Too Much To Dream

Once upon a time my grandfather was afflicted by a rat in his house. There's a picture of the house still up over at my blog; the rat prowled the back corridor where there was an old fashioned walk in pantry. He was, I think, very like the rats in The Roly Poly Pudding (surely the most terrifying Beatrix Potter tale) save for the waistcoat. Ithad gnawed a hole in the wall (not at all a subtle rat).

Grandad was a hunter when he wasn't doctoring. When he had had enough, he sat up late one night with a shotgun, quieter than any cat, peacefully smoking his pipe, until the rat appeared. Boom! Vaporized rat. He scraped up the remains, and called in the carpenters in the morning to deal with the, uh, collateral damage.

This was about 1930. Probably couldn't get away with this anymore; have to hire a Licensed Animal Nuisance Control Expert. Grandad set off 4th of July fireworks from his backyard, too.

Some people have all the fun. I only got to watch as my father hunted a rat in the bottom of washing machine with a pellet gun. The way he jumped up on that counter be could have been in the NBA!

I lived in an old hotel in Greenville, Pa in '71 that was infested with rats. River Rats. Some of them were about a foot long, not including the tail.

still shuddering

We used to sit on the balcony overlooking the "river", throw slices of bread on the river bank and shoot them with a .22 when they came out to get the bread.

I can still hear them scuttling along in the walls. You don't know horror till you come home after a hard night of drinking and turn on the light in the kitchen to see the floor crawling with the vile creatures.

Then again, maybe it was the acid.

One of the joys of where I live is that we don't get rats. Though, in Australia, it's the spiders you have to look out for! :|

You need to check out the Borg rat on my blog. Any day now, I expect to be assimilated.

I was almost devoured by a rat as an infant. Seems one tunneled up to my grandparents' home from the creek behind their property, dug in under the crawlspace, and gnawed through the drywall into the room where my folks and I were sleeping while we visited.

My mom says that the first night we were there we heard this weird scratching, but couldn't find the source. The second night, she awoke suddenly and glanced over at my crib, where she saw a "dark mass" perched on the railing. She panicked and flailed her arm at it, sending it sailing across the room and into the wall.

When they switched on the light and discovered it was a rat, the expected full scale freakout ensued, complete with hunting rifle and pieces of ex-rat scattered about the outdoors (my grandfather trapped it, took it outside and blew it away, then affixed a piece of steel to the hole in the wall).

I apparently slept through the whole thing.

Rats aren't nearly as tasty as they look.

Jack's story reminds me of my dad. As a kid in the late 30s or early 40s, he stayed at a cabin with a family friend named Buck, who was probably best described as the 20th century's equivalent of a mountain man. He woke in the middle of the night to the gentle sound of Buck shooting rats with a .45.

Steve, they may taste like pumpkin-pie, but I'd never know.

Anyway, this gets one to remembering a whole nest of them being disturbed by "urban renewal" just behind our back yard when I was a kid. My mother is still deathly afraid of them, and sees them pretty much everywhere when it's dark enough.

Scott Wickstein, what do you mean you don't get rats in Australia? Where do you live, Coober Pedy?

I had rats in my Sydney apartment. The owner's representative was cool to helping me get rid of them, until rats turned up in his office. I had nothing to do with it, I swear!

I was spared the spiders, though.

Rat-killing 101:

You will need:
1. Pellet gun (large enough to kill said rat).
2. Laser pointer
3. Duct tape.
4. Flashlight.
5. Plastic bag.
6. Comfortable chair.
7. Patience.
7.

Steps:
1.Tape the laser pointer to the barrel of the pellet gun so it points in the direction of your target.
2. Sight it in (outside where you can't hurt anything or anyone) for a range of about 10 feet or so.
3. Place the comfortable chair in your ambush room (probably the kitchen).
4. Sit in the chair with your flashlight and pellet gun.
5. When you hear the rat, turn on the laser pointer and ready your pellet gun.
6. Turn on the flashlight in the direction of the noise. If it's the rat...
7. Place the "death dot" from the laser pointer on your target and pull the trigger.
8. Place dear rat in the plastic bag and dispose of it.
9. Clean up the mess.

Of course, if you have night-vision goggles, you won't need the flashlight...

Oops. Please disregard the second "7" under the "You will need..." And Step 8 should read "dead" not "dear" rat...

I once worked in a grocery store, and found a rat scurrying around the floor one day. He proceeded to face me and tried to intimidate me despite the 320:1 difference in our repsective weights. Down went the mop broom (you know, a yard wide flat cotton sweeper), and he was on his way to rat heaven.

Yak:

Sounds like a better technique than mine. Do you know that a pellet rifle can shoot a hole right through at least one sheet of drywall? Neither did I. I proved it a whole lot of times, though, until I gave up and went to the store and got the D-con wedges. Then I went down to the store again and got the stuff that's supposed to kill Norway rats. That, finally, did the trick. The D-con wedge stuff was apparently mighty tasty; it was all gone in just a few days. Rats were still around and hungry a few days later.

David,

Although I would love to take credit for Rat Killing 101, it was actually told to me by an Army major buddy of mine when we were stationed in Oslo at the NATO Headquartersabout 10 years ago. His house did not have drywall. I suspect, however, that he did have to do a little bit of wood repair on one of the cabinet doors in the kitchen. BTW, his wife was not amused by his technique - although she was pleased that the rat was no longer terrorizing their cats...

He used a pellet pistol, BTW.

MMM well, I live in Adelaide, which is a lot closer to Coober Pedy then Sydney is.

Seriously, I've never seen a rat outside a pet shop.