Help!! Do Wild Baby Rats Cry? Or What Is Under My House?

[freemonkey]

Something has been living under the house for a week or so, according to the dog. I found a dead rat in a trap today, so I'm guessing there are babies under my house right now. They (or it) are crying. :omgwtf: It sounds like a trilling, or like a super mini dog barking and howling. This is awful. At first, whatever it was was scratching and chewing or something. Really loudly.

[freemonkey]

:sadeyes: I'm a terrible, mama rat-murdering person

[LadyShea]

I don't know about baby rats making noise, but lots of animals do. Do you have a crawl space you can access to take a look?

I fed the family of woodrats I had in the yard, and that kept them out of the house, and they're kinda cute (unlike the big sewer looking rats I see sometimes). The rats disappeared just around the time we started seeing lots of snakes. Also, we have a fairly steady supply of stray cats here. I figure it all works out without my intervention. Except fireants, I murder those fuckers with extreme prejudice.

[Sophia]

Yes I think they do!

One thing about having a functioning conscience that came on so strong and so bright after a brush with death is that even the suffering of non-human animals can get to me. I'm torn over whether to even keep eating meat.

[Doctor X]

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs43/i/2009/056/a/a/Nameless_rat_baby_by_Itchys_rats.jpg

"Mommy?"

--J.D.

[ChuckF]

Something has been living under the house for a week or so, according to the dog.
:giggle: This made me lol.

Is the dog interested in, uh, solving this problem? Can s/he freely get under the house? If it's just rat babbies, it could be fun and nutritive.

[freemonkey]

The crawlspace is too small for my dog, or for me.

This noise was loud, and last night was the first time I'd heard it. I thought it might be babies because of the dead one. It didn't last very long, fortunately. Now the dog keeps going and looking in the bathroom, so they are under there somewhere.

And Doctor X - mean!!

[Doctor X]

Hey, I am not the one who murdered Mom. . . .

--J.D.

[freemonkey]

The more I think about it, the more I think those sounds could not be coming from rats. Too loud, not squeaky enough. I'm wondering now if it was a raccoon last night under the house. Will set a live trap where it might have come in.

[Sock Puppet]

I hear Clutch is good at dealing with raccoons. You should engage him on a professional consultant basis.

[Clutch Munny]

http://www.homedepot.ca/wcsstore/HomeDepotCanada/images/catalog/6f466876-6551-42e5-9c70-6613e892af00_4.jpg

http://www.abc-of-fishing.net/images/pics/fishing-landing-net.jpg

[mulebear]

They (or it) are crying. :omgwtf: It sounds like a trilling, or like a super mini dog barking and howling. This is awful. At first, whatever it was was scratching and chewing or something. Really loudly.

Shouldn't this have been posted in the Random Cthulhu thread.

[Ymir's blood]

Now they have blown up Exham Priory... shut me into this barred room at Hanwell with fearful whispers about my heredity and experience. Thornton is in the next room, but they prevent me from talking to him. They are trying, too, to suppress most of the facts concerning the priory. When I speak of poor Norrys they accuse me of this hideous thing, but they must know that I did not do it. They must know it was the rats; the slithering scurrying rats whose scampering will never let me sleep; the daemon rats that race behind the padding in this room and beckon me down to greater horrors than I have ever known; the rats they can never hear; the rats, the rats in the walls.

[Naru]

Not enough :golfclap: in the world.

[Sonoma Bear]

Hannibal Lecter: I will listen now. After your father's murder, you were orphaned. You were ten years old. You went to live with cousins on a sheep and horse ranch in Montana. And...?
Clarice Starling: [tears begin forming in her eyes] And one morning, I just ran away.
Hannibal Lecter: No "just", Clarice. What set you off? You started at what time?
Clarice Starling: Early, still dark.
Hannibal Lecter: Then something woke you, didn't it? Was it a dream? What was it?
Clarice Starling: I heard a strange noise.
Hannibal Lecter: What was it?
Clarice Starling: It was... screaming. Some kind of screaming, like a child's voice.
Hannibal Lecter: What did you do?
Clarice Starling: I went downstairs, outside. I crept up into the barn. I was so scared to look inside, but I had to.
Hannibal Lecter: And what did you see, Clarice? What did you see?
Clarice Starling: The rats. The baby rats were screaming.

:freakout:

[freemonkey]

Whatever it was (probably a raccoon) did not come back last night and the dog has stopped worrying so much. I think I know what happened and I don't want to discuss it. :sadyup:

Hopefully all the scratching it did was not expensive damage to ducts or something else important. But it probably was.

[Doctor X]

The more I think about it, the more I think those sounds could not be coming from rats. Too loud, not squeaky enough. I'm wondering now if it was a raccoon last night under the house. Will set a live trap where it might have come in.

http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2011/1/28/8f3b1e3e-0c0e-4f97-84b2-7be46579f708.jpg

http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2011/1/28/8b45f288-c4a1-491c-a470-240895dc55f3.jpg

:tremble:

--J.D.

[freemonkey]

no baby raccoons were harmed. no baby raccoons were orphaned. no adult raccoons were harmed. I can't say that about any rats, though. :(

[freemonkey]

4:15 AM and my dog is barking like someone is breaking into the house. Once I got her to quiet down I hear what sounds like a Yorkshire Terrier inside a box of pillows in the corner of the bedroom.

:omgwtf: OMGWTF is in my bedroom!!

Once I realized it was actually under the house and not in the house, I got brave and went outside with a flashlight back to the side where the sound was coming from. Sure enough, one of the vent (not sure "vent" is the right word for the rectangular holes in the foundation, but I'll use it til someone corrects me) covers was torn away. But the sound was coming from closer to one of the other vents. I had to get n hands and knees to peek in there and I was totally expecting for it to run away. But nope, there was all kinds of fluffy gray fur, and when I got even lower and looked right in two little beady black eyes looking right back at me.

It kept up with it's racket for at least another half hour. It was like a muffled "bark, bark, bark, hooooowwwwl". I do not know if it was lost, alone and distressed, or sick & dying. Or if there were two of them in there and they were doing their Spring Fling Thing.

I really hope, if it was a mating pair, mom does not move in for the summer.

[godfry n. glad]

Raccoons...appearing at a henhouse near you. Soon.

[wildernesse]

I had a cat who got trapped under the house somehow, and it found its way to my bedroom floor and howled until I figured out it was locked in. It was sad to look at it through the little vent and see it in kitty dungeon. Kinda creepy that you can hear things under the house like that.

Hope you get them/it out and aren't treated to anymore of that.

[Qingdai]

Dude! Get your vent's screened!
Or you'll find random skeletons when you go to check or worse, smell decaying meat.
:sad:

[freemonkey]

The vents are screened, just one got pulled off during the debacle earlier this winter. Yesterday afternoon I put the screen back up but did not secure it, except with a couple landscaping stones. Then I set a live trap with some delicious apples and bananas. I don't hear anything out there so I don't think I captured anyone. Either it was only visiting or it died under there and will start stinking the place up in a couple days.

[Ymir's blood]

Dude! Get your vent's screened!
Or you'll find random skeletons when you go to check or worse, smell decaying meat.
:sad:You say this as if they were bad things. :hmph:

[Qingdai]

Or as if I know!

[Ymir's blood]

The place I used to live had a seasonal rodent problem, being surrounded by woods on three sides. After quite a few sleepless nights, I decided that the vermin must go. Now contrary to the caricature of myself presented so often on these boards, I am not a bloodthirsty sort. Years before, I built a box trap propped up with a pencil attached to a string, which ran to my comfy chair. (think Wiley Coyote here) It worked and the mouse was disposed of some miles away on a deserted stretch of road, doubtless embarrassed but otherwise none the worse for wear. However, these more modern varmints never showed themselves, nor were active when I was. So my trap of old was not going to work. I tried out one of those subsonic rodent repellants, but to no avail. It did drive them out of the bedroom area, but it wasn't so subsonic as advertised, making an incessant chirping noise. It also did nothing to keep the critters out of the kitchen, despite the promised subsonic radius being far greater than the actual distance. And so, finally deciding that the sanctity of my home and victuals was worth fighting for, I set out standard mouse traps. Well, apart from the nerve wracking crack when one is set off, they do a pretty good job. Oh, I had some disappear, most distressing was the rat trap underneath the house. Others were triggered but failed to deliver the goods. Some however yielded their deadly harvest, snapping the spine and hopefully causing a quick death. When checked regularly, the body could be disposed of and the trap reset. However, on one occasion, the doomed rodent was not discovered until some time had passed. A smell had presented itself to me some days before, but for whatever reason I hadn't investigated the traps. When, however, I did occasion upon the deceased, it was rather far gone, being little more than a shapeless lump of fur on a slab of metal and wood generously decorated with rather unpleasant brown stains. In this instance, the trap and remains were disposed intact, well as intact as figure of speech, at least. The trap was not perhaps beyond further use, but as the remains seemed likely to have adhered to it, simply pulling back the arm and letting gravity do its work seemed rather dubious.

Ultimately, D-Con was my preferred method, though I did worry somewhat about its effects on the local wildlife, should the poisoned creatures choose to expire in the great outdoors. Less generally useful, though effective enough, was the broom with which I engaged in savage mêlée with a particularly bold mouse in my kitchen, just as I was expecting a visit from family. It was a hard fought battle in which I ultimately triumphed. While normally engaging in combat mano-a-mano with a wild animal is a matter of valor, suffice to say that I won no honor in this encounter.

[JoeP]

Now contrary to the caricature of myself presented so often on these boards, I am not a bloodthirsty sort.

I've never seen you as bloodthirsty (nor implied it). In fact I see you as someone keen to have all blood - and flesh - removed, before you can truly appreciate a visitor.

[freemonkey]

Whatever it is was, it is still under my house. And stinky. Ack. :gross: