[Chivahn]

Ophelia, I saw that on a "The Fast and the Furious" movie [or whatever - name slips me].

I have seen a dog that lived in rat-infested house being rescued on animal cops and it was covered in rat bites.

I was told by a guy on YouTube that touching rat pee makes you sick and kills you. Do I look dead? Uh...

what a stupid myth! touching pee?? man I would of died 100 times! Lol! some people are plan stupid!

Ummm... actually hantavirus in Arizona/Nevada/New Mexico is carried in rodent urine - usually kangaroo rats. And it is DEADLY. It usually kills 2 to 3 people on the reservation a year - sometimes less, sometimes more.

In addition, the US still gets a few cases of bubonic plague in those areas as well as West Texas every year.

I love traveling to Big Bend when they have the plague warnings up - "If you show the following symptoms... please tell your doctor you may have been exposed to bubonic plague." Can you imagine calling in sick? "I'm sorry, I can't come to work today. I have the Black Death."

The little old lady that lived across the street from my childhood home was the first person in Washington State history to die of the Hantavirus.

 

[Buggzter]

Ummm... actually hantavirus in Arizona/Nevada/New Mexico is carried in rodent urine - usually kangaroo rats. And it is DEADLY. It usually kills 2 to 3 people on the reservation a year - sometimes less, sometimes more.

In addition, the US still gets a few cases of bubonic plague in those areas as well as West Texas every year.

I love traveling to Big Bend when they have the plague warnings up - "If you show the following symptoms... please tell your doctor you may have been exposed to bubonic plague." Can you imagine calling in sick? "I'm sorry, I can't come to work today. I have the Black Death."

Yeah, this is another reason my dad hates rodents - he's big on the horrible diseases carried by animals that humans can catch. He's really smart, but he has his quirks... :wink:

And I LOVE that way to call in sick... Too bad I could never use it (even if I would like to): my job is a homemaker/toddler-raiser... *cough**cough* I really have a dislike for the way two-year-olds don't know how to deal with their emotions and can't EXPLAIN WHAT THEY ARE FEELING. THus, the desire to call in sick with the bubonic plague. If I told Becca that, I KNOW I would get the funniest weirded-out look ever from her! Smart cookie, she knows what "plague" means!

heh, and my favorite weird fact is: No matter the size of the object, if it can be budged by a rat it can eventually be brought into a stash spot within the cage by the rat - no matter what problems come with it! (Blaze carried an almost-whole piece of pizza from the table, accross the couch, up the side of the cage, accross the front, down the inside, and to the "stash"!!! It was about the same weight as him - BIG piece, and he was the only rat working on it!!!)

 

[Ophelia]

I kind of don't believe the bucket thing...wouldn't the rat knaw through the bucket before human skin? Hmm...I s'pose not if it was a wild rat, maybe.

I think the bucket is metal. It would take a rat a lot longer to gnaw a metal bucket than soft flesh. But I have no clue if its true or not.

 

[Ophelia]

Four things to think about is that they would of had to keep it down some how.. like rats are exscape masters! they would try to exscape. Pretty easy on a stomace because of it being squishy and all.

and the rat propably wouldn't chew but stratch to try and exscape which isn't that bad so why bother?

and wouldn't the rat suffiocate??

and the rat would have more fun chewing the bucket...

other wise it might work...=/

Well, about this form of torture...
1)The rat is supposed to try to escape. That's why the bucket is heated. The rat becomes panicked and begins frantically trying to escape.
2) This is torture in a POW camp. There are men there holding the bucket down (probably quite forcefully) while the victim is tied up. The victim isn't just left alone with a rat and a bucket on his belly.
3) Fear is the ultimate goal of torture, even more than the pain. If you were in a POW camp and some people came in, stripped you, tied you to a table to put a strange rat on your belly, covered it with a bucket and then started heating the bucket, you would be scared absolutely out of your mind. Even if it didn't actually "work", per se.
4) The rat would not "have more fun chewing the bucket". The bucket is being heated up to fatal temperatures. People are probably banging on it to scare the rat (and the victim is probably screaming in terror to add to the rat's stress). And it's a wild rat. I'm sure guards in POW camps weren't taming rats. They would just catch one. This rat would have one thing on it's mind: ESCAPE! And a fast one. Not playing.

 

[Ratty1100]

Yup, wild rats eat mice.
Pet rats may do it, especially when they are hungry.
One rat owner i know had long ago a rat who didn't eat, but just killed mice, and she saw those dead mice many times.
By the way, mice are afraid of rats more than cats. When we had cats there were feral mice, /not to mention, our neighbour has dozen/ with rats- they are gone.
And ONE wild rat killed one of my neighbors cats once. :/

 

[KayRatz]

Rats are badass x3

 

[hipoluvsmud]

I heard that if you corner a wild rat it will go for ya throat! LOL, it is probably only trying to jump away from the person who is cornering it.....not that I would try anything like that, you would not see me for dust if I encountered a wild rat.
Another one I heard, which was supposed have been used by chinese against japanese POWs, is that a few rats have been starved for a few days, and they are put in a copper bowl. The POW's stomach is smeared with honey and grease and stuff, and the rats are put on top of the stomach in the bowl. They start to eat and lick the honey, then they break the skin and taste the blood......and......need I go on?

 

[Ratty1100]

Throat? Nope. But if you don't let it go (away /past you), it may bite you.

 

[Fefe4life]

This one might be gruesome, but I always heard from my dad that in Asian countries during the war(s) they tortured prisoners by placing a rat on their stomach and covering it with a metal bucket (or something) and then heating that somehow. When the rats get too hot they free themselves by chewing through the abdomen of the prisoner. I have never bothered to do the research to find out if it's true, but that's a pretty good myth or strange fact that might be true. Depending on which it is.

That was a scene in this horror movie I saw too 😬 I think sinister 2 mayby?

 

[Verucasdad]

This one might be gruesome, but I always heard from my dad that in Asian countries during the war(s) they tortured prisoners by placing a rat on their stomach and covering it with a metal bucket (or something) and then heating that somehow. When the rats get too hot they free themselves by chewing through the abdomen of the prisoner. I have never bothered to do the research to find out if it's true, but that's a pretty good myth or strange fact that might be true. Depending on which it is.

That was actually a medieval torture tactic as well.

 

[Verucasdad]

My favorite myth is that rats caused the plague. Research has shown that it was the fleas on the rats, humans, dogs, cats, horses, etc. that caused the sickness. Rats have always had to carry this burden and it is really annoying.
Rats Didn’t Spread the Black Death—It Was Humans - HISTORY