Are you afraid of rats?

Mad_maxx

They are vicious bastards who will attack when cornered , once saw one attack a St Bernard dog ,two squared up to each other on the lawn

honeyjo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117941067#Comment_117941067

I'm scary silly of rodents. Fair play to the Jack Russell. I have a cat so far no sign of any rodents near my house.

Burt Renaults

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117939846#Comment_117939846

I have a healthy respect for them. Lost a bit of that respect after watching them blindly going into that trap though. Idiots.

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117954312#Comment_117954312

I hazard a guess that they're rats from foreign climes that aren't that afraid of humans and their chattels. They'd nearly talk to you ffs.

Rats in Ireland are far more wary, you'd know if you ever tried getting an Irish rat to go into a trap or take poison. They get afraid of strange new things and smells.

Gregor Samsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117939862#Comment_117939862

Same here. They're a little harder, although not impossible, to milk though.

dudley72

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117954573#Comment_117954573

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tafO54XRXG0

You can always find a way

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117939929#Comment_117939929

In thailand they are the size of cats. normal sized rats I can handle, the thailand ones scared the **** out of me.

Tomaldo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117955046#Comment_117955046

And they're very brave, I've seen them in bars, around the swimming pool etc. Any idea why they don't poison or trap them like they would here

murpho999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117941580#Comment_117941580

How does that make them vicious?

A cornered animal means it's under attack so it's natural it attacks.

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117957247#Comment_117957247

Look up the great rat massacre of Hanoi of 1902 for some fun reading.

Montage of Feck

'Do you remember,' said O'Brien, 'the moment of panic that used to occur in your dreams? There was a wall of blackness in front of you, and a roaring sound in your ears. There was something terrible on the other side of the wall. You knew that you knew what it was, but you dared not drag it into the open. It was the rats that were on the other side of the wall.'

Tomaldo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117957845#Comment_117957845

cheers, lol, I just did that. It seems the big mistake was to submit a tail for payment and let the rat live or corrupt hunters. Over a hundred years later surely there's a better way to make a dent in their population.

whisky_galore

I think with many of those SE Asian cities by the way they're built with plenty places rats can hide and the culture that rats are tolerated they're just not bothered anymore. People set up pop up restaurants with plastic seats and tables on the pavements and rats scurrying around in the background.

They'll kill things that are a direct threat alright, saw a Thai lady take off her flip flop and whack a scorpion to death that got a bit too close for comfort in a situ where a Western woman would just run away screaming. Fair play I thought.

Still stihl waters 3

Not in the slightest as long as they stay outside, if they venture inside the shed or house we're going have a problem although I've 2 cats who entertain themselves killing rats down by the nearby river so they're a good deterrent

yourdeadwright

Only a month ago i was having Dinner and caught something moving out of the corner of my eye,

The back door of the house is one giant glass sliding door, I was convinced it was a rat running across one side to the other, , the missus said i was going mad, Then the next day at lunch i seen it again & then later in the evening , making the same run ,

They had eaten a hole in the shed & where running back and forth, I don't mind them but with kids in the garden i wasn't taking any chances ,

I'm not scared of them but id gladly never come across one again but its silly not to deal wit something that carries disease

I caught two of them within 3 hours of putting a trap down, I think i got them all no sign of any since,

Larbre34

Anyone should be wary of rats for the harmful diseases they carry, especially for infants and the immunocompromised, but if I see one out in the open while walking, near a river or whatever, they don't bother me at all,so long as they mind their own businesses.

Anyone into things like Golf, hiking, climbing, caving, kayaking, fishing etc are at increased risk of serious infections from rat excretia though and should make sure they sanitise their hands and equipment throughout their activity time. Leptospirosis is an absolutely horrific disease.

A neighbour of mine died of it aged 28. Super fit, sporty young woman - contracted that disease (can't remember how) and died in days.

Realtine

ah christ hate them, they give me the shivers, not too bothered by them here though as have loads of cats.

Gambian Pouch Rats.....rats the size of house cats, literally.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117940333#Comment_117940333

It was the fleas on the rats that carried the Black Death and the biggest spreader was actually other humans. Fleas would jump from the rat to the human host and transmit the disease. The human host would then interact with other humans spreading it even further.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117959790#Comment_117959790

Weil's disease more than likely. Although it's very uncommon over here. You can catch it from cattle too though.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117961056#Comment_117961056

It was Weil's disease. Isn't that the same as leptospirosis?

Wompa1

I got bit on the arm by one when I was younger. I would say I'm afraid of them. I would rather they stay the feck away from me though.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117961235#Comment_117961235

Yes.

screamer

I don’t like the dirty feckers but it’s more the diseases they carry that scares me. Neighbour died from weils disease courtesy of rats in the horse feed.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117939862#Comment_117939862

My friend's farmer pal says exactly that. Doesn't even bother him if they brush against him. Shudder.

And he says they make a kind of screaming sound when they see the cat, which is a very disturbing thought to me.

My mother heard screaming noises outside one night - absolutely bone chilling but she peered out the window. The cat was wrestling a rat. 🤢

Dramatik

They freak me out, as one tried to attack me before. I was walking home early one morning when up ahead on the footpath I noticed a dark shadow, looked like a cat. As I got closer I realised it was actually a cat however on the far side of the cat was a nice plump rat, probably about 3/4 the size of the cat.

Upon seeing me the cat decided to leg it and leave me with this ultra pissed off giant rat, who had probably just been fighting for it's life a couple of seconds ago. Having never been in a situation like this before I decided that the best thing to do was to stomp my feet on the ground and clap my hands in an effort to scare it off.

However this didn't seem to phase the rat whatsoever, the rat had decided that my actions were unacceptable and that it was going to attack me for bothering it. The rat started jumping whilst simultaneously screeching and moving in my direction. I didn't know what to do and I was frozen in place.

I have know idea why I did this but I stood in one place and started swinging my leg like I was taking a penalty kick over and over again, whilst simultaneously balancing on the opposite leg. I just caught the air a couple of times but on about the fourth swing the rat had just jumped into range. I felt what seemed like a bean bag wrapping itself around my toes and watched as the rat flew, then skidded across the ground and ended up in the bottom of someone's hedge.

I took off like a shot and ran the whole way home which took about 15 minutes, every couple of minutes checking behind me to make sure it wasn't following me.

Luckily enough it didn't get me but if my timing had been off I'm 100 percent sure I would have been bitten. Terrifying experience.

Sweet Jesus. ☹

corner of hells

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117964341#Comment_117964341

Very apt username.

neenam

Rats (well all rodents) are not inherently dirty animals like the way people make them out to be. It is the environment in which they live that contaminates them.

IMO, us humans are the #1 pest in the animal kingdom, kinda makes you think about the similarities between humans and rodents. Rodents have made massive contributions to scientific and medical advances, not to mention humanitarian work - trained rats are used to detect TNT for clearing landmines abroad, as well as TB in hospital patients.

Recently it's suggested by some studies that the black rat (or rather the fleas on rats) wasn't responsible for the Black Death in C14th-17th Europe, but fleas on humans. The pattern and rate of the spread of the plague suggests that it was too fast for it to have been spread by fleas on rats, when you consider rat-human vs. human-human transmission. It's also been said that more rats should have been found dead if they were such important disease-carriers, as well as claims that the weather wasn't optimal for rats to thrive and spread the disease widely. And an ecological review in 1986 cited lack of evidence for rats as the carriers of the disease. The Black Death was only really tackled when sanitation was improved and people started cleaning themselves more regularly, so....

Question is are people prepared to exonerate rodents if this is true? At the very least the stigma against them should be quashed.