Giant rats on Savin Hill
By adamg - Thu, 11/22/2007 - 11:04am.
Audubon writes the rats are out of control:
... Last night, walking from my car to the house, a big fat rat ran out from under a car, dashed across the sidewalk in front of me, slammed into the wall of the liquor store, ran back across the sidewalk and hid under the car until I passed. This whole situation took about 25 seconds, which is a lot of time to stand around if you're holding a laundry bag, some groceries and other things. ...
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Yeeeeeeks!! Gross!!
Rats are the most disgusting, horrid type of vermin. The city should do more to control them. It's really scary to see them. Not long ago, after eating dinner with a friend at the Legal Seafoods in Cambridge's Kendall Square, we both walked down to where we'd parked our cars. Sure enough, there was a huge rat on the sidewalk !! Yech!! Still fresh in my memory, also, is my sighting of a rat many years ago, when I was jogging along the Charles River Esplanade--at dusk. Wheeeee!! Those things are nasty!!
Funny how no one ever sees
Funny how no one ever sees normal sized rats. They're always HUGE! Of course, the fact is that adult rats are always about the same size. Despite what your lyin' eyes tell you, there are no beaver-sized rats out there.
A walking football
Mark, I understand your skepticism, but I remember an occasion (albeit many years ago) near the Howard Johnson around Fenway, and while waiting for friends outside the lobby, a walking football darted through the parking lot to some unknown location behind the hotel. Convinced it might have been a cat, I chased after it only to discover (to my horror), it was indeed a rat. A big, mother effing rat.
'possums playing rat?
Norway rats don't get to be much over a pound.
Could it have been a possum? They look rather ratty.
We had one young marsupial lady enter our shed after we blocked up all the holes but didn't get to the space under the door. We chased her out with a broom and she seemed quite scared - poor thing! I wanted to lure her out with peanut butter to thank her (and it was a her - she had a pocket) for pointing out the few remaining entry spaces to the shed - I've grown quite tired of cleaning up after all those fabulous raccoon trash parties.
There've got to be other rats that get big...
At my place in Brighton, I had a possum who'd hang out on the fire escape, either hanging upside down on the railing, or lying there deadlike for hours in my planter boxes. Definitely a possum, given these two behaviors. And was lighter-colored and looked to have softer fur than other rodents. Outside by the garbage cans though, was this HUGE rat. It had a rat tail, did not play dead when approached, and had a rat face instead of a more foxy type possum face. It was as big as my cats though. Is there a species of rat that gets huge? Everything I'm finding says various rats don't get much bigger than a few pounds "in the wild," but I can't find any stats on how big they can get when they lie around in the city and eat pizza crusts all day.
kinda like whackamole
a zillion years ago, when i lived in a furnished apartment in the south end, we had rats -- not mice -- in the kitchen. they would pop up through the holes in the floor, kinda like a whackamole game. they were big, but not craaaazy big, and kinda cute. but only kinda. luckily i was broke, and didn't really have to spend more than 12 minutes in there at a time to make my mac n cheese.
Rodents. Geriatric Care Service. Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in JP
Rodents at the Geriatric Care Service at Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Jamaica Plain are not difficult to spot. Who at the Department of Public Health Bureau of Hospitals http://www.mass.gov/dph/hosp/burhosp.htm will attend to the rodents?
Lemuel Shattuck Hospital
Healthcare Acquired Infections (HAI)
January 1, 2006 - October 31, 2007
Month
*Hospital HAI Rate (%)
* Percentage equals number of total hospital HAI's
divided by the number of total patient days.
**Geriatric HAI Rate (%)
** Percentage equals number of total Geriatric unit
HAI's divided by the number of total Geriatric unit
patient days.
Data as of November 23, 2007
HAI Rate % HAI Rate %
Hospital Geriatric
2007
Average 0.057 0.092
October 0.100 0.490
September 0.050 0.000
August 0.050 0.000
July 0.020 0.000
June 0.080 0.280
May 0.090 0.000
April 0.040 0.000
March 0.040 0.150
February 0.030 0.000
January 0.070 0.000
2006
Average 0.131 0.446
December 0.026 0.000
November 0.137 0.000
October 0.090 0.150
September 0.040 0.150
August 0.092 0.150
July 0.380 0.150
June 0.040 1.700
May 0.026 0.000
April 0.540 0.160
March 0.090 2.900
February 0.044 0.000
January 0.066 0.000
11/23/07