An Amazingly Eccentric, Creative, and Intelligent (Wild) Rat -- Evades Capture, Owns Kitchen

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

Time for some humor


I have this problem in the house my spouse and I are selling.
It has a rat left in it that just won't die.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Rattus_norvegicus_1.jpg

All the other rats succumbed to traps and poison, no offense to animal lovers,
but this one holdout rat seems immune to our charms and to date no attempt to terminate his life has been successful.


http://www.cloudave.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/HLIC/dac3138e90256bfae044be3c4085c647.jpg

There is a hole in the wall behind our dish washer; at least, we think there is a hole in that vicinity. Inside the cabinets somewhere. This rat enlarged a hole and accesses the house through this hole. He then runs along the baseboard of the cabinets toward the refrigerator and somehow uses the counter and the fridge to climb the wall.


http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTRfOnG8vg8NATSEhrp8h-zA4MFufYbjJZSHIEPSOQSL_mw7HWj

The rat then runs along our bare countertop (gross) and samples whatever food happens to be in sight that night:


so far the casualties have been:

A Butternut squash,
Two Apples,
A package of Ritz crackers,
A potted african violet plant (!!!!!!!! maybe it will die?),
Bananas,
Blueberry pancake Mix
etc.


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5bbZFkbbZM8/T6J0hOomBXI/AAAAAAAAASc/_t3m3bJPzYk/s320/Cuke+rat+bite.jpg

The Rat can use ladders. It used an oven rack to climb another counter.


http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTczwOGikVFDqK2BHdEl8soE_8GN8lvH3KMXhOzfnLMOEGLJEf8iw

There is virtually nothing this rat can't do. It's like Bunnicula or a poltergeist.


http://www.arkarts.com/childrens_theatre/images/aac_childrens_theatre_bunnicula_lg.jpg

Anyone else ever have trouble with intelligent vermin???

Post your true or borrowed story here and make me laugh.

[DouglasDanger]

patience and a pellet gun..

Had a musk rat in our house growing up, this thing chewed through walls in minutes, My father patiently waited one day for hours and hours with a 22 caliber pellet gun.. finally it showed its furry face and pop!... the old man missed puting a hole in the brand new counter top.. as the musk rat was on its way out of the house from the crawl space (because the demon that is my dad was the losing his mind and ripping the cabnets out screaming and yelling as he was doing it) , it ran smack into the waiting jaws of our neighbours retarded black lab which had gotten loose for the hundredth time, this time though the dog took the big musk rat instead of going after one of our rabbits. The old man still chased the dog down and returned it to the neighbours minus its catch. BUT! The next day the dog got loose again and found the musk in its burried hiding place, as it was playing with it when I got off the bus I just laughed and let it play. The big dum dog only ever wanted to play with the little furries as it never ate them just played a bit to hard pouncing biting and flipping them in the air untill they died..

[161803398]

I have a small rat but my housekeeper feeds him cat food and cleans up after him. He's been with us for 2 years now.

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

I have a small rat but my housekeeper feeds him cat food and cleans up after him. He's been with us for 2 years now.
I never find any poop left over from ours,
smart rat lol!

[161803398]

He's friends with the housekeeper so he always poops in the same place -- she knows where to go. She says people would think we are crazy. Thing is...we are.

[Sidney]

THanks Tesla, omg i needed that chuckle. My advice get (or borrow) a cat.

[161803398]

I have four cats...It makes no difference.

[161803398]

Here's a funny story about rats. When i was a student I lived in a big old house in Shaughnessy in Vancouver. From a rats point of view it probably has the best garbage in the city so every house has a rat issue. The rats had become immune to the poison our landlord gave them. They used to come in the living room every night, go over the couch, through the kitchen, into the hall and once someone found one in the bathroom. I didn't mind them but one of the girl's in the house had a boyfriend who was determined to get the rats. He tried everything and failed. One night the girl was having some friends over who came in the house by themselves to find her boyfriend they hadn't met yet sitting in the dark in the living room with a baseball bat. They assumed he was there to rob the place. However, it all got straightened out in the end.

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

LOL.

I've seen cats and dogs play together, so I believe a cat and a rodent could play together.
Strange things can happen.

[161803398]

My cats wont harm anything in the house...they assume its another pet.

[onawah]

Anyone else ever have trouble with intelligent vermin???
Post your true or borrowed story here and make me laugh.

Funny you should ask!
I just told someone this true story recently about a hamster I got when I was about 13 and they insisted I should immortalize him in my life story, or possibly enter his saga into a contest of stories about funny pets.
This will be good practice.
Though I've actually told his story many times, I've never written it down.

I named him Maverick, after my favorite TV character at the time, a playful gambler and adventurer of the Old West.
http://th03.deviantart.net/fs70/200H/i/2011/133/2/1/hamster_cowboy_by_dragonrider716-d3ga996.jpg
We kept his cage on a shelf in the kitchen, but he would chew on it at night and make such a racket it would wake us all up, so that my mother and I finally just decided to let him out and give him the run of our small apartment.
I guess the solitary life just wasn't enough for him.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/182/421459460_fcefee12a8_o.gif
We moved his cage down to the floor and at first, he regularly went back into his cage to eat, drink and take naps in between explorations of our apartment.
But eventually he grew bolder.
He found a little hole in the wood floor in the living room and gnawed on it until it was large enough for him to crawl through, and made a nest for himself under the floorboards.
He must have been a Survivalist, because he would fill his pouches up with food and take it down there for safe keeping.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTl4RFg00evPkWy37CCDcJwhOBXnY4PNzLPzwBM3XxML9xwZml8xA
Sometimes he would cram his pouches so full that he couldn't fit through the hole, and he would get stuck, with his little butt sticking up in the air.
When I poked him, or pulled him out again, he would fuss at me, but he finally got the right idea, and stopped stuffing himself so full, or else emptied part of his pouches out just outside the hole, and then took the food down in stages.
We were afraid it was going to get odorous, but somehow it never did.
But just to be safe, we put the hose of the vacuum cleaner down there to clean it out occasionally, when we were sure he wasn't "at home".
He must have thought there was an invisible poacher living down there with him under the floor boards.

He would get up into my bed with me on cool nights and he liked to crawl around in my curlers, which apparently made a nice tunnel-like maze for him.
(It was when those big curlers the size of juice cans were all the rage, so he could fit through them quite easily, and he seemed to enjoy the challenge, though it was a rather ticklish situation for me, and problematic when his tiny claws got caught in my hairnet.)
http://www.fiftiesweb.com/fashion/hair-curled.jpg

We didn't realize what he was doing until he had gnawed another hole, this time into the door that went to the outer hallway.
(We lived on the second floor of a big old 4 story house that had been converted into 6 apartments, with an adjoining hall and staircase on each floor.)
There were two college guys who shared an apartment down the hall from us.
Maverick had taken to going down the hall and gnawing on their door, making such a to-do that they opened it immediately to find out what was causing the rumpus.
They brought him to our door to ask if he was our hamster, which we had to admit to, but after some consultation, they were fine with it, and soon after asked if it would be OK if they allowed him into their apartment for visits.
I wanted Maverick to be free to expand his wild and adventurous side if he was so inclined, so we gave our willing permission.

So Maverick became a regular visitor down the hall, and eventually the guys bought a female hamster themselves.
They let Maverick go into their hamster's cage for playtime.
They didn't let her out of the cage, but apparently she was OK with that.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xZJENponhAc/SYyD6-zx9HI/AAAAAAAAAyU/Dff1Fiu6akI/s400/hammyexercise.gif
Things continued happily on in this way for quite some time until one fateful night.
http://www.webdonuts.com/comics/2007-12-06-Hamsters.jpg
In one of the two first floor apartments, there lived a young newlywed couple.
Late one night, there was a huge uproar coming from downstairs, screams and shouts and slamming doors.
We found out the next day that Maverick had gone down the stairs and somehow got into this couple's apartment and crawled into their bed!
They woke up in the middle of the night thinking Maverick was a rat, and he was lucky they didn't kill him then and there, but fortunately, his legendary status as a freed hamster had preceded him.
Instead, after turning on the light and gathering that he was just the hamster from upstairs, the husband put him out onto the front porch of the house.
The wife was much too squeamish to even touch him, and for some time afterward, was reportedly prone to fits of shivers whenever she thought about the incident.
We heard through the grapevine that though the couple realized it must have been my hamster that had paid them the extremely unwelcome visit, they did not return him to me because, after that experience, they had developed very strenuous objections to our liberal policy.

We learned the sad outcome of this misadventure soon after from another tenant, and figured, to our sorrow, that Maverick was probably done for.
But a few weeks later, someone reported seeing a hamster running into a hole in the wall down in the basement where the laundry room was.
So I like to think that Maverick just became king of the house mice in his next big adventure.
http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/269281/269281,1290154953,1/stock-photo-cartoon-illustration-of-hamster-and-mouse-couple-in-love-65422186.jpg
I personally never saw him again and I missed him; even though I had had hamsters before him, and another one after him, none of them had nearly the personality and adventurous spirit that Maverick did.
I guess Maverick had unusual hamster genes, or maybe he was just impatient to move up on the evolutionary ladder, but he will always remain a legend among hamsters to me...
http://www.addwallpaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Funny-Hamster-wallpaper-510x380.jpg

[delfine]

Funny you should ask!
I just told someone this true story recently about a hamster I got when I was about 13 and they insisted I should immortalize him in my life story, or possibly enter his saga into a contest of stories about funny pets.
This will be good practice.
Though I've actually told his story many times, I've never written it down.

I named him Maverick, after my favorite TV character at the time, a playful gambler and adventurer of the Old West.
http://th03.deviantart.net/fs70/200H/i/2011/133/2/1/hamster_cowboy_by_dragonrider716-d3ga996.jpg
We kept his cage on a shelf in the kitchen, but he would chew on it at night and make such a racket it would wake us all up, so that my mother and I finally just decided to let him out and give him the run of our small apartment.
I guess the solitary life just wasn't enough for him.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/182/421459460_fcefee12a8_o.gif
We moved his cage down to the floor and at first, he regularly went back into his cage to eat, drink and take naps in between explorations of our apartment.
But eventually he grew bolder.
He found a little hole in the wood floor in the living room and gnawed on it until it was large enough for him to crawl through, and made a nest for himself under the floorboards.
He must have been a Survivalist, because he would fill his pouches up with food and take it down there for safe keeping.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTl4RFg00evPkWy37CCDcJwhOBXnY4PNzLPzwBM3XxML9xwZml8xA
Sometimes he would fill his pouches so full that he couldn't fit through the hole, and he would get stuck, with his butt sticking up in the air.
When I poked him, or pulled him out again, he would fuss at me, but he finally got the right idea, and stopped stuffing himself so full, or else emptied part of his pouches out just outside the hole, and then took the food down in stages.
We were afraid it was going to get smelly, but somehow it never did.
But just to be safe, we put the hose of the vacuum cleaner down there to clean it out every once in awhile, when we were sure he wasn't "at home".
He must have thought there was an invisible little thief living down there with him under the floor boards.

He would get up into my bed with me on cool nights and he liked to crawl around in my curlers, which apparently made a nice little tunnel maze for him.
(It was when those big curlers the size of juice cans were all the rage, so he could fit through them quite easily, and he seemed to enjoy the challenge, though it was a rather ticklish situation for me, and problematic when he got caught in my hairnet.)
http://www.fiftiesweb.com/fashion/hair-curled.jpg

We didn't realize what he was doing until he had gnawed another hole, this time into the door that went to the outer hallway.
(We lived on the second floor of a big old 4 story house that had been converted into 6 apartments, with an adjoining hall and staircase on each floor.)
There were two collage guys who shared an apartment down the hall from us.
Maverick took to going down the hall and chewing on their door, making such a noise that they opened it the first time to find out what was causing the noise.
They brought him to our door and asked if he was our hamster, which we had to admit to, but they were fine with it, and asked if it would be OK if they let him in to their apartment for visits.
I wanted Maverick to be free to expand his wild and adventurous side, if he was so inclined, so we gave our willing permission.

So Maverick became a regular visitor down the hall, and eventually the guys bought a female hamster themselves.
They let Maverick go into their hamster's cage too, though they didn't let their hamster out of her cage, but apparently she was fine with that.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xZJENponhAc/SYyD6-zx9HI/AAAAAAAAAyU/Dff1Fiu6akI/s400/hammyexercise.gif
Things continued on in this way quite happily for quite some time until one fateful night.
http://www.webdonuts.com/comics/2007-12-06-Hamsters.jpg
In one of the two first floor apartments, there lived a young newlywed couple.
Late one night, there was a loud uproar coming from downstairs, screams and shouts and slamming noises.
We found out the next day that Maverick had gone down the stairs and somehow got into this couple's apartment and into their bed!
They woke up in the middle of the night thinking Maverick was a rat, and he was lucky they didn't kill him then and there, but fortunately, his legendary status as a freed hamster had preceded him.
Instead, after turning on the light and seeing he was just a hamster, they put him out onto the front porch of the house.
We heard through the grapevine that though they knew he was probably my hamster, they did not return him to me because, after that experience, they objected to our liberal policy.

We learned the sad outcome of this misadventure soon after from another tenant, and figured, to our sorrow, that Maverick was probably done for.
But a few weeks later, someone reported seeing him running into a hole in the wall down in the basement where the laundry room was.
So I like to think that Maverick just became king of the house mice in his next big adventure.
http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/269281/269281,1290154953,1/stock-photo-cartoon-illustration-of-hamster-and-mouse-couple-in-love-65422186.jpg
I personally never saw him again and I missed him; even though I had had hamsters before him, and another one after him, none of them had nearly the personality and adventurous spirit that Maverick did; they never even seemed interested in getting out of their cage.
I guess Maverick had unusual hamster genes, or maybe he was just impatient to move up on the evolutionary ladder, but he will always remain a legend among hamsters to me...
http://www.addwallpaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Funny-Hamster-wallpaper-510x380.jpg

Haha thank you for making my day. You must be the most empathic and liberal hamster-owners in existence. :D

[Hermite]

Nice stories. Loved yours, onawah.

We are having a rather brutal winter here, horribly cold. My kitchen door, which has a large window in it, opens onto an enclosed porch. On the porch is a freezer and several shelves. A couple of days ago I was at my kitchen table and I heard some noise from the porch. I looked over my shoulder and there was a red squirrel perched on the edge of the window, looking in at me. I raised my arms and shook them and he ran off.

A short while later I heard noises again, this time it was things falling over so I knew squirrel was exploring the shelves. I had forgotten that earlier I had set a bag of frozen french fries on a shelf to be moved into the freezer once it warmed up a few degrees out there. So, I got up and looked out the window and there was the squirrel who had chewed through the bag and now had this french fry in his mouth, like a big old cigar. He saw me and took off out the partially opened back door, french fry firmly in teeth. Poor little guy must have been AWFULLY hungry to steal a frozen potato.

[conk]

My sister kept noticing a strange odor coming from the A/C vents in her car. It got worse, so she took the car in for service. The technicians found over a pound of cat food crammed into tiny spaces all throughout the A/C system intake. Mice were storing it there. It cost her a few hundred dollars to have it cleaned out. Needless to say afterwards the mice were seen with picket signs, marching up and down her driveway. "Survivalists Have Rights Too"!

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

that hamster story was epic.
Poor Maverick.
Reminds me of Call of the Wild! LOL

@_@

people get in wrecks sometimes because of things rodents stash in their cars.
like peanuts, etc.

[onawah]

Your comment reminded me of my mother's compassionate collaboration with me in providing Maverick with the lifestyle of his choice, and I had a nice moment of gratitude for and connection with her spirit, which moved on to another existence some years ago. Thank you!



Haha thank you for making my day. You must be the most empathic and liberal hamster-owners in existence. :D

[eva08]

Tesla, maybe, you could talk to the rat and explain to her that you are trying to sell the house and that she would please, find a new home for herself so she will not get eradicated by the new owners...

[DouglasDanger]

@ Onawah, you should write this up illustrate it and submit it to be published as a childrens book, it's a realy good story ! ( maybe split it into a series of childrens books)

[onawah]

That's a good idea, Douglas, better than entering it in a contest.Thanks!

[delfine]

Your comment reminded me of my mother's compassionate collaboration with me in providing Maverick with the lifestyle of his choice, and I had a nice moment of gratitude for and connection with her spirit, which moved on to another existence some years ago. Thank you!



Haha thank you for making my day. You must be the most empathic and liberal hamster-owners in existence. :D

Little cuties..........:)

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

Update on my wild rat pest:

Ratty (that's his nickname around our house) has evolved to a new level of awareness.
He is health-food conscious and highly capable of tool use.
I mentioned that he was able to use an oven rack as a ladder and even figured out how to climb a dish rack to access a window ledge.
This rat must have wonderful balance or land on his feet...

Ratty destroyed -- and I mean annihilated -- my potted African Violet. I was hoping the plant was poisonous enough to finish off the rat,
but his sampling eventually exceeded the ability of the plant to remain in its pot. Ratty even ate some of the dirt from the planter.
We are not sure what attracted him to the plant in the first place. It must have smelled like food to him.

Ratty was seen running from our refrigerator (operations base) to the dishwasher (access point from basement) three days ago.
He was very clean looking and lean. He is grey in color and very healthy.

He recently used our coffee pot as a ladder to access the upper kitchen cabinets.
We found an empty bagel bag and a sack of shredded bread in there. Also the potato bag was open and half a potato was eaten up in there.
Ratty has also sampled squash and banana that has been left out.

There seems to be no end to his appetite and sense of adventure.

We will be almost sad when Ratty finds his final resting place, because this has been so hilarious.

I had a mental breakdown though over Ratty's family a few months ago, and I will be relieved if we can eliminate their access points and make sure we own the house and not the rats....

[Flash]

Intelligence is not only for human, in fact it is mostly not for human lol.

http://zuzutop.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/talented-rats3.jpg

http://www.dapper.com.au/lamingtonschool.jpg

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs17/f/2007/189/0/5/Baby_Rat_by_Kathy_Ophelia.jpg

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

Another wildlife story, from today!

A flock of crows just flew up to the fence near my house, actually in my alley,
and something hit our window and left a pink smear.
I looked out the window and there was a hot dog lying on the ground!!!

LOL

[sigma6]

I used to have a rat(s), I knew where it was coming in (a hole under the sink) so I cleared out the space under the sink, then left surrounded it with about 8 rat traps and 4 (rat sized) sticky trays, carefully arranged so when he popped through the hole he had just enough to step in and go along the wall where the first trap would be flush. so they are all tight and square. Never underestimate a rat. If it wasn't for the stickies they can set off the traps and still get away more then 50% of the time... The stickies add another level of difficulty and even then I have had about 2 in 10 escape this set up...

and it is more troubling when he is familiar to the house... I eventually reduced the house population, but since I could never figure where they were coming into the house, just caught them this way, I averaged about a rat a month for several years... they never breached the barrier, but never gave up trying either...

and the thing about the African Violet, that is wishful thinking... good luck...

[Knowrainknowrainbows!]

I enjoyed the story of Maverick and agree it would make a GREAT children's book!

I had mice despite an alert cat. I used poison, but the odor after the little creatures died (trapped in the wall or attic) was terrible.

Then I "discovered" the nonlethal "sonic rodent repellants".... just plug them in the electrical outlet and they make rodents leave. I can hear a buzz from
some of the devices but it's not annoying to me, my cat, or two little dogs.

Seems much more humane, too. I bought mine at my local home improvement store.

So ... ask me if I my mice-problem is fixed and I'll answer, "Does a rat have a tail?"

;)
KRKR