There was a rat in my butt, what am I gonna do.

[Bbbananas]

People. I had the fright of the year last week when titivating & moisturising my garden. There was I, merrily squirting away with the hosepipe, then I thought I'd fill up the water butt. I hadn't touched it for 3 weeks. I took off the lid, was about to plunge my hand in to skim off the leaves, then I saw IT. The biggest bl00dy rat I have seen in my entire life. Bloated. Writhing with maggots. And no word of a lie, it must have been 10-12 inches in length. I screamed & swore & shook.

I thought of going to the neighbour, a farmer but the words "Would you come over to my house & have a look at what's in my butt" might have been open to misinterpretation.

My daughter & her boyfriend eventually disposed of it. He thought I was exaggerating at the size of it (I thought only men did that....). Now I have the smelly water left to deal with, plus the remnant guts, fur & the tail which decomposed & sunk to the bottom of the butt. Do I just drain this off? Do I contact Pest Busters? Do I move house? Do I (and you'll never believe it is me saying this...) get a CAT??????

[carrust]

The plague was spread by rats....you're all gonna die lol

[Ankou]

some general advice here

http://forums.moneysa...owthread.php?t=981599

[Bbbananas]

Carrust - please don't frighten me any more ;-(

but the plague was spread by black rats wasn't it? This was definitely a very ordinary grey-brown thing. It was that big, even my daughter described it on my FB page as a racoon. I should have took a photo of it for the Sun, but I was too busy baulking and screaming.

[Dozy-Mare]

Are you a professional author sallabananas by any chance? If not you should be as that was beautiful to read, not what happened but the way it was typed.

[horseshoes]

OMG UGH. I really feel for you. That's awful. I think the maggots would have scared me more than the dead rat!

[carrust]

I shot one in my garden earlier this year, I put another 3 pellets in it before I dare pick it up.

[Bbbananas]

Why thank you dozy. I am a budding author. It has been a lifelong ambition to be a novelist - I'm working on it. In fact I've been working on various novels for the last 36 years.
I have been published in Bunty, Mother & Baby, She and the local rag.

I shall be famous one day - you see. :-)

[Dozy-Mare]

I also used to enjoy a bit of creative writing as a hobby, poems songs and writing stories. I must get back into it as well as reading books again. Goodluck with the future and if i ever see the name "Sallabananas" on any book or featured in any magazines you can count on me to purchase it.

[mccfluff]

i keep telling you, you can have murph, why you won't take me up on the offer i'll never know

[society]

Salla, that's awful and yucky. I'd give that butt a good washing with bleach.

Is this your butt - http://tinyurl.com/24oy9be :-)

[Dozy-Mare]

What are the reasons to hoard dirty water in one of these contraptions? Watering plants?

[DEN53]

I wonder how the rat got in the water butt Salla - if the lid was on - I had a tiny mouse in my water butt 2 weeks ago, even that made me jump - I would have had a coronary if I had seen the rat.

If I was you Salla, I would dump the water butt and buy a new one (:0 )

[Bbbananas]

Dozy - you've made my day. I do have a 'work in progress' - funnily enough, it's not a funny novel, it's quite serious. Which is very hard for me, because I cannot help but try and inject humour into everything I write. Whether it will ever get finished, who knows. But if I am ever to be universally successful at anything (oh, the modesty), it will be as a novelist. Maybe not of JK Rowling proportions...but you never know ;-)
I have loved writing since I can remember - and if I can entertain, amuse or touch anyone with my writing, it makes my day.

Anyway - back to the rats? Poison, traps, gun massacre or the dreaded cat?

[Barmaid]

Just drain the water out of the butt. Swill it out with some Jeyes fluid and then reuse it. As long as you are not using it for watering food, it should be fine. But make sure you don't come into contact with the foul water and scrub yourself well afterwards.

Make sure your garden is free from rat attractions such as rubbish heaps, gaps under sheds, log piles etc. Put poison down in the places where you see them as rat runs.

A rat will have come down the drainpipe and promptly drowned so it may be worth checking your loft spaces etc for any sign (you'll smell a rat because they are incontinent).

And what do you expect Salla? You live near the rat capital of Europe!! My best friend used to live down the Hob Hole bank - the rats down there were enormous - I actually wondered if they were coypus (sp)?!

[Bobbisox]

great seeing you back where you belong sall x

[Dozy-Mare]

Sallabananas Regarding JK Rowling who is now worth a Billion and makes a million every three days,Her life now is, naturally, very different from the hand-to-mouth struggle of the days before Potter was published. Back then, she famously nursed cold coffees in an Edinburgh cafe for hours as she wrote, her daughter Jessica sleeping in a buggy beside her. She subsisted on £70 a week benefits, and her flat was infested with mice.

Never give up the dream sallabananas!

[Bbbananas]

In words of Gleefulness - I don't stop believing.....

I think it got in there cos I am renowned for never putting back lids properly on anything - I think a cat chased the rat off the top of the chest of drawers that's dumped behind the butt and it sort of spun around & fell in. I tell you Boo - it's a good job I had that heart op in February - cos this would have given me a coronary.

Luckily my stepson has his own pest control business - he's coming to clear the area for me of all the dumped furniture & stuff and then put bait down until the rats have cleared off. McFluff - I may well borrow your psycho puss if all of this fails.

Barm - the rat capital of Europe? Jeez - another reason to get the hell out of Lincolnshire.....