Cats & Rats (a cautionary tail)

The History Bit:

I’ve had a cat or cats around me for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories was being in a high chair watching the family cat play with a mouse. I loved them all.
Until now.

The Cats:

A brother and sister. Now 6 years old, reared since kittens with easy catflap access to acres of wide open spaces. Living the cat dream. What a nice owner I am.

Sadly the cat dream involves playing with, and / or killing just about anything that moves in a several mile radius.
Even more sadly, it involves bringing home at least some of the wildlife toy box to show to Dad. That’s me.

The Maths:

Say 5 years of a 6 year life catching and killing.

Peak catch and kill rate (that make it home) = 7 per day.

Average catch and kill is around 2 per day.

365 x 5 x 2 = 3,650 things that made it home. So far… Live, dead, half dead. Mice, shrews, voles, snakes, lizards, birds, rabbits and rats.

Which is where it becomes a problem.

As you might guess, I’m now pretty good at catching the mice, shrews, voles, snakes and smaller birds. I’m better at it than the cats. A margarine tub and a bit of card, a little bit of patience and they get transferred back outside. Rabbits require a much larger storage box and are very fast movers, but have trouble hiding. Snakes and lizards are slow enough to dustpan and brush.

Pro Tip:

Don’t use gloves. Even heavy duty garden gloves for any kind of rodent no matter how small. I did. Until I discovered how razor sharp rodent teeth are.

Birds are more “open a door / window and persuade them to head that way”. Which is actually quite scary. Trapped scared small birds are unpredictable enough. When it’s a full grown magpie or blackbird .. it’s not exactly fun.

All of this though, I can muddle through. Cursing at my feline friends on a daily basis, cleaning up the messes. Killing the resulting flea intake with an array of pesticides. (It has progressively got less fun).

Rats:

The cats have decided rats are not that good to eat, so many take home rats are live and in good condition. The cats have also decided they can’t be bothered to catch rats in the house because they are too smart. Oh. Damn.

See, rats are slow and fairly large. On that basis, they should be fairly easy to catch, but they are very .. very smart. They are sociable, communicative and even have a sense of humour. They actually laugh. I find them cute as well. If it wasn’t for the fact they constantly dribble urine, shit everywhere, carry fleas and god only knows how many germs and diseases, I’d probably like them more than cats. But basically they are walking health hazards… that love kitchens.

I started with “humane” traps. Big cages with cleverly weighted trap doors. It worked a few times. I still set them, but mainly the rats just take the bait and somehow (I wish I could video how!), never seem to get caught. I think they manage to get the food from the side of the trap rather than go in it. See? Smart. So basically it’s a way of feeding a rat.

“Why don’t you poison them?” I’ve been asked many many times. If you’ve ever smelt a decomposing rat, and factored in that they hide in the most hard to get to places possible (which is where the poison will likely kill them). You’ll figure out the answer to that one.

So now it’s killer traps. Those foul and frightening contraptions that could break your fingers if you mess up when setting them. Hah. Say the rats. As they steal the bait off those as well with an effortless grace.

If you stick the bait to the trap with chocolate spread, the rats have a harder time not triggering the trap. You also have a trap now smeared in chocolate sauce.. and soon a dead rat which in theory you’re going to open up, clean and set again. Frankly I’d rather change an entire street’s toilet seats than go through this procedure. It’s gross.

Rats are sociable and smart. If they know it’s a trap, they avoid it. If they know a rat friend died there, they won’t go that way again even if the trap isn’t there. It becomes a route of last resort.

Rats also don’t obey gravity, which is sad because all the traps I’ve got are designed to sit on a flat surface. If they can, a rat will climb across a wall rather than touch the floor, especially once they’ve realised that traps are set on the floor.

The Result:

I think it’s been 3 or 4 weeks now since I snapped. One of the cats, with rat in mouth, came in, found me, dropped the rat, looked up and meowed “Aren’t I clever?”, as the rat ran under the fridge. I vowed it would be the last time. The cats now only have access to the porch bit of the house, it’s safe and dry enough for them, but they aren’t getting in to the rest of the house till I know they don’t have a “present”.

Sadly I was too slow to snap. I don’t know how many other live rats the cats had dumped in the house while I was out, or if they managed to dump a pregnant one, or if they just dumped a boy rat and a girl rat and started an unhealthy romance, but in the weeks since I’ve caught 4 rats. Every time I’ve cheered with delight that I might regain normal use of my kitchen. Every time, a few hours later, I’ve heard the scratchings of yet another rat heading for the kitchen.

No there is no external vent, no hole, no explanation for the influx of rats except the cats. It’s an old building with 18" thick stone walls. Believe me. I’ve checked. If I could find anything to block off, I’d be overjoyed. It’s the cats.

I let them in at night with the catflap set to out only. They curl up and sleep near me. We all hear the rats at night and the cats really do just utterly ignore it. A raised ear at best. If they think it’s a mouse / shrew / vole they go straight in to hunter mode, but not rats. Rats are too clever. I’ve come to hate these cats.

I’m hungry. It’s hard to just go grab a snack when you have to clean everything food or you might touch. Cooking anything left uncovered is out unless I stand there watching it like a hawk. Every surface, every pan, the cooker, cutlery, even inside the cutlery draw.. everything is treated with the suspicion it has rat piss on it. After a while you begin to wonder if rats can even climb inside an oven. I doubt it. But the mind is beginning to get stressed.

I’m tired. Weeks of this mean I don’t sleep well. With each “that has to be the last rat” that wasn’t, the stress has increased. Going to bed involves checking an array of traps are still baited, set and barricading the route to upstairs and the bedroom. I can’t nap downstairs. I can’t invite people over.

It’s a bit of hell I never expected to find myself in, and it’s thanks to those two cats. The cats that legend has it will keep your home rodent free, are the cats that made my home a home for rats.

Keep that in mind before you bring the next kitten home.