Despite what other comments say, rats are vermin and should be annihilated on sight. Do you all want Weils disease, not very nice I can assure you? Far from cute, the damage they can cause has to be seen to be believed. Don't bother with expensive extermination companies or poison. Get some meal, barley, wheat etc. and mix either cement or hardwall plaster in with it and leave a bowl of water close to it, cover the bait so as birds cannot access it. Rats problem over with very quickly.
All wild animals carry some disease and/or parasites. That's why we don't go around handling them or licking them!
But we do handle things they may have wee'd on ... my schoolfriend's seven year old brother died from Weils disease caught while playing in the family garden ... the ditch along the roadside had rats living there.
That's very sad but incredibly rare.
It's rare because of the way rat populations have been controlled over the years.
Is it? I don't think wild rat populations are particularly under control. I think its rare because of improvements in sanitation, hygiene and awareness over the last couple of centuries. We don't drink out of or wash in unmanaged dirty water anymore.
Fair enough, just makes you admire them more though! All that effort to get rid and there's still bloody loads of 'em everywhere! A bit like my grudging admiration for the marestail in my garden although to be fair I do get rid of that.
The links also back up my theory that better sanitation and cleaner drinking water is largely responsible for the fact that we don't catch water borne disease nearly so much anymore.
Fair enough, just makes you admire them more though! All that effort to get rid and there's still bloody loads of 'em everywhere! A bit like my grudging admiration for the marestail in my garden although to be fair I do get rid of that.
The links also back up my theory that better sanitation and cleaner drinking water is largely responsible for the fact that we don't catch water borne disease nearly so much anymore.
Sanitation has improved and drinking water is better because rats are kept out of the water supply, and prevented as far as is possible from infesting the drains and sewers.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Posts
This may be of interest
https://www.stwater.co.uk/my-supply/waste-water/dealing-with-rats-at-your-property/
https://www.stockport.gov.uk/rats/rat-overview
and some light bedtime reading "Urban Rat Infestations - Society’s Response and the Public Health Implications" http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/854991/1/27558164.pdf
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
The links also back up my theory that better sanitation and cleaner drinking water is largely responsible for the fact that we don't catch water borne disease nearly so much anymore.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.