4 ms·

I grew up in Istanbul -- the cat city -- where free roaming cats are everywhere and have never seen a mouse in my life. I thought "mice in city" was a Medieval

I grew up in Istanbul -- the cat city -- where free roaming cats are everywhere and have never seen a mouse in my life. I thought "mice in city" was a Medieval thing. Until I moved to Bay Area... And then I moved to Boston... Turns out there are mice all over the cities in US. EDIT: Also recently I learned I'm allergic to mice. This went undiagnosed for 22 years until I moved into Boston.

eknkc 8y ago
Turkish here, can confirm. 34 years old, never once seen a rat in a city setting, living in the capital, Ankara.
- gnulinux 8y ago
  Seriously, when I first moved into my new house in Boston, two months in, I saw a little mouse in my kitchen and I literally lost my shit. I've never even imagined seeing a freaking mouse in my living space. My roomies were like "ooh don't worry, that's normal. We can just call the exterminator tomorrow and it'll be all good." Apparently this is a totally normal thing in large cities in the East Coast like New York or Boston. Back in Bay Area it was normal to see mice or racoons in the streets, but I never even considered the possibility of seeing one inside my house. It's interesting how tiny cultural differences (having cats in the city) can cause you to make such assumptions about human living conditions. Before moving to US, I would consider seeing mice an alarming and totally abnormal situation. It's like seeing a snake, or scorpion, or bat in your house.
  - ams6110 8y ago
    I live in the country. I get mice in the house every winter. They can get in through the smallest crevice and they are attracted to the warmth. Traps baited with peanut butter are effective. Mice are quite dumb.
  - sevensor 8y ago
    When I lived in Texas, my co-workers who lived in the countryside would complain about scorpions. Scorpions liked one co-worker's closets especially, so she always had to shake out her clothes before getting dressed.
    - ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
      Scorpions are really scary looking, but they aren't as aggressive as you would assume based on the general fear of them. When I find them in the house (Las Vegas), I just pick them up by the tail with chop sticks and put them outside.
geebee 8y ago
That's interesting, I've heard similar things about Rome (where I've never been either). My big worry about maintaining a large population of roaming cats is the impact on the bird population. I'm interested in hearing directly from someone who grew up in Istanbul - do you recall hearing or seeing birds often growing up?
- toyg 8y ago
  Didn’t grow up there but visited. Istanbul is on the sea, so there are plenty of seagulls - aka “sea rats”, since they feast on trash. The few open / green spaces I’ve seen had plenty of birds, mostly pigeon-like if i remember correctly. Been to Rome a few times too and that’s also pretty full of pigeons, afaik. The feline colonies in Rome are the stuff of legend, several Italian writers used them in stories. I bet they’ve been around since Roman times...
  - geebee 8y ago
    That makes a certain amount of sense. I'm not too surprised seagulls would be ok in the presence of cats. They're large, fairly powerful birds. Crows also seem more common in SF than they were in previous decades, and again, I'd expect crows to be more resilient facing a predator like cats. They're large, highly intelligent, pretty tough, and fight in groups. Here's the thing - to a large extent, the birds you mentioned are urban birds, by and large. Seagulls are very coastal, but as you said, they eat trash, so the population will be very large in coastal urban areas. Crows also tend to flourish in urban areas. Pidgeons are notoriously urban creature, and while I've seen cats prey on them, they don't seem as vulnerable as smaller song bird species. I'm interested in whether these smaller songbird species are present in Rome or Istanbul or other places that are cat-heavy, though there are of course factors other than cats (some regions wouldn't have these species regardless of the presence of cats).
- gnulinux 8y ago
  I heard this too ("Adam ruins everything"). But there is a hugeg bird population in Istanbul (more than US cities I lived in). Mostly seagulls (thousands of them), pigeons, sparrow and crows which are all around the city. It's possible these are "city birds" resistant to cat attacks somehow and cats damaged other bird populations, though. I'm not educated enough to give a better answer.

eknkc 8y ago

Turkish here, can confirm. 34 years old, never once seen a rat in a city setting, living in the capital, Ankara.

gnulinux 8y ago
Seriously, when I first moved into my new house in Boston, two months in, I saw a little mouse in my kitchen and I literally lost my shit. I've never even imagined seeing a freaking mouse in my living space. My roomies were like "ooh don't worry, that's normal. We can just call the exterminator tomorrow and it'll be all good." Apparently this is a totally normal thing in large cities in the East Coast like New York or Boston. Back in Bay Area it was normal to see mice or racoons in the streets, but I never even considered the possibility of seeing one inside my house. It's interesting how tiny cultural differences (having cats in the city) can cause you to make such assumptions about human living conditions. Before moving to US, I would consider seeing mice an alarming and totally abnormal situation. It's like seeing a snake, or scorpion, or bat in your house.
- ams6110 8y ago
  I live in the country. I get mice in the house every winter. They can get in through the smallest crevice and they are attracted to the warmth. Traps baited with peanut butter are effective. Mice are quite dumb.
- sevensor 8y ago
  When I lived in Texas, my co-workers who lived in the countryside would complain about scorpions. Scorpions liked one co-worker's closets especially, so she always had to shake out her clothes before getting dressed.
  - ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
    Scorpions are really scary looking, but they aren't as aggressive as you would assume based on the general fear of them. When I find them in the house (Las Vegas), I just pick them up by the tail with chop sticks and put them outside.

geebee 8y ago

That's interesting, I've heard similar things about Rome (where I've never been either). My big worry about maintaining a large population of roaming cats is the impact on the bird population. I'm interested in hearing directly from someone who grew up in Istanbul - do you recall hearing or seeing birds often growing up?

toyg 8y ago
Didn’t grow up there but visited. Istanbul is on the sea, so there are plenty of seagulls - aka “sea rats”, since they feast on trash. The few open / green spaces I’ve seen had plenty of birds, mostly pigeon-like if i remember correctly. Been to Rome a few times too and that’s also pretty full of pigeons, afaik. The feline colonies in Rome are the stuff of legend, several Italian writers used them in stories. I bet they’ve been around since Roman times...
- geebee 8y ago
  That makes a certain amount of sense. I'm not too surprised seagulls would be ok in the presence of cats. They're large, fairly powerful birds. Crows also seem more common in SF than they were in previous decades, and again, I'd expect crows to be more resilient facing a predator like cats. They're large, highly intelligent, pretty tough, and fight in groups. Here's the thing - to a large extent, the birds you mentioned are urban birds, by and large. Seagulls are very coastal, but as you said, they eat trash, so the population will be very large in coastal urban areas. Crows also tend to flourish in urban areas. Pidgeons are notoriously urban creature, and while I've seen cats prey on them, they don't seem as vulnerable as smaller song bird species. I'm interested in whether these smaller songbird species are present in Rome or Istanbul or other places that are cat-heavy, though there are of course factors other than cats (some regions wouldn't have these species regardless of the presence of cats).
gnulinux 8y ago
I heard this too ("Adam ruins everything"). But there is a hugeg bird population in Istanbul (more than US cities I lived in). Mostly seagulls (thousands of them), pigeons, sparrow and crows which are all around the city. It's possible these are "city birds" resistant to cat attacks somehow and cats damaged other bird populations, though. I'm not educated enough to give a better answer.