5 ms·

This article is misguided. A rat outside quickly becomes a rat inside your home after someone leaves the door open too long on a nice day. They also gloss over

by scurvy 8y ago

This article is misguided. A rat outside quickly becomes a rat inside your home after someone leaves the door open too long on a nice day. They also gloss over the disease vector aspect of picking up bacteria from pets. People aren't giving up pets, but we will decide to get rid of rats. I applaud the study for learning more about the rats and their qualities. Now, go eradicate them.

maxmcd 8y ago
Certainly it seems like total eradication is the best option. The article just posits that one-off killings have a negative effect. Knowing that the partial killing of a rat "family" potentially increases the diversity and potency of bacteria seems like very useful information in a world where we can't easily kill all rats.
- jdavis703 8y ago
  Near the end of the article it mentions that existing rat populations act as a buffer against invasive species carrying new infections. This is pretty important for port cities, probably less so for inland areas.
  - DKnoll 8y ago
    I'm surprised they didn't mention it in the article, but Alberta (a province adjacent to British Columbia on the east side) is mostly rat-free (infestations per year at 0 or in the low single digits since 2000. It is entirely land-locked though. As far as I know there have been no adverse effects. They started aggressive rat control in the '50s.
shhehebehdh 8y ago
I don’t know if most rats enter the home through the front door. I would guess that is pretty rare. Unsealed crawl spaces and attics are much more likely to be the culprit. Even then, they don’t necessarily do any harm. As long as the interior of the home is sealed, they can’t get in. Our building definitely has rats, and we saw one in our home shortly after we rented it. The previous tenants had just trapped rats they saw, but we insisted that the landlord send someone to seal every ingress point (with copper wool and silicone gel). Since then we haven’t had an issue, even though our little visitor would come daily before. As a bonus, the same way rats get in, so do cockroaches. In NYC, older buildings, especially near the ground floor, are notorious for cockroach infestations. But we don’t have any of those in our unit either, despite the building being a century old. Turns out cockroaches and rats aren’t made of magic. They can’t teleport through solid material. If the interior of your home is sealed, they cannot get in.
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  My feeling is rats avoid places with an active human presence. And they also avoid spaces occupied by cats. They are basically everywhere people are. Friend has a house in a Suburban neighborhood. Along one side of his property is a long dense hedge. It's a rat superhighway.
- NullPrefix 8y ago
  >They can’t teleport through solid material. If the interior of your home is sealed, they cannot get in. Bold statement, You know that rats can chew through cement and pretty much anything else?
  - shhehebehdh 8y ago
    I know rats can chew through many things. I did not know about cement. Fortunately, houses are not made of cement. They are made of concrete. And, as far as I can read online, only improperly cured concrete is vulnerable to rats. Rats also cannot chew through copper. There’s also a question of how thick the material, and how motivated the rat. Can rats make a dent in bricks? Yes. Is a single rat going to chew a hole all the way through a brick wall just to see that’s on the other side? I’m no rodent behavior expert, but I doubt it. More to the point (at least according to YouTube exterminators) rats will only chew through things if they have a reason to. That is why you seal holes with silicone caulk after the copper wool: to prevent the smell of food from drawing rats in. In any case, I can only tell you what treatment we applied and what the results were. There is a lot of information on the internet about how to prevent rat ingress in apartments and buildings. Based on my experience, that information seems accurate. But another approach is to assume nothing can be done and live with periodic rat infestations.
- neom 8y ago
  See How Easily a Rat Can Wriggle Up Your Toilet | National Geographic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t2VPBF6Kp4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t2VPBF6Kp4 - Also as the owner of three pet rats, can confirm they can get through the most ridiculously small holes.

by scurvy 8y ago

maxmcd 8y ago

Certainly it seems like total eradication is the best option. The article just posits that one-off killings have a negative effect. Knowing that the partial killing of a rat "family" potentially increases the diversity and potency of bacteria seems like very useful information in a world where we can't easily kill all rats.

jdavis703 8y ago
Near the end of the article it mentions that existing rat populations act as a buffer against invasive species carrying new infections. This is pretty important for port cities, probably less so for inland areas.
- DKnoll 8y ago
  I'm surprised they didn't mention it in the article, but Alberta (a province adjacent to British Columbia on the east side) is mostly rat-free (infestations per year at 0 or in the low single digits since 2000. It is entirely land-locked though. As far as I know there have been no adverse effects. They started aggressive rat control in the '50s.

shhehebehdh 8y ago

I don’t know if most rats enter the home through the front door. I would guess that is pretty rare. Unsealed crawl spaces and attics are much more likely to be the culprit. Even then, they don’t necessarily do any harm. As long as the interior of the home is sealed, they can’t get in. Our building definitely has rats, and we saw one in our home shortly after we rented it. The previous tenants had just trapped rats they saw, but we insisted that the landlord send someone to seal every ingress point (with copper wool and silicone gel). Since then we haven’t had an issue, even though our little visitor would come daily before. As a bonus, the same way rats get in, so do cockroaches. In NYC, older buildings, especially near the ground floor, are notorious for cockroach infestations. But we don’t have any of those in our unit either, despite the building being a century old. Turns out cockroaches and rats aren’t made of magic. They can’t teleport through solid material. If the interior of your home is sealed, they cannot get in.

Gibbon1 8y ago
My feeling is rats avoid places with an active human presence. And they also avoid spaces occupied by cats. They are basically everywhere people are. Friend has a house in a Suburban neighborhood. Along one side of his property is a long dense hedge. It's a rat superhighway.
NullPrefix 8y ago
>They can’t teleport through solid material. If the interior of your home is sealed, they cannot get in. Bold statement, You know that rats can chew through cement and pretty much anything else?
- shhehebehdh 8y ago
  I know rats can chew through many things. I did not know about cement. Fortunately, houses are not made of cement. They are made of concrete. And, as far as I can read online, only improperly cured concrete is vulnerable to rats. Rats also cannot chew through copper. There’s also a question of how thick the material, and how motivated the rat. Can rats make a dent in bricks? Yes. Is a single rat going to chew a hole all the way through a brick wall just to see that’s on the other side? I’m no rodent behavior expert, but I doubt it. More to the point (at least according to YouTube exterminators) rats will only chew through things if they have a reason to. That is why you seal holes with silicone caulk after the copper wool: to prevent the smell of food from drawing rats in. In any case, I can only tell you what treatment we applied and what the results were. There is a lot of information on the internet about how to prevent rat ingress in apartments and buildings. Based on my experience, that information seems accurate. But another approach is to assume nothing can be done and live with periodic rat infestations.
neom 8y ago
See How Easily a Rat Can Wriggle Up Your Toilet | National Geographic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t2VPBF6Kp4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t2VPBF6Kp4 - Also as the owner of three pet rats, can confirm they can get through the most ridiculously small holes.