Giant Hamburger

Hail Citizens!

If you do not wish to see dead things then turn back now!

I am embroiled in a war with rats that have invaded my attic this winter.
I considered live traps but the idea of driving individual rats to some new environment in my gasoline powered driving instrument seems too ridiculous.

I am open to suggestions. Please give me your council.

Poison is lazy and foolish. They die in hard to reach places and stink for too long.
It has to be snap traps.

smeared with delicious peanut butter

The death toll is at 7.

Some have been adults



Some have been adolescents

but there are no noncombatants

Q: And babies?

A: And Babies.

Only one has escaped so far

at a painful price.

No doubt he will return to gnaw at my face whilst I sleep.

When I ascend the attic steps for my morning harvest

I wonder if a wave of mujahideen will pour down upon me.

This is Rathallah

I am certain those lens flares are tiny valkyrie.

I fear this battle will continue until Rathallah is overfilled and the dead scuttle across the earth.

This is where I will post updates with news from the front.

BadNick

Good luck, brave warrior, in your battle toward truth, rightousness, and ratlessness. May the power of felines be with you. Have you considered getting/borrowing a cat?

Nasty, disgusting, dirty critters ...though when I have them as pets they are cute and smart. Kinda like when I was married and my wife thought I was cute and smart, then after divorce I am a nasty disgusting, dirty critter.

PS: I had squirrels for a while, but after cementing their access shut, they have been gone for a few months.

Fly

that is a sound floor GH............my labs could do all the dirty work for you....sans the peanut butter.


.....and good luck in your fight.

__________________
BASTARD

SterlingStudios

Giant Hamburger

What ho comrades!

The rats only reside in the attic and walls which makes using a weaponized domestic animal somewhat problematic. No self-respecting cat, dog or snake would want to spend the quality time needed in my attic to get the job done.

I take care of too many living things as it is.
I am now only accepting dead things into the family.

uncle phil

__________________
"We were wrong, terribly wrong. (We) should not have tried to fight a guerrilla war with conventional military tactics against a foe willing to absorb enormous casualties...in a country lacking the fundamental political stability necessary to conduct effective military and pacification operations. It could not be done and it was not done."
- Robert S. McNamara
-----------------------------------------
"We will take our napalm and flame throwers out of the land that scarcely knows the use of matches...
We will leave you your small joys and smaller troubles."
- Eugene McCarthy in "Vietnam Message"
-----------------------------------------
never wrestle with a pig.
you both get dirty;
the pig likes it.

JumpinJesus

But if you kill all the rats, who will eat all the cheese?

__________________
"I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

grumpyolddude

The Attic Rats? I used to play with those guys! Yeah, they deserve to die...Kill em all, says I!

Giant Hamburger

I killed this one in the butt!

I don't feel good about it.

uncle phil

try either one of these...you won't even need a trap...

__________________
"We were wrong, terribly wrong. (We) should not have tried to fight a guerrilla war with conventional military tactics against a foe willing to absorb enormous casualties...in a country lacking the fundamental political stability necessary to conduct effective military and pacification operations. It could not be done and it was not done."
- Robert S. McNamara
-----------------------------------------
"We will take our napalm and flame throwers out of the land that scarcely knows the use of matches...
We will leave you your small joys and smaller troubles."
- Eugene McCarthy in "Vietnam Message"
-----------------------------------------
never wrestle with a pig.
you both get dirty;
the pig likes it.

blahblah454

Hail GH!

Many have tried and failed in the past, many have also perished. May you be fortuitous in your endeavor towards a vermin free abode.

ring

My kingdom for a Ratatoullie recipe!

inBOIL

Don't try to drive them out with Doric rats. It won't work.

__________________
And you believe Bush and the liberals and divorced parents and gays and blacks and the Christian right and fossil fuels and Xbox are all to blame, meanwhile you yourselves create an ad where your kid hits you in the head with a baseball and you don't understand the message that the problem is you.

ring

Have the vermin vamoosedead?

BadNick

Don't give them an inch or they'll take a yard

deleted - too young

undelete - I hope this is OK now, I took out the little kid and inserted my abstract impressionist smiley since it still invokes the same terror of rats for me:



Alternative disposal means:



R-a-t A-r-t

Giant Hamburger

News from the front.

So far the death toll is 8.

A few traps have gotten bloody so I threw them out with the corpse.
If the rats have some sort of afterlife mythology I am certain they would hate to be buried with a snap trap still attached.
I will strike at them on all fronts which includes the psychological.

How many traps will I end up purchasing?
How much WILL this war cost?
The unemployment rate in Giant Hamburgerstan is 80%.

BadNick

Since today is his memorial holiday, I'm reminded of something Martin Luther King, Jr. said:

"Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism."

I'm sure he would have included rats if he had more time.

Giant Hamburger

He would have said, "this will not end until you kill the rat with the human face."

I am certain of it.

Fly

wow!!!!!!!!


GH dude............can you get that on film for us?



that'd be too freakin' cool..........

__________________
BASTARD

SterlingStudios

Giant Hamburger

There are so many.

Last night they taunted me with their ceaseless gnawings.
I suspect they have tiny saws to weaken the support beams.
I heard their claws skitch across the wood as they pranced and frolicked with abandon, heedless of my traps and their "irresistible" bait.

They task me, they task me and I shall have them.

Giant Hamburger

Dfewer

Now those are some rats!

BadNick

Luckily these are not quite that ^ large, but GH would still probably have to use other means of disposal on these critters:


Mammalogist Martua Sinaga holds this 1.4 kilogram giant rat from the Indonesian province of Papua (Source: Bruce M Beehler)


I think I would seriously reconsider the "feline terminator" option.

Giant Hamburger

Cats are inconsistent when it comes to their rat terminating effectiveness.
The attic is too cold for reptiles.
There are no vampires available.

I have tried the anti-rodent sonic emitter.
I caught them in snap traps within 2 feet of the emitter.
What I really need is a broadband, high-intensity, short-duration burst of electromagnetic energy in the attic at a frequency of at least 20 kHz.

The rats must trapped and removed.
The women folk will not suffer the smell of dead things long.

Giant Hamburger

They now avoid my traps.
I fear they are guided by some malignant intelligence.

I must meet their leader in ritual combat.
Only then will they respect my authority.

I will fight him tonight on the rooftop in the rain.
*queues Queen soundtrack

ring

May the rain fall photogenetically down the well oiled
skin of your slickness, mist meister,
swing low,kick high, kiss sweet arses goodbye,

Victory parade in the chariot...soon.

Ourcrazymodern?

I knew it was your juice, Mr.!

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

BadNick

I wonder if this works? ....though this makes it sound too humane



""The Rat Zapper Ultra uses advanced electronic technology to deliver a deadly shock to mice and rats. simply bait the Rat Zapper Ultra with ordinary dry pet food. When the rodent goes for the bait, the system senses its presence and then delivers enough electrical energy to quickly and humanely kill the rodent with no blood or gore. Dispose of the mouse, rat, or other rodent into an appropriate receptacle. you'll never have to touch the dead pest! THE ADVANTAGES OF THE RAT ZAPPER ULTRA!.. kills mice, ground squirrels and rats.. it's humane (kills rodents quickly).. environmentally friendly (no poisons).. it's clean (no blood or gore).. highly effective and proven.. reusable- will not wear out.. designed not to harm your children or your pets.. built-in battery check.. really works- guaranteed.""

Redlemon

Here, let me get that for you.



No idea why you wanted that song, though?

__________________
I can't read your signature. Sorry.

grumpyolddude

Great deal for $39.90! But the remote monitor for $580.00????

Kaimi

I bought something like that once and it never caught a thing. What I found most successful were the old fashioned wooden traps with peanut butter and a little flour dusted on it. Also the pre-bated plastic traps that look like a set of sawtoothed jaws, they killed the mice surprisingly cleanly. I never found even one of those plastic traps had been set off without a kill.

Tophat665

Plague Fleas. That's what you need. Rats are much more susceptible to plague than humans, and, unlike with poison, die out in the open. If you can infect one rat with one flea, it will infect the rest of the tribe.

'Course, you'll want to vacate the area while it works itself out....

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

BadNick

^ that's inspiring... so I'm digging deep here for alternate solutions ...how about this one, hit them with the virus:

""...The pathogenesis for adult rats of a Venezuelan encephalitis virus (VEE) strain, V-198, was studied. This virus strain was chosen following virulence-testing of 12 prototype alphavirus strains, selected from the Semliki Forest, Venezuelan, Eastern, and Western encephalitis virus complexes; only VEE strain V-198 killed all adult rats when inoculated subcutaneously (sc) with 6.0-6.5 log10 plaque-forming units (PFU). Lower doses of strain V-198 by the same route were also lethal: 5.0 and 3.0 log10 PFU killed 100%, and 1.0 log10 PFU killed 70% of rats. Viral infectivity titrations of tissues obtained from V-198 straininfected rats demonstrated that virus replicated early in thymus and spleen, but did not replicate in bone marrow or liver. Following a brief viremia, virus infectivity titers peaked in brain, but did not persist there. A biphasic neutrophilia also occurred. Lower doses of inoculum virus affected the timing but not the degree of neutrophil fluctuations, virus replication, and clinical disease. Rats, moribund seven days after inoculation of 4.3 log10 PFU, exhibited central nervous system signs and histologic evidence of encephalomyelitis. Significant proportions of rats, otherwise lethally infected with V-198 virus, were protected by a single intraperitoneal inoculation of hyperimmune V-198 antiserum, administered 3 or 4, but not 5 days after virus.
Since the rat has been well characterized with respect to metabolic alterations following other infectious diseases, it is anticipated that this model for lethal virus-induced disease will be useful for defining more precisely the functional relationships between viral growth, tissue destruction, metabolic alterations, and clinical course of disease, and that it may suggest specific approaches for effective treatment of viral diseases in general..."

MLTHED

Try the ultrasonic devices. I've had them in my attic for more than 10 years (replaced once) and no rats at all. Had them when I moved in to my house.

Tophat665

You could leave assorted travel brochures around the attic busking the murinous glory of Illkhmar. Course, the problem of finding brochures in this day and age printed in Rat might be a thorny one, and you would, of course, have to arrange for a portal to Newhon to open in your attic, but there is little that is impossible for your Meatiness.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

ring

On tenterhooks sir...

UPDATE !!!

Ourcrazymodern?

I think you should adopt them and make them your own.

Why do you shudder?

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

tricks

Remove their food source (other than peanut butter smeared traps). The only place I've ever lived with rats had a skate center dumpster on the other side of the backyard fence.

And, on cats. My cats would catch them and bring them into the house, alive, and play with them.

__________________
People Are Stupid. People can be made to believe any lie, either
because they want it to be true or because they fear that it is.

Giant Hamburger

News from the front...

Current Death Toll:
Humans: 0
Cephalopod: 0
Opossum: 1
Rats: 12

There will be no peace talks with the invading rodents.
Such an accord could only be a stalling tactic to draw out this conflict and deplete my resources.
Only a fool would enter into such obviously faux negotiations.

The nocturnal activity has decreased significantly over the last few days.
Perhaps they are beginning to understand that the wages of attic work is death.

This war is far from over. I await the inevitable counter strike.
I will seek the council of Sheelba of the Eyeless Face and Ningauble of the Seven Eyes to ascertain whether or not I have in some way offended the Rat God.

Tophat665

You could set up a rat sized amphitheatre with the floor & bleachers rigged over a tank full of piranhas and set to fall at the push of a button. Make sure this is located so that the stage is in full view of an attic vent. Set a monitor on stage and start playing "Round and Round" and other videos from the "Out of the Cellar" album. They will surely scuttle out of their hiding places and take their seats. Then, just as the tiny rat sized lighters come out, push the button and drop them into the tank of predatory fish. Then watch the water turn red. It would be glorious.

And tell Ningauble I said hi.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

BadNick

Don't relent, don't ease up the pressure. I can sense that total victory is imminent. Now is the time to hit even harder, if that's possible.

Your bravery and cunning has made us proud to be human sort of like you.