Wild rat in the trash, 9-29-06I must admit some concern at the fact that my trash rat sightings are so frequent. Like a good rat hunter should, I've done my research, and know that the fact that I'm seeing rats during the day means that the apartment is properly infested. It is said that when the population is so great that not enough food can go around, the weaker members of the rat colony are forced to forage during the day. Truthfully though, I don't see how the food supply could be low, being that the people in my building are so careless with their trash. If anything, the food supply is abundant.
I'm lead to believe that the rats feel safe in our little trash nook and aren't scared into foraging only at night. As well, the rats I've been seeing are all bvabies, so maybe the mother is teaching them to scavenge. I'm not sure, but either way it has me concerned that the landlord may eventually decide to take action against them. Once again I'm toying with the idea of buying a live trap and catching them myself-- though I'd want to be sure I relocated the entire family. This then brings up the question of where I would keep the other rats while I tried to capture them all. Granted, I do have two nice sized cages in storage right now, but I'm not sure if it would be safe to put them all together in the same cage, or even if those cages would be appropriate for wild rats. I certainly could never open the cage doors for fear of them jumping out or biting me, so I'd have to devise a way of feeding them without opening the doors. Then there's the fear that they may have some disease or parasite that they'd spread to my rats, which means I couldn't bring the cages into my apartment-- but I certainly couldn't leave them outside. It's a connundrum, indeed.
For now I have to hope the landlord leaves them be. Much as the boldness of the rats thrills me, they need to learn more discretion. And the people in my building need to learn to put their trash in the trash cans and close the lid.
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posted by Sophielynette @ 9:21 PM