanitation department of New York City
I like that this is a service that was offered by the NYC sanitation department. "Yes, sir. We can do you seven gross dead rats, no problem. Packaged fresh and delivered to your door or any address of your choosing within the 48 contiguous states." Is there a retail division, or just wholesale? What else was on the menu? Wonder if they could rustle me up a dozen or so alligators? Questions, questions...
 
I like that this is a service that was offered by the NYC sanitation department. "Yes, sir. We can do you seven gross dead rats, no problem. Packaged fresh and delivered to your door or any address of your choosing within the 48 contiguous states." Is there a retail division, or just wholesale? What else was on the menu? Wonder if they could rustle me up a dozen or so alligators? Questions, questions...
Were they gift wrapped as part of the service?
 
For Halloween they may send out gift-wrapped horses heads.
 
For Halloween they may send out gift-wrapped horses heads.

Don Corleone made an irresistable haggis. It was an offal you couldn't refuse.

He also issued discount vouchers for pizza. One per customer, non-transferrable. They were offers you couldn't re-use.
 
I suppose a rat coming through the post on Valentine's day would be sending a message to 'that special person.

Much less postage to pay than on a horses head.
 
Cockroaches, they must offer cockroaches. They could send them in a chocolate box with a cockroach in each of the little paper cups.

In San Francisco years ago I saw a giant cockroach ambling down the sidewalk in the middle of the day. He had the whole sidewalk to himself.
 
Rats tend to stay within the same 150-to-200-foot diameter, happily gorging, for example, on one restaurant’s garbage their entire life. As those rats ran out of food in the aftermath of nonessential businesses shutting down, they’ve ranged more widely out of hunger. Fyffe says she’s worked with restaurants that have remained open for takeout and seen an influx of rodents. “Those clients have called us and said, ‘We need more control. We’ve never had this many rats!’ And they say, ‘Chicago’s rat population must be soaring,’” she explains. “No, that’s not the issue. You’re the only person on the block putting garbage in the dumpster, so all of the rats, instead of going to 20 dumpsters, they’re all coming to one.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/06/pandemic-rats-urban-wildlife/612775/
 
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