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http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/p.../909010348
reminds of a time I spent in a small fishing village with a processing plant... the bus route to my home had its first stop at the plant.. I could literally find my way home (or at least the right bus) blindfolded - grin
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You think that's bad? When I lived in New Orleans, so many people ate on the busses and threw leftovers on the floor that they had a serious rat infestation on the busses. Rats were traveling around the city, terrifying the more squeamish passengers. They were even observed jumping on and off the busses at transfer points, scattering the usually thick crowds waiting for a bus. The transit authority had to advertise for a professional rat catcher who eventually greatly reduced, but did not fully eliminate, the problem. Nothing they tried would keep people from eating on the bus.
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Smelly transit is when a mouse crawls into your car heating system & dies [xx(] & you don't know it - one of my least favorite memories of New England life. This thread could easily turn into a "can you top this". But, keeping it Puna related, I don't see the mouse in heater problem happening here. Lucky we live Paradise. D
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I have wood rats and mice at the cabin ... getting back there the first week or so a challenge as I evict them. Its quite a wit matching spectacle at times.
Local rats .... Out here at the acres its the wildest thing ... twice a year we have "rat day" it seems .... we never see em except for rat day - then hang on 'cause its a rat bonanza
Last cycle, on one day half a dozen on the lawn all at the same time, oblivious to me or dog they kept munching at the grass seed. ...
A couple of them on the lanai furniture checking all of us out through the windows in the evenings - this goes on for a day or two ... then no more rats
Any one else encounter this? wild twice a year ... youngsters leaving the nests is my guess ... kind of fun once you figure out they will eventually leave
wild
I encountered plenty rat and mouse mass incursions here until I got a cat that hunts. Now, no. The cats still catch rats that are living all around in this very lush ag area, but no rat dares to come play on the lawn or come up on the lanai or in the house. They just don't try it. Mongoose family congregates on the lawn, but mongoose is more than equal to take on a cat.
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Bullwinkle,
Are you saying that you have rats that you can actually SEE in the daytime? I have never even seen a mongoose here, let alone a rat. There are a few neighbors who have outside cats. Mine is inside only, but the others hang around our compost bin on the far side of the property, I am only guessing they are waiting for something besides mango peels and lilikoi shells. [
]
quote:
Originally posted by Bullwinkle
I have wood rats and mice at the cabin ... getting back there the first week or so a challenge as I evict them. Its quite a wit matching spectacle at times.
Local rats .... Out here at the acres its the wildest thing ... twice a year we have "rat day" it seems .... we never see em except for rat day - then hang on 'cause its a rat bonanza
Last cycle, on one day half a dozen on the lawn all at the same time, oblivious to me or dog they kept munching at the grass seed. ...
A couple of them on the lanai furniture checking all of us out through the windows in the evenings - this goes on for a day or two ... then no more rats
Any one else encounter this? wild twice a year ... youngsters leaving the nests is my guess ... kind of fun once you figure out they will eventually leave
wild
Aloha au i Hawai`i,
devany
www.myhawaiianhome.blogspot.com
www.eastbaypotters.blogspot.com
The rats are nocturnal and do their best not to be seen, so Bullwinkle's rats do seem very bold with their rat Woodstock events ...
Rats like to hang out in avocado trees, and coconuts, fruit trees in general. They rustle, but aren't overt.
I'm surprised there aren't mongoose where you live, Devany. Maybe your neighborhood did something to get rid of them? I am not far down the road and have boatloads of mongoose. I had some bananas that got over-ripe and were temporarily in a wheelbarrow, and the mongoose were raiding it like crazy. I didn't know they like bananas.
Back to the original story (Bullwinkle has hijacked his own topic) ... the comments are as usual very entertaining.
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once - or twice a year (april for sure) like lemmings ... these little typically hawaiian - not the norwegian roof or bilge rats ... but furry little - im serious here - cute rats over run the place for 24 - 36 hrs daytime night time anytime ... wont even dart away underfoot ... they all seem to be after the lawn that is in seed .... They have seeds all over their noses... the eighty pound golden retriever sniffing at them.... but since they wont run - he doesn't care ---- its weird .... hitchcock weird
before you cast aspersions ....... I do have a witness (es)
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Bullwinkle... this sounds like fodder for a YouTube video next time they appear! You are right, it is Hitchcock weird and funny. Good thing you have credible witnesses!
Kathy, I have never even seen one anywhere in our neighborhood (only two streets long) when walking my dog or on my daily three mile walk through Pauka'a to Honolii and back. I have seen them running around in other neighborhoods, mostly up the coast and they crack me up in their own weasel ways. We had tons of squirrels in IL and CA and I was surprised to learn that the closest thing to them were the mongoose. We even had some very tame flying squirrels at our house in IL. I have tons of pictures of "Rocky" eating out of my hands. But no mongoose here. Just as well, I don't think that they are as cute as squirrels.
I have not seen or heard rats either, though I did see "evidence" of them under our house when we got here before our exterminating company put out bait stations. Since then nary a little poop has appeared.
Aloha au i Hawai`i,
devany
www.myhawaiianhome.blogspot.com
www.eastbaypotters.blogspot.com
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I don't know the exact numbers but rats can have several litters per year so if it is youngsters leaving the nest it would happen more than twice per year. I saw a very interesting program on public TV about rat plagues and famine in asia. It seems that bamboo has the weird habit of going for decades without blooming, then every related grove of bamboo the world over will suddenly bloom and set fruit. I didn't know bamboo had fruit but I guess the point is it doesn't for 50 years at a stretch, then it has a huge amount. Along with it the rat population explodes. When the bamboo stops fruiting and the now incredibly numerous rats start to starve they suddenly become very obvious and visible as they start eating everything in sight.
