Whiskers and Wire Cages- How to Catch a Rat

Obviously, the simplest method to catch a rat is with a rat trap. Most amateurs make the same mistake of planting the same trap in the same place with the same bait. A rat’s feral cunning learns from the deaths of its fellows. After one or two night’s good work the trap lays untouched, however, rat-catchers know how to make the most effective use of their resources.

At first, any traps set across a rat’s tunnels or tracks do not need bait. Once the rats grow wary of the traps, a small pile of sawdust mixed with oats camouflages the trap’s workings and lures the rats to their capture. Soot, tissue paper mixed with hayseeds, or aniseed works once the rats grow fearful of piles of sawdust. Never use a solid chunk of food, or the rat will simply pick up the food to eat later in its den. To prevent the traps smelling of man they should be handled as little as possible.

Tinkers, toy-makers, and rat-catchers manufacture a stunning variety of traps such as the simple wire basket with an opening at the top and no way to climb out, the wire cage with a mechanism to close door immediately after the rat’s entry, or the more gruesome steel-jawed traps designed to close as a paw rests a rat's weight on the pressure plate. Most professionals avoid setting lethal traps unless the infesting rats are sewer rats or worse.

A professional rat-catcher could plant 10-50 traps depending on the size of the building and the number of traps he owns. They quietly wait and watch, patrolling their traps in case of a catch. Once a rat is caught or killed they reset their trap and continue their vigil until a little after midnight when the rats become less active, however a rat-catcher should always put in an appearance bright and early the next morning both to collect his traps and to grab any rats captured later that night before they can escape by gnawing off a limb. Any rat that escapes from a trap in this way won’t be fooled by traps again. Rat-catchers try to eliminate infestations during January or February before the rats begin breeding with greater rapidity in the spring. This serves both to eliminate future generations and to avoid the hassle trying to catch young rats small enough to squeeze into any nook or cranny.

Despite selling their own lethal concoctions to rat-beleaguered families, very few rat-catchers professionally use rat poison in the city. You can’t be certain of an immediately lethal dose, leaving most rats enough longevity  to crawl back under the floor to die, leaving a multitude of hard-to-remove decomposing rat carcasses. The owners of the premises invariably blame the rat-catcher for the horrific smell, demand he removes the bodies, and never ask for his services again.

Adventure Ideas

The thieves carefully planned their heist and tonight’s the night! After breaking in they find small mounds of sawdust and oats in the hall and waist-high nets strung through doorways. They hear muffled yips and scuffles in the walls. Can they complete their robbery with the extra complication of a rat-catcher working on the premises?

All rat-catchers know the stories of Boksby the uncatchable three-legged sewer rat. Whenever traps activate by themselves, the rats avoid the bait, or a nasty old rat gets away on three paws, rat-catchers claim Boksby has returned for revenge. One tavern popular with rat-catchers even has a bounty for Boksby’s carcass.

Now that we all know how to catch rats, we can look at the essential animal allies of the rat-catcher. Next week, we’ll examine the many morally troublesome uses of ferrets and rat dogs.