Rat in the tank

[Dannypipe]

Just talking on another thread to a lady with an aversion/phobia of stored water. Thought I'd share this with y'all.

I changed a couples boiler back in Jan from gravity sytem to sealed combination.

I was up in the loft removing the F&E and cold water storage tank, when I found this...a very dead rat in the CW/ST. They'd been brushing their teeth and bathing with the fella for a long time.

I vacumed him up, he was like sludge. I know it was a rat as his skull with teeth was seperate from the body.

The weird thing is, (I have the before photo to prove it) The tank had a lid on it. A quality factory made lid.

How did he get in there?

Pretty grim. The couple have a 1 year old daughter as were disgusted. I almost didn't tell them, but I found it so amazing I just had to.

Enjoy!

 

[Blackcatgas]

Eat it!, I dare you.

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

you want fries with that sir?

 

[Dannypipe]

No ta. The client had become much more intimate than I ever wanted to. Prob been brushing their teeth with it's water for months!!

Which reminds me, I need to check my tank!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[REDSAW]

theres a rat in a ma tank a what ya gonna do,
theres a rat in a ma tank a what ya gonna do,
i'm gonna kill it,
i'm gonna kill it,
thats what i'm gonna do.

must have liked all the madness then!!!!!!lol

 

[Bernie2]

I have heard of pigeons getting into storage tanks and the consequence as far as I know can be quite horrific for anybody bathing in the stored water. And lets be honest, if your having a bath it would seem fairly easy to get a mouthful of water.

I have also seen, especially in central heating header tanks a sort of weed that grows like sea weed. I was told it had blown in possibly from a local brewery as a spore and grown in the tank.

However a By-Law 30 kit should in theory stop it, but I doubt it.

As to a rat, well if they want water, I can't imagine a plastic lid stopping them from getting in. Unfortunately some of the old type poisons, made them frantic for water.

I have actually seen rats on dock warehouses, run up the sheer brick wall of a warehouse and enter via the 5th floor cargo doors. I've also seen them run up the inside of cast iron rwp and come out the hopper head.

They really are amazing animals, if it was not for the diseases they carry I imagine they would rank with red squirrels as being charming.

A wood beautician (joiner) friend of mine had one that came and sat on his work bench every tea break time. He fed it of course. Silly really, Weils disease was then as far as I know nearly incurable.

Interestingly you can also get Weils disease off cats, I suppose after they have eaten the rats.

But the most dangerous place for Weils now days is said to be river banks and possibly pond sides.

The hospital Plumbers in the old days where also in a highly dangerous job for catching Veils.

The hospitals usually had a single central heating plant that served all the hospital with steam ducted around the various departments along a partly underfloor pipework system.

In those days of course the hospitals seemed more low rise and spread out over a wider area than they are today, so the network could be quite extensive.

The rats usually ran along the pipes to get about from one place to another, so if you went to work on the pipes!!!

Incidentally feral cats where another problem, they also lived in the under floor areas sometimes in their hundreds. I went to visit somebody in a hospital once and saw what must have been twenty or more all walking about. If you went near them they turned on you, and they can be ferocious. They spit and bite like mad.

Interesting places to work, hospitals though.

Another thing I found unusual about hospitals, is that I always assumed they kept incoming air into operating theatres clean by filtering it and keeping people out of the room so they could not bring in outside air.

It seems what they really do, beside filtering the incoming air is make the room positive pressured. If you open a theatre door you get a blast of air in your face pushing any outside air out.

It may seem an obvious thing to do, but it had never occurred to me they did that until I was working in hospitals for a while. But then I can be very slow on the up take.

 

[Dannypipe]

Interesting stuff Bernie....I take it you've spent some considerable time working in hospitals?

Funny you should mention catching weils from river banks. My younger brother caught it from one. He was very ill and still has scars on his kidneys. He was only about 13 at the time and we'd gone for a swim. Silly really.

As for rats being charming...I think not!!

 

[WaterTight]

If there's nothing wrong with them despite consuming the diluted rat over a period of time I wonder if that means they''ve been lucky or whether it means despite natural reactions that you're actually unlikely to catch something from drinking tiny amounts of diluted rat.

 

[Dannypipe]

If there's nothing wrong with them despite consuming the diluted rat over a period of time I wonder if that means they''ve been lucky or whether it means despite natural reactions that you're actually unlikely to catch something from drinking tiny amounts of diluted rat.

Well there is a small amount of chlorine in most tap water...quite a bit in our area actually..which prob helped.

Plus Weils disease is caught from rat wee, I think!

 

[joe brown]

must have liked all the madness then!!!!!!lol

Madness? wasnt that ub40

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

no thats lubrication

 

[REDSAW]

Madness? wasnt that ub40

proberbly, couldnt remember tho

 

[Bernie2]

Yes, It is the rats and possibly cats wee that has Weils disease in it. But then I suppose it must be in the rat as well to get it in its wee.

Must admit rat wee does smell, its very sweet and once you smell it you will probably recognise it again.

If you do smell it, please go careful what and where you eat anything and make sure you cover any open wounds or scratches.

Another interesting point I picked up off a telly program.

And that was in many areas the fresh water crayfish native to this country are being displaced by the bigger American crayfish.
The thing is, this program was I think from a water treatment plant close to London and one of the guys was asked, why they did not catch and eat the crayfish in the river.

He answered "They are full of Weils disease!" Must admit I never thought crayfish could catch it.

Anyway check it out, if you go fishing or near water.

Saying that though, as kids we often swam in the river Mersey, but later if anybody fell in, they where required to go to hospital for all kinds of tests, it was said to be that polluted. They never told us kids to go and get checked.

Perhaps that is why we "Scousers" can sometimes be considered "nutters"

 

[Puddle]

Had a paper jam this morning, wondered why printer had been squeaking the last few days when used !!!!

Had a lot of comers and exclamation marks in my printed reports recently, just rechecked turns out they were in fact mouse droppings

 

[Dannypipe]

I heard your invoices left a taste in the mouth like rat droppings, now we know why. A HAAA!

 

[joe brown]

put it in your toolbox, every tool box has a good ratch*t

 

[hiretools]

Joe that last comment was poor but ur right it was the old red red wine group who sung the rat in my kitchen wot am i gonna do im gonna kill that rat thats wot im gonna do.. no i wont hes already dead Lol...

 

[thebeatmeister]

rats can get through holes as small as a half inch. It's not unreasonable to think the little dirty bugger's got in through the overflow pipe if it wasn't screened.

 

[oldplumber]

mice have soft skulls and can flatten themselves totally to get through small gaps, rats just chew their way in. bernie mate, if you think rat **** smells sweet, then your taste buds need urgent attention old son, rats **** stinks and makes you want to puke if its in abundance.

 

[Bernie2]

Hmm!

We often worked in dock warehouses and sometimes we where required to close down all the services in the likes of grain ware houses before demolition for redevelopment.

In one we went into, small piles of corn sweepings had been left, well I say small probably about half a ton. The rats in the warehouses had had less and less to eat as the products where moved out, so they all tended to go for this corn. Some of the lads would lob a chunk of wood into the mound and watch it come virtually alive as rats shot out all over the place.

I've had one run up my leg, a bit of a panic job to say the least. As I said though I think their urine has a sweet smell, but its a sickly sweet smell.

Also rats do not go for your throat by the way, they go to jump over your shoulder as a means of escape. But if you get one going to do it, your bottle goes and you don't wait around to find out where its going to jump.

We had a chippie once who went after a rat with an axe by throwing it at it and trying to hit it with swipes of the axe as it ran along the floor. He got a bit carried away though and did not realise it was a new stained wood block office floor his mate had installed.

I of course could not move for laughing as the two of them went crazy at one another, his mate got his axe out and tried to do to his mate what he had been doing to the rat. It was okay after a while when they quietened down, and fortunately neither was harmed in the angry fight, but the poor floor had some lumps.

If I remember right the rat got away.

Another rat related fight happened when one of the lads put a dead rat in a guys sandwich and put it back in the fellas sandwhich pile. He was just about to bite into it, when the guy who put the rat in, must have though twice about it and told him.

Wow, that was a real fight and if I remember right turned a bit serious. And yes it was stupid thing to do. But when your young????

Which reminds me of another unnerving thing rats do. They don't move till the very last minute. If your moving rubbish, you can clear a pile leaving only one piece of paper. The chances are the rat or rats will be under that and stay there until you move it.

Interestingly I once worked on the site of an old Tate and Lyle sugar factory, which had been pulled down and new houses built on the site. What I found strange was the amount of sand on the site. So I asked and was told the whole site was covered two feet deep in sand, so that the rats that once lived in the refinery could not burrow without the sand falling in on them as they did so.

Must admit, I once went up a back entry behind a Chinese restaurant to inspect some drains. I found the concrete paving stones in the entry where collapsing. The whole area had been undermined by rats tunnelling to a depth of a couple of feet. It was like trying to walk on sinking sand.

 

[WHPES]

In April I had a call-out with a customer who said the cold water to the bathroom had stopped. Connected a hosepipe to the cold tap and a mouse's head blew back into the cistern.

Last year I was called out to investigate a bad smell in the shower and found a rotting pigeon in an open galvanised steel tank.

 

[Dannypipe]

I REALLY need to check my tank!! HA HA. It's small wonder while we're all moving away from vented systems.

 

[helpsy]

Yes, It is the rats and possibly cats wee that has Weils disease in it. But then I suppose it must be in the rat as well to get it in its wee.

Must admit rat wee does smell, its very sweet and once you smell it you will probably recognise it again.

If you do smell it, please go careful what and where you eat anything and make sure you cover any open wounds or scratches.

Another interesting point I picked up off a telly program.

And that was in many areas the fresh water crayfish native to this country are being displaced by the bigger American crayfish.
The thing is, this program was I think from a water treatment plant close to London and one of the guys was asked, why they did not catch and eat the crayfish in the river.

He answered "They are full of Weils disease!" Must admit I never thought crayfish could catch it.

Anyway check it out, if you go fishing or near water.

Saying that though, as kids we often swam in the river Mersey, but later if anybody fell in, they where required to go to hospital for all kinds of tests, it was said to be that polluted. They never told us kids to go and get checked.

Perhaps that is why we "Scousers" can sometimes be considered "nutters"

You'll also find it in cattle pee!!

 

[Dannypipe]

You'll also find it in cattle pee!!

It was cattle pee that gave it to my brother. Funny you should say that!

 

[WHPES]

Once did an old warehouse overrun with rats and pigeons. I had a 9mm shotgun and mate had 3 terriers. Filled 4 bin bags with the carcasses!

Once was asked to put in an outside tap without seeing the job first. Well the place was such a filthy hovel it made those places on "how clean is your house" look sterile! The place was piled high with bin bags and junk and rotting food, and there was evidence of rats and mice inside the house. I kitted up with the gear I use for farms - overalls, wellingtons, rubber gauntlets etc and dust cloths to keep myself clean!