The joys of country living.....EEEEEEEEK !

Want a ripping good rat yarn?
Read "Der Rat" by Gunther Grass!
You'll never think about rats the same way again. (Although you still won't want one in your drain...)

I think that might very well have finished me off !

Re spiders. When we first moved to Devon from Newcastle we had an enormous spider in the lounge. I swear you could hear him move. I felt like ringing the zoo, then a neighbour told me they make 'em bigger down here.

We did get a rat in our garden when our neighbour got rid of his chickens (Mr Fox came one night).
We put a humane trap in our garden but the only thing we caught was a poor hedgehog and it took a while to get him out the trap to release him.
The neighbour hired a firm to get rid of the rats from their garden and we were told that if we'd caught the rat and let him go somewhere else we could have got fined.

OMG thought the rat up the toilet thing was a joke I'm nervous about going now!

I left my bathroom window open for fresh air during the hot weather last summer. I got up to have a shower and there was a baby bat over the drain in my shower. I didn't know how to pick it up as pipistrelles are really small. I got a stiff piece of thin card and a jug, slipped the card under the bat put the jug over the top and held it out of the window where it flew away. I have a maternity colony of bats in my roof every summer. At last I have learned to close the bathroom window before dusk!

I thought it was going to be a spider story. I'm so spider phobic that I actually felt a huge sense of relief that it was 'just' a baby rat. How ridiculous am I!

I really loathe rats, can't bear their appearance or that horrible squeaky noise. We have rat alerts in our house for when they appear on TV programmes. Years ago one of our cats developed a very nasty abscess on his hindquarters. The vet said it was probably caused by a rat bite. Didn't help my phobia.

I had a hedgehog in my bedroom once - and I don't live in the country. It was an old house with a very steep staircase so I have no idea how it managed to get up there or wanted to.
Getting it out was a problem. I picked it up with a carrier bag which it ripped (being a hedgehog) and pooped down my leg.
When I first saw something run across the floor I thought it was a rat and was relieved that it wasn't but it wasn't what I wanted to deal with in the middle of the night.

Rosared was that said as a joke (no smilies) but why would cleaning a drain be a mans job ...what if there isn't a man ? I ve had a rat which came from next door where they were leaving lots of food and stuff around anyway you can't call on men to do your jobs all the time so I caught the little b*** myself I would have let him free but he d already kicked the bucket no idea why because I didn't put traps or poison down just lured him into an area but didn't catch him before I went away and he must have been unable to escape which didn't make me feel good as I would rather have humanely let him go on his way but he had had he's fun and is in ratty heaven
I have no problem with rats or mice I can't stand roaches, earwigs, wasps and slugs yukky

Bad enough clearing hair out of your own shower trap, or even worse, holiday cottages where the cleaner doesn't dare to go( only some, been in lots of immaculate ones.....!)

My FIL once thought one of his shoes 'felt a bit tight'. Being a very laid back kind of guy, he didn't get around to investigating for two days. When he did he found a very squashed shrew in the toe - a present from the cat...

Not rat related, but mice and living in the country:

I make 2 × 2lb Christmas puds every other year and keep one for the following year 'feeding' it regularly with brandy. This particular year I put the spare pud away in a rarely used cupboard, well covered up, and forgot about it for a couple of months.

I went back to the cupboard to feed the pud, only to discover the covering 'thrown' to one side and the pudding bowl completely empty. Mouse droppings in the bowl and cupboard identified the culprits. That must have been one hell of a feast, and I imagine them as extremely well fed, bordering on obese - and possibly pissed!!

Same here llrina hate the things ?

I've never had a cat crap in my welly but one of our Jack Russells once shit in my slipper.

A few years ago I noticed that the hot water was giving off a funny smell and had changed colour. I called a plumber to investigate (you'll probably guess what he found from the nature of this thread). Yes, it was a dead and decomposed rat in the hot water tank in the loft. We had been showering, washing our hair and washing up in this foul mix for some time.
Funnily enough non of us went down with any horrible illness or skin complaint.
My daughter, who was quite young still remembers it .

<shudder>
When we were farming our neighbour had a rat in their downstairs toilet that had come up into the loo (it was dripping wet), there was no other way it could have got in.

You do get a bit blasé when you live in the countryside- including checking wellies for slugs/mice before you put them on (sockless + live mouse= heart failure!)
Only thing worse is the cat cr....g in your welly ?

Sounds like a loir TriciaF.

could the hamster like animal have been either a field mouse or a dormouse?

Spiders frighten me more. I am terrified and paranoid around September when they all try to come n

That sounds horrible*merlot*, even by our standards. ie we've seen rats around our chickens but not yet in the house. Dead mice yes. We have a constant battle with them.
And like Carol, other creatures in the house. There's a huge toad who appears nearly every evening, I shovel him into a bucket and put him back near the pond. Once found a hedgehog asleep under the stairs. And once a very strange hamster-like animal with huge brown eyes, sat near the rubbish bin. Still don't know what it was.

"I'm struggling to think of anything that would frighten me more."

How about a live one ?

Entertaining them????

I'm plucking up courage to go and have a shower.

Cleaning shower traps is a man job.

I think the rats are entertaining the people, by the sound of it

whom is entertaining rats?

I have just remembered I saw a dead mouse in a big garden bucket on Monday. I was suffering with a stiff neck and I did nothing about it as bending was too uncomfortable. I have just been to look and it's still there.

Must bury it tomorrow.

We trapped about eight mice earlier in the year after the B*****s chewed a hole in the bottom of my garden shed.
I think we need a new trapping campaign but I don't think I like the ldea of disposing them. OH is away for the next two weeks. I might be brave and try.