[Pikamander2]

I'm curious as to how many problems rats really cause in a modern city. I live in a lightly forested area and have once or twice had to scare various rodents out of the attic and patch up a small hole they made, but that's about the worst they've ever done to me. One time I turned on the porch light at night and saw a very long-tailed rat nonchalantly eating from the bird feeder, which was fun to watch.

A quick Google search suggests that there are millions of rats living in New York City and Los Angeles, but I don't recall hearing about any recent catastrophies they've caused. I guess it's possible they could someday transmit a new novel disease like bats did, so we probably don't wanna let their numbers get too high, but other than that, are they really hurting anything? I view them about the same as pigeons or moths; occasionally annoying, but not something to relentlessly eradicate.

[bawolff]

> I'm curious as to how many problems rats really cause in a modern city.

For context, there is a lot of farmland in alberta. I think the reason for this is more to protect agriculture than city drewlers.

But also rats are icky.

[fifticon]

a basic problem is their easy population explosion. As soon as you allow a sizable population of them to thrive, it becomes very hard to keep them in check in the places where you really don't want them. In my smallish european city, we have a few food courts. The outer doors are normally open/ajar in day time. I really really don't like seeing rats scurrying about under the benches and obstacles when I visit there to eat.

[dowager_dan99]

yes it's the agricultural impact, both real and perceived (most of Alberta's crops are export-bound).

[InDubioProRubio]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthohantavirus

[llm_nerd]

The risks rats pose are hugely overstated, including in this very thread. Most of the world has rats -- often enormous numbers -- but we have functioning agriculture, aren't dying of weird rat diseases, etc. Notably Alberta has the same mice problem as everywhere else, and mice are a much greater threat[1]. I live in Ontario -- a warmer, much hospitable, more populous place than Alberta -- and rats somehow present zero concern in my life, despite the absence of any real control initiatives.

This is all mostly just geographical and time happenstance that baked in a situation and norm. Rats actually aren't native to North America but were introduced with Europeans. They then slowly spread, and Alberta made the choice to stop rats before they took hold in the province. So they started at zero and that made efforts to stop them from taking hold easy if sustained, especially given the brutal winters and inhospitable geography for rats.

[1] - Elsewhere someone referenced hantavirus, yet the overwhelming percentage (basically 100%) of cases of that are from mice in living spaces. Mice like the deer mice that are found throughout Alberta.

[ValentinA23]

Agreed. Rat populations have regulatory mechanisms that generally prevent them from overshooting with respect to the resources available in their environment.

>In my field, there’s an equation that best explains rat population size. Simplified, it states: Garbage in = rats out. When food is plentiful, there’s no check on growth. When the cycle of regular feeding has been broken, then rats will disperse, injure, kill and even consume one another.

Source: https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/rat-control-in-urban-e...

Rat colonies are the exception, they usually live as "nuclear families", separated from each other. Walk 100m away from a metro station with trashcans containing a dozen of rats near the entrance, and you'll find rat families, not colonies.

However the damages they can cause when they settle inside our houses tend to let us think this is their default modus operandi, and as a consequence we tend to project an exterminatory mindset onto situations where they are not problematic–and I'd even add: situations where they are a necessity.

In particular, if you have a compost box, you'll have a rat family settle nearby, and you shouldn't obsess over it unless you have good reason to fear an invasion (it already happened or you have crops drying in a shed, or something like that).

Saying this as someone who both owned rats at some point and have a dachsund/pinscher who killed hundreds.

[InDubioProRubio]

And another crowd, whose advice i tend to ignore - urbanite animal experts. The same crowd that in germany gaves us the go ahead for the reintroduction of the beaver, cause surely a terraforming animal that tends to flood valleys will not clash with a densely populated country, with tons of villages and towns in little valleys.

[ValentinA23]

Well I was talking about urban rats. I used to live in a neighborhood where people would throw dishes out of their windows on a daily basis. Like clockwork, a rat family would settle nearby. What's best ? Having rats or meat miasmas ?

And no, fining people for this behavior isn't an option in a neighborhood with stolen bikes burnt every other day, drug dealing spots every 400m, squats, empty cash register lying on the ground, etc ...

[InDubioProRubio]

Reward correct behaviour with free cooking/heating? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tyb_OOrU2o

[gotaran]

I’d argue that NYC hasn’t done enough with rats for this reason. And indoor roaches and mice too for that matter.

As a New Yorker, it feels unsanitary at best, and psychologically jarring at worst, and I wish I wouldn’t have to deal with seeing rats scurrying around on a daily basis. But there’s been no tangible public health risk so far.

[zdragnar]

Hantavirus is probably the worst thing most people have to worry about; it's left behind in the feces and breathing it in while cleaning up a bunch of droppings is possible.

That, and they chew holes in things, occasionally electrical wiring. Not nearly as big a concern as the smell of an infested house, but still not a great thing to have.

[cenamus]

They chew holes in everything, especially mice, from clothes to insulation, they just love to destroy anything resembling fibres

[tonyarkles]

I remember reading about specific insulation chemistry a few years ago that apparently rodents love: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a21933466/does-your-car-ha...

[mschuster91]

> I view them about the same as pigeons or moths; occasionally annoying, but not something to relentlessly eradicate.

Moths? You gotta absolutely eradicate the fuck out of these before they destroy your clothing or your food.

Rats, well, you don't want them in residential areas [1], and you don't want their feces around food preparation areas like kitchen.

Pigeons, especially their poop, are a massive danger for historic buildings [2] - their poop, similar to acid rain in the 80s/90s, is acidic and erodes the substance. In addition, it is extremely nasty to clean up, you need to wear a full PPE suit - our OSHA equivalent has a dedicated guideline just how to protect yourself while cleaning up pigeon poop [3].

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/indi...

[2] https://www.kath.ch/medienspiegel/taubenkot-gefaehrdet-bausu...

[3] https://www.bgbau-medien.de/handlungshilfen_gb/daten/pdf/201...

[Steven420]

That's why you don't listen to the government :) They'd have me wearing a space suit just to clean my bird cage

[mschuster91]

> They'd have me wearing a space suit just to clean my bird cage

This is about doing that commercially for a living. If all you do for 40 years of your career is cleaning bird cages, roofs and whatnot from bird droppings, wearing the space suit makes sense because otherwise you're pretty much not going to live to retirement. Lung cancer is a horrible and nasty way to go, and I know on this one what I'm talking about. On top of that come the pathogen infection risks with H1N1 being dangerous enough to send a young man of fine health into critical care [1].

And for what it's worth, of course no one can require you to do so - but you absolutely should be wearing at least an FFP2 mask if dealing with bird droppings or mineral based cat litter of your pets. Try it for once, your lungs will thank you - I certainly noticed the effect.

[1] https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influenza-bird-flu/canadian...

[gadders]

A friend of mine got Leptospirosis (Weil's disease) when fishing.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/leptospirosis/

[forgotmypw17]

I also think about this a lot. I think that after racism, sexism, ageism,… Speciesism will be another frontier that will transition us from considering entire classes of beings as being inferior, dangerous, disgusting, etc.. to mostly equal and equally worthy of life and protection, to the point of rendering the old ways of thinking into seeming barely believable.

There are many parallels between how we think about other species today and how we used to think about other races of humans in the past. Many myths about other races, sexes, etc. that are now both sad and laughable to think about parallel, the myths we still carry about other species.

For example, the rats’ role in spreading disease is now under question. I, personally, have been questioning it for a while, simply from knowing that almost any commercial kitchen has rats and/or mice present, yet not seeing any major disease outbreaks happening that can be attributed to it

[sellmesoap]

From an urban farming perspective rats can be quite devastating to domestic animals. My partner keeps racing pigeons and we've seen rats take pidgeons down for food. I love rats, they have amazing personalities, but I don't love if they prey on my livestock and pets!