AIBU to ask where has loads of rats?

[cretelover]

Inspired by another thread of places you have no desire to visit and a poster mentioned New York as having loads of rats, where have you travelled to that had loads of rodents? Except squirrels of course, they are exempted haha. And yes of course I know they are everywhere, but it's rare you see any day to day in the UK. I think! I am so so scared of them! That rat temple in India is the stuff of my nightmares.

@bravotango

Train station waiting rooms in India - had to keep my feet up on the bench there were so many

This is what i would be afraid of. I'd have to be sedated. Was it just certain parts or all over?

Huge one dead on the street in Southampton, near the port. And a live one running around Sainsbury’s car park.

@AlternativePerspective

You’re apparently never more than 6 ft away from a rat.

Why anyone would want to keep them as pets is beyond me.

Myth.

I am in London. They are in our local park by the lake (they nick the bread people feed the ducks!). Also our local city farm and the area around it is absolutely infested. They nick the food from the farm plus the food people put down for squirrels / birds in the wildlife area. If people leave then rats will thrive I have never seen one on the tube though. Or Lincolns Inn Fields...

@Kndg

Karni Mata Rat temple in India. Don't look at videos if you hate rats, there's about 20000 there. My neighbours DD visited there on a trip to India and took lots of photos. Gross! But they are sacred, especially the white rats in the temple.

I've often had a look (at photos rather than videos) at this place, to try help, it doesn't I can safely say that if i ever had treatment I'd know i was cured if i could set foot in that place.

@bloodywhitecat

Many years ago I went for an early morning walk in the little fenland village I lived in (Cambridgeshire fens), when I was almost home I walked past a field that had just been harvested and was full of loose grain. As I walked you could hear the rats rustling through the stalks of wheat and the whole field was literally alive with rats. It completely grossed me out, I have never seen so many rats in my life.

I have a bit of an obsession with rats I am absolutely terrified of them and they make me feel physically sick when I see then because of this I tend to home in on them (like those who are terrified of spiders can see a money spider when the enter a room where most of us can’t)

Apart from in India the rats I have seen have been avoiding humans or appeared to be (even the one in Knightsbridge)

In Venice it was at night but then you are surrounded by water and the place is strangely quiet at night

I have absolutely loved and would return to all those places those nasty creatures didn’t put me off (though occasionally made me panic and cry/feel sick)

I used to put books on the top on my toilet seat to stop them getting in my home ive moved on from that now 😬

I read the title and immediately thought of Central Park in NY, only to see you’ve already mentioned NY in your OP! But yes, it was a bit grim to see so many in the park.

I'm not sure I want to ask, but the ones in India who don't avoid humans what do they do? Try to snatch food from you? Climb up? Why do i do this to myself

Anywhere within a half-mile or so radius of my house.

I've had rats in the house twice in the 20-odd years I've lived here. The council pest control man told me he's had occasion to call at practically every house in the area. My friend who lives about a quarter of a mile away had a rat problem that caused her sewer to collapse. She had to have the whole garden dug up to replace it, it cost thousands.

When my last terrier was young and fast, she was killing a couple of rats a week and leaving them on my lawn.

I used to see a rat run across my garden most days, but haven't seen one for a while now. I wonder if it's because my NDN no longer has chickens, so there's not a ready food source close by?

I always thought of rats as being an urban thing, but there's only one road between us and open countryside for miles. I never bloody saw one all the years I lived in Croydon.

Our Tesco car park is full of them too, but the nearest Macdonalds is on the coast, so you get terrorised by seagulls in their car park. I've never seen a rat there, I think they seagulls eat them all.

Pretty much everywhere here in London.

Loads of places! Our village lots of people a) have chickens b) have bird feeders c) put things out to feed large birds of prey.... all three attract rats. I saw one on my neighbours drive back in about September.

I’ve only ever seen them near docks.

No never had one try to pinch food

Often see them running about sometimes walking at a pace they just didn’t seem scared of humans

That’s India through everything is different it’s a country where you will be eating a meal feel a nudge on your shoulder from a huge cow who has just wondered in to see what’s going on It’s a fascinating country

I've been to New York several times and never seen a rat! Luck I suppose!

Rare that you see rats day to day in the UK? Come to East London mate, they frolic round the park like squirrels.

Wilsonwilson

I used to work at McDonald's and there were many, once saw one step on a piece of cucumber to get a dropped chip grin de me laugh“

Yes, they’re really smart.

There is a park in Portsmouth teeming with them, even during the middle of the day they are running across the path by your feet, there is a large lake where people feed the ducks so always food on the ground for the rats 🐀

Zakynthos in the maize (?) Fields. We rented a room in an apartment allocated on arrival and ours turned out to be about 3 miles from Laganas (? If I am remembering the names right - long time ago) in the middle of farm land. It was actually lovely because quiet for sleeping at night.

But we had to hire bikes and cycle to and from town through the fields. The lanes were littered with squashed dessicated rats that the bikes bumped over, and coming back at night we could see them running over the road in the bike lights.

“ they’re filthy disease-ridden vermin“

Most mammals are, like us for example

A rat - size of a cat - ran over my husband's foot in NY subway- never seen him jump so high🤣In the first lockdown there were rats in my neighbours' garden - we both got cats!

Many years ago, we regularly went on a family holiday to Christchurch (Hampshire). We would stay at a caravan site next to a river (I love it there, it's my happy place).

An elderly gentleman had told me that, as well as a kingfisher and other wonderful wildlife, there were water rats on the riverbank early in the morning.

I persuaded my dad to get up early one morning (I think he only agreed because he had a new camera and wanted to try it out!!), took some buttered bread to put out for the rats, and sat watching the beautiful little creatures scurrying around. It was totally worth losing a couple of hours sleep for that!

Having said that, I really wouldn't want them anywhere near my home!

It's hotchin with them down here as it's a port . See them all the time when I take my dogs out for their bedtime walk, scuttling about .😂 Mind you, we had them in our garden when we lived in Central Scotland ,under our shed ! DH thankfully didn't tell me he had seen to in our bin when he was putting rubbish out ,until we had moved . I would have freaked out ! I think they are everywhere to be honest ,OP.

London - and the numbers are estimated to have risen during lockdown (lots more food dropped outdoors, apparently)

I've seen them in the local park, running along an outdoor side passage at the primary school, and along a street by a railway line embankment. And we had one in the back garden once, and a neighbour along the street had an outbreak (sewer problem)

They usually run away from people, so we won't see what's teeming round us

Brussels.