I have been at our beach house for the last couple of weeks with the kids and the rats, gerbils, and guinea pigs while my husband has stayed at home with the dogs and cats. We share this house with my inlaws so I started cleaning up before everyone comes in for the 4th of July and found that my rats had ruined my sister-in-law's bedding. I am horrified! Their cage was pushed up against her bed and they gnawed through a pillow and sham and her dust ruffle (all matching).

These people don't feel the same way about animals that I do so I was working hard to cover all the signs that I had ever kept my animals in her room. Oops. My husband said to throw it all in the garbage and pretend that I don't know what happened. Haha. I think I'm going to do my best to replace it and then just have the kids explain it to her and beg for her mercy. She is one scary woman so basically I'll be throwing my children under the bus (call me supermom).

Oh well. Gotta love a "naughty" pet/child/husband. Keeps things exciting.

Oh wow, Kimby, bummers!! 8O :oops:

I agree, replace it as best you can and apologize. It's all you can do.

Good luck!!
Rejoicing in the day,
-Mary

or tell her you found it that way & its time to call an exterminator after this trip is over

<blush>

beats tossing the kids under the bus & it doesn't give her any fuel to fire her dislike for your pets

Trouble is... Kids are naturally honest. :roll:
And I tell my kids all the time they'd better be honest with me. I have to be pretty careful, they take that to mean they must be honest with all adults... which I don't want to discourage, but at times it's... incovenient. :oops:

:lol:

Rejoicing in the day,
-Mary

Won't work. When we got here I had to go around and search for all he rat traps and those little "sonic beep thingys" that my mother-in-law already had spread out all over the place (no free ranging here). She found some mouse dropping in here a couple of winters ago and all **** broke lose.

I am going shopping today to find some kind of replacement and then I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed that she doesn't eat my precious little children for dinner. Did I mention my daughter can cry on cue?

oh dear...i really feel for you haha
to be fair it`s not the rats fault since it`s in their instinct the chew things (mine chewed through a £200 jacket i never even knew they could get hold of!) i just hope your sister-in-law is understanding *fingers crossed*

hopefully your daughter crying will hit a soft spot hahaha

yeah, that's why my rat cage is nowhere near my bed... i now have a patch on the corner of my synthetic down comforter, an afghan unraveling with a shredded corner, perforated pillowcases...

hopefully it'll be okay if you replace the stuff. if you can get a new pillow sham and dust ruffle and have them sitting there already while you explain what happened, maybe she'll be less mad than if you show her the destruction? how could she be mad, she's getting new stuff?

Oh dear! 8O Good luck and nice knowing you! :)

I say fess up to what happend, then offer to purchase her a new bedding set. You might want to throw in that you saw a super cute bedding set at (insert store here) that she might want to check out and let you know if she likes it or not. For all you know she has been wanting a new bedspread anyways....

I thought you were sending the kids to the slaughter to cover up for your mistake of having them in there in the first place... that is why I said what I said

best wishes to you & yours

where do we send flowers or do you have a favorite rescue/charity?

Blame the kids. Works every time for me :-)

Yeeps, sounds as though the family's rat-phobic. :(

Maybe it'd be best to leave them at home with a reliable sitter... The ratties, I mean, not the family. :roll: Though sometimes I would've liked to use that option when my inlaws had their lake house.

Good luck!
Rejoicing in the day,
-Mary

LOL rats will pull anything they can get their paws on into their cage! My guys once pulled my fuzzy piglet pen into their cage...some how...I guess the bowl that had my pens in it got pushed too close to their cage. LOL they ended up chewing all the fuzz off it and taking bites out of piglets ears and belly.LOL

Delilah LOVES pulling things into her cage.
There is now cardboard between the back of the cage and my curtains, and between the side of the cage and my bed. She had a nasty habit of pulling my comforter and the curtains into the cage and chewing on them. ><
Also, one night I left a shirt on my bed...
I guess while I was sleeping it got kicked to the end of the bed.
I woke up the next morning and it was in the cage, with holes. >>; So now I have to make sure to clear off my bed before getting in it. xD

It would be nice if they knew what they're allowed to chew on, and what not to chew on...
but they don't, so us rattie owners just have to be careful!

it's happened to me too, woops. best of luck with all that. i think you should tell her that there was some unexplainable damage to her bedstuffs and you assume that it had something to do with your stay, and offer to buy her new things.