Here’s a little bit of history about rats, and rats that cause the biggest trouble!
10 - Rodent Borne Diseases People don’t like rats, and that’s understandable.
A rodent Borne Disease isn’t something anyone would, or should, enjoy.
There’s a bunch out there.
Rat-Bite fever, Lassa Fever, Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome are just some examples of rodent
borne diseases.
Those are just a few of the 35 or so diseases that a rodent can potentially transmit!
The bad thing is that you don’t have to come into direct contact with a rat to get
some of the diseases.
Take Hantavirus, for instance.
This disease is transmitted when fresh rat urine or poo is mixed into the air and breathed
in by some unlucky people.
That’s just …..gross!
Those noxious particles carrying the virus can possibly give Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome
to someone that breathes in the particles.
Rat Bite fever comes from….get this….being bitten by a rat.
OR scratched by a rat.
Or coming into contact with a dead rat.
Then there’s salmonellosis, which happens when rat poo contaminates food and then someone
eats that contaminated food.
Colorado tick fever is also a thing.
This occurs when a tick from a bushy-tailed woodrat bites someone.
So hopefully, you guys get the gist.
Stay away from rats!
Even with modern medicine, all these diseases are a serious nuisance that can put anyone
out of commission for a while.
9 - The Bubonic Plague...Maybe?
We’re gonna go back a bit into history here.
The Black Plague.
The Great Plague.
Whatever you want to call it, the pandemic that nearly wiped out parts of Europe and
Asia in the 14th Century was a serious event.
In total, roughly 75 to 200 million people were wiped out, the worst of it occurring
between 1347 and 1351.
And it’s not like people just passed in their sleep.
Getting the plague definitely wasn’t pleasant.
People typically went within two days to a week after getting infected.
At the time people didn’t know what caused the disease.
The King of France theorized that the conjunction of three planets caused quote “a great pestilence
in the air.”
However, today it’s widely accepted that the plague was spread by fleas which were
carried by rats, a common feature on trade vessels.
Rats were immune to the plague and were able to carry the fleas all over Europe and The
Middle East.
The fleas would bite humans, transmitting the disease.
Later and less severe outbreaks since the 19th century have also been attributed to
rats carrying the fleas.
But were rats really to blame?
Recent research has come to light that would perhaps get rats off the hook!
In early 2018, one study championed the idea that it was human parasites that caused the
pandemic.
Fleas and human lice were able to jump from one person to the next, and because people
lived in close quarters, it seems plausible that they were just spreading the parasites
amongst themselves.
The study was led by Katherine Dean, a Professor at The University of Oslo.
She created simulations charting how the disease would have spread from rats and humans.
These models indicated that the outbreak in the 1300’s moved way too quickly to be carried
by rats, and that parasites carried by humans were the likely culprit.
8 - Lunch Special But rats today still cause disturbances!
And sometimes, rats can disrupt someone’s education.
Take Denver East High School for example.
In 2014, Denver Health officials determined that the school had sustained extensive damage
from rats and mice.
Health officials found evidence of rat droppings in the kitchen and on food equipment.
As if kids weren’t already suspicious enough about cafeteria food!
The entire school had to be cleaned and sanitized thoroughly.
Health inspectors were present to supervise the reopening of the school and cafeteria.
The Denver Post reported that daily inspections were taking place until county health inspectors
were satisfied that the situation had been resolved.
The weird thing is, the infestation was discovered during a routine health inspection.
If that’s actually the case, then that means kids were just walking around while rats secretly
invaded their school!
Uggghhh
7 - School’s Out
In another example of how rats cause big trouble, in 2018, Kirby High School in Memphis, Tennessee
was shut down for six to eight weeks after a massive rat infestation was discovered.
During this period, a team of exterminators was brought in to get rid of the army of rats
within the school.
This bizarre saga began when renovators discovered a rat nest on the school’s property.
They briefly shut things down, brought in exterminators, took out around 80 rats, and
that was that.
Until it wasn’t.
Soon after the school reopened, a horrible stench overtook the school.
It turns out that a bunch of rats that had been poisoned by the exterminators just essentially
were stuck within the walls in large numbers, effectively turning the school into a giant
rat tomb!
Well, the good news is, the school was finally reopened in January 2019, after a couple million
dollars in renovations.
6 - Parisian Rats
What about rats taking over an ENTIRE city, instead of just a school?!
Take Paris for example.
Yes, Ratatouille was cute and all, but c’mon, no one wants rats eating fine French Cuisine.
Unfortunately for Paris, Ratatouille hits a bit too close to home, because Paris is
rat infested!
In 2016 The New York Times reported that nine parks or greenways had been closed in Paris
because of rat problems.
It’s the worst rat crisis for Paris in decades.
And while no Parisian alive today was around for The Black Plague, the alleged role of
rats in that whole debacle has left Europeans especially freaked out by rats.
Back in 2014, Paris had pledged to be 100 percent rat free.
Obviously, they fell a bit short of that ambitious goal.
By early 2018, the rat population in Paris surged to an estimated 4 to 6 million rats!
Compare that to 2.2 million humans.
So Paris launched an aggressive attack.
In 2018 alone, nearly 5,000 anti rat operations took place in Paris, operations that included
covering manholes, replacing trash cans with airtight containers, testing new rat poisons
and visiting New York City to learn some new tricks.
Let’s hope Paris doesn’t get overrun with rats.
5 - Capital Under Siege
What about the US?
How about the Nation’s Capital?
Rats have been plaguing DC for years.
There are several reasons for the sudden surge in the common Norway Rat population that’s
happening in the nation’s capital.
Mild winters and a rise in the human population have led to D.C ranking as America’s fourth
rattiest city, behind L.A, New York, and Chicago.
Recent winters haven’t been all that harsh and that’s allowed the rats to breed at
a pretty rapid pace.
As the population increases, that means more trash.
And garbage is pretty much a rat’s lifeline.
Calls about rats to the city’s 311 line reached an all-time high in 2017, totaling
5,310 according to data collected by The Washington Post.
That’s a 50 percent increase from 2016!
Officials began using dry ice in 2017 to suffocate rats in their burrows.
They also installed solar state-of-the-art trash cans in “rat hot spots” and provided
grants to businesses that lease commercial trash compactors.
Still, if the new trash that comes with new DC residents isn’t disposed of and stored
properly, that means more rats!
4 - A Tasty Treat
So what are some of the special ways rats can cause someone a headache?
If you own a car, then you know how much of a headache cars can be.
So many things can go wrong on a car, such as a flat tire, a dead battery….let’s
go ahead and add rats eating car wiring to the list!
Yep, that’s a thing that can apparently happen!
A 2016 class action lawsuit against Toyota brought this issue to the public’s attention.
Rats eating through car wiring was such a pervasive problem for residents in California
that they believed Toyota should cover the cost of the damage caused by rats.
This seems to be more of a recent phenomenon however.
The cause of this is the push for companies to be as environmentally friendly as they
can.
While car manufacturers have been making their cars better for the environment, the unintended
consequence is that rats love the environmentally friendly parts.
The wires are apparently awesome tasting for rats.
Take the 2012 Toyota Tundra for instance.
Its wiring is made from a soy based substance, and it’s enticing to rats.
And that’s why rats can cause extensive damage to some Toyotas.
3 - Cash Cash Cash Let’s thrown money on the list of things
to worry about with rats too!
In an Indian town called Tinsukia, an ATM belonging to The State Bank of India had some
1.2 million rupees or roughly $17,000 dollars eaten by a rat!
The ATM had been out of order for a solid month before anyone discovered that rat had
made the machine his new home slash personal buffet.
Eventually the rat passed away and its body was recovered.
One theory is that there was more than one culprit, but only one rat was found.
Investigators were pretty sure that the rat first broke into the cash machine through
a hole meant for wires.
For some reason, the rat just decided to go to town on the cash.
However, the rat self-destructed before it could chow down on the remaining 2.9 million
rupees or roughly $41,000 dollars.
Well….if you want to make sure your pile of cash is safe, make sure it’s stored in
a place where rats can’t get to!
2 - Breath-holding is easy The bathroom is typically a good time for
some privacy.
So when that time is disrupted by a rat crawling up the toilet, well, that’s pretty crappy.
And yes, no matter how big of a nightmare it is, it does happen sometimes!
Unfortunately for us, rats are good swimmers.
They’re also quite flexible.
And, they’re really good climbers.
This combo helps them navigate pipes and sewage systems pretty effectively.
Eventually, they often find their way up into toilets.
This is a more common problem in big cities where rats sneak into grates and manholes
on the street.
Once they’re in the sewage system, they’ll crawl through the pipes.
Yeah…...all those LOGS are filled with nutrients that rats want.
They provide convenient meals as rats navigate their way through the pipes!
According to the experts, the best thing to do if you find a rat in your toilet is to
close the lid, put something heavy on the lid, close the bathroom door, and call an
exterminator!
1 - It’s Not all Bad
Okay, so we’ve been pretty hard on rats in this video.
So let’s end on a positive note.
Like many members of the animal Kingdom, rats do play an ecological role and can be helpful.
In Tanzania, for example, giant African Rats are helping get rid of landmines, effectively
saving lives.
The African Giant Pouched Rat, a cat sized creature native to central Africa, has been
employed in the effort to rid the region of land mines.
These landmines are remnants of conflicts decades later.
The rats can sniff out the TNT.
They’re also light enough to walk over the mines without setting them off.
In 22 years, these rats have helped remove more than 13,000 mines in Africa!
Here’s what’s next!