There is a fucking rat in my garden

[Wonderdogdoris]

Obviously you can't burn down a garden...or can you?

What should I do? The fucker just looked at me and then scuttled through my garden to the neighbours. The neighbour has foxes and that is bad enough but now rats I'm horrified.

They say your only ever what is it, 20ft away from a rat?

It's just a small wild animal living it's life.

No different to a squirrel or pigeon.

why?
its outside.
Would you rather it be inside?
where do you want rats to live?

It's a wild animal. Let it be. I think being 'horrified' is a bit ridiculous.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20716625

It's just a rodent. Nothing to worry about.

Everyone has rats and other wild animals in their garden.

I'd rather that than the fucking exhaust and power steering ring my DH has left on the lawn!

Neighbours feeding birds I would bet.
A nice thing to do of course but can cause a serious rodent problem. Had this at the back of me with one mega bird feeder resident leading to rats all over several neighbours gardens.
Environmental health had a word with them when it got really bad.

There are rats everywhere you just don't always see them. Unless they are in your house, I really wouldn't worry.

Make sure they don't have a source of food in your garden.

I mistook the title, I thought the op had seen a rat fucking in her garden.

There's a nest somewhere. Have a look for holes in the ground around the edges of the garden or get someone else to look for you.

If no holes, this rat was on a jaunt around looking for food. If your garden is neat and tidy with few places to hide that dirty rat won't stay uninvited. Will go back to the nest.

In the meantime there are methods out there to get rid of them, and they are not all giant mouse traps either.

I know what I'm talking about as I had a Roland Rat last year. Got pest control company out, they sorted it and pointed out all the above things to me. They said the ground was disturbed in a nearby neighbour's garden when they were putting in the footing for their extension and the nest was disturbed. The neighbour got pest control also.

So far so good. But realistically rats are everywhere now, we just don't often see them.

The carriers of disease...?

I really don't like them, they scare me and I just worry about what they've touched.

I'd prefer they lived in someone else's garden and seemly many would not be bothered.

I don't mind rats in the garden but rats engaging in coitus in flagrante delicto is a bit much.

Pest control needed. I loathe rats, don’t want them in my garden.

Just to be clear no rats are a-fucking

There’s a field rat on my bird table as I write. (No bird food for it to eat though, as its not winter) - I live in the country surrounded by arable fields and the rat and its thousands of relatives have as much right to be here as I do.

You’re never more than a few feet from a rat wherever you are so unless you get them in your house just stop panicking and ignore it. The poor thing won’t hurt you, its a wild animal just trying to survive same as we are.

Exactly. Rats are very intelligent creatures. There are rats everywhere. I don't understand your reaction.

Won’t they take care of each other? The foxes will eat the rats.

However, fox mating calls are… something else. I first heard them in the middle of a fairly built-up section of Edinburgh at 2am and I thought it was aliens or something. I can see why people say it sounds like a woman being murdered when you’re camping and they’re screaming somewhere in a forest.

On second thought, might be better if the rat eats the fox. Rats are more quiet?

I used to have a river running along the bottom of my back garden (sounds posher than it was). By golly the rats there were HUGE.

Oh but they are, OP. Fucking and breeding like rats...

Don't stress about it. You'll have had rats in the garden of every house you've ever lived in. It's just that you've seen this one.

I'm not being an arse but I'm not an animal lover at all. I'm not evil or anything just not fond. Rats freak me out just like spiders do and jellyfish and many more.

They used to say there's a rat for every person in the UK. Where do you think they all live?

This.

What a massive overreaction OP 🤣

I knew that really 😃

I should have put a 😉 at the end of my post.