Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-catcher Part 1

Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-catcher.

by Ike Matthews.

Introduction.

In placing before my readers in the following pages the results of my twenty-five years' experience of Rat-catching, Ferreting, etc., I may say that I have always done my best to accomplish every task that I have undertaken, and I have in consequence received excellent testimonials from many corporations, railway companies, and merchants. I have not only made it my study to discover the different and the best methods of catching Rats, but I have also taken great interest in watching their ways and habits, and I come to the conclusion that there is no sure way of completely exterminating the Rodents, especially in large towns. If I have in this work referred more particularly to Rat-catching in Manchester that is only because my experience, although extending over a much wider area, has been chiefly in that city, but the methods I describe are equally applicable to all large towns.

Yours truly,

IKE MATTHEWS.

PROFESSIONAL RAT-CATCHER, PENDLETON, MANCHESTER.

PART I. HOW TO CLEAR RATS FROM WAREHOUSES, OFFICES, STOREROOMS, ETC.

In the first place my advice is--never poison Rats in any enclosed buildings whatever. Why? Simply because the Rats that you poison are Drain Rats, or what you call Black Rats, and you can depend upon it that the Rats that you poison will not get back into the drains, but die under the floor between the laths and plaster, and the consequence is that in a few days the stench that will arise will be most obnoxious. And there is nothing more injurious than the smell of a decomposed Rat.

Having had a long experience in Manchester I am quite sure of this. As an instance, I remember a private house where I was engaged catching Rats under a floor with ferrets. I went as far as possible on my belly under the floor with two candles in my hands, and I saw the ferret kill a large b.i.t.c.h Rat, about six yards from me against a wall, where neither the dog nor myself could get at it. I finished the job and made out my bill for my services, but in about two or three weeks after they again sent for me, declaring they could not stay in the sitting-room on account of the smell that arose from beneath the flooring boards. They had in consequence to send for a joiner; and as I knew the exact spot where the Rat was killed I ordered him to take up the floor boards just where the dead Rat lay, and the stench that arose from the decomposed Rodent was bad in the extreme. I disinfected the place, and I was never sent for again. This was under a cold floor, and it is much worse where there is any heat.

Now to deal with the different methods of catching Rats. The best way, in my opinion, is,

TRAPPING THEM WITH STEEL SPRING TRAPS.

Whenever you are trapping, never on any consideration put bait on the traps; always put traps in their runs, but you will find Rats are so cunning that in time, after a few have been caught, they will jump over the traps, and then you must try another way. A good one is the following, viz.:--Get a bag of fine, clean sawdust, and mix with it about one-sixth its weight of oatmeal. Obtain the sawdust fresh from under the saw, without bits of stick in, as these would be liable to get into the teeth of the trap and stop them from closing. Where you see the runs put a handful in say about 30 different places, every night, just dropping the sawdust and meal out of your hands in little heaps. That means 30 different heaps. Do this for four nights, and you will see each morning that the sawdust is all spread about. Now for four more nights you must bury a set trap under every heap of sawdust. Thus you will have 30 traps, on each of which there is a square centre plate; you must level the sawdust over the plate with a bit of stick, and set each trap as fine as you can on the catch spring, so that the weight of a mouse would set it off. They will play in the sawdust as usual, and you will have Rats in almost every trap. You will find that this plan will capture a great many of the Rodents. I have trapped as many as 114 in one night in this way.

In time, however, the Rats will cease to go near sawdust. Then you must procure a bag of fine soot from any chimney sweep, and you will find that they will go at the soot just as keen as they did in the first instance at the sawdust. When they get tired of soot (which they will in time) you must procure some soft tissue paper and cut it fine, and use that in the same way as the sawdust and the soot. You can also use light chaff or hay seeds with the like result.

I must not omit to tell my readers to always trap Rats in the night, and to go very quietly about it, for if you make much noise they will give over feeding. You must not go about with too big a light whilst trapping. You should stay at the building from dark until midnight, and every time a Rat is caught in the trap you should go with a bull's eye lamp, take it out of the trap or kill it, and then set the trap again, as you have the chance of another Rat in the same trap. From experience I can say that you need not stay in any place after 12 o'clock at night, as I think that the first feed is the best, and that the first three hours are worth all the other part of the night. You can go home at 12 o'clock, and be sure to be in the place by 6 or 7 a.m., for many a Rat caught in the trap by the front leg will, if it gets time, eat off its leg and get away again, and they are very cunning to catch afterwards.

NEVER HAVE YOUR TRAPS SET IN THE DAYTIME.

Handle them as little as possible. Always catch as many Rats as you can in your buildings in January and February, as they begin to breed in March, and every b.i.t.c.h Rat means, on the average, eight more. Also get as much ferreting done as possible before breeding time, for a young Rat can get into the ends of the joisting under a floor, where a ferret cannot get near it, and the consequence is that a ferret is unable to cope with its task. The best thing I can advise for clearing young Rats is a good cat, one that must not be handled nor made a pet of, but allowed to live in almost a wild state. A good cat can do as much, in my opinion, in one night, when Rats are breeding, as two ferrets can do in a day, especially in a building where there are cavity walls, as it is impossible for a ferret to follow a Rat in such walls.

This is all the information I am able to give on the trapping of Rats--a method I have proved by 25 years' experience to excel all others. Still another way of clearing the pests is as follows:--The majority of Rats are Black, or what we call Drain Rats; if they are in a building they will in most cases come from a water-closet. Sometimes you will see from the drain pipes in the water-closet, say, a six-inch pipe fitted into a nine-inch pipe, and the joint covered round with clay, through which the Rats eat and scratch and get into the building in great numbers in the night, but most of them return into the drains during the day. Now, if it is the breeding season (about eight months out of the twelve) they will do much damage to silk, cotton, leather, lace, and, in fact, all other light goods. And one would be surprised to see the quant.i.ty of cloth, paper, etc., they will procure for their nests whilst breeding.

The way to get clear of these is to go in the day with two or three ferrets and leave the drain pipe open. Ferret them all back into the drain; don't put a net over the drain for fear you might miss one or two.

If they got back into the building they would be hard to catch, as they would not face the net again. Then, after ferreting, make the drain good, and if there be an odd Rat or two left in the building you will get them in a few nights by baiting the trap.

There is another way of catching the Brown Rat which breeds under the floor in large buildings where there are no drains. They are very awkward to catch. Always have a trap or two set, but do not set them where they feed; place them in their runs. But there are other methods for other Rat-infested places. For instance, take a restaurant, where they feed in the cooking kitchen; we will suppose they have eaten four holes through either floor or skirting boards. The best way to catch these--however many holes they have leading into the kitchen--is to block up (with tin or similar material) all the holes with the exception of one, and let them use that one for two nights. Then put a plateful of good food, such as oatmeal and oil of aniseed, as far from the hole as you can in the same kitchen; then run a small train of meal and aniseed from the hole to the plate. Next drive two six-inch nails in the wall, with a long piece of string tied to the nail heads. Put on these nails a brick or piece of board right above the hole 2 inches up the wall. Be sure the nails are quite loose in the wall over the hole, and leave in that position for two nights, so that the Rats will get used to it. On the night that you are going to catch them, before leaving the place carry the string from the nail heads to the door or window; let the door or window be closed within an inch, with the end of the string outside.

After the place has been quiet for thirty minutes return to the door or window very quietly, and you will hear the Rats feeding. Pull the string, the loose nails come out of the wall and the brick or board drops over the hole. You can then go in, close the door, turn up the gas and catch or kill them at your leisure, as they cannot get back again.

By this method I may mention that I have caught a great number of Rats, and it is quite possible to clear a place in this manner: that is, if they do not come out of the drains. I have caught upwards of 103 in six nights in this way. The best time to catch Rats in any building is always at night, and always about half-an-hour after the place has been closed, as Rats are generally more adventurous to come for their first feed. Always go about as quietly as possible.

In some of the very old Manchester buildings that were built in the days before drain plans had to be submitted to the corporation, one finds under the cellar floors old-fashioned brick and flag drains (better known as "spit" drains), that were left in when the place was built. Once the Rats get in these disused drains all the professional Rat-catchers in England could not clear them without pulling the building down. The Rats have, by some means, got out of the main sewer, probably by the bursting of a sewer into one of these disused dry brick drains. It is then impossible to get underground to see where they have got into the dry drain, and the only thing that can be done in a case of this sort is to engage a professional Rat-catcher occasionally, and keep two or three good cats to keep the Rats down. These places as a rule are more plagued with them when it is very wet weather and there are floods running. This is the best time to catch them, as they are all under the floor of the building, and are very easy to catch in the night with the traps.

As a rule the Black or Drain Rats feed only in the night, very rarely in the day, as they are of a dirty nature, and prefer being in the drains.

In my opinion the Black Rat is more vicious than the Brown.

There is another Rat I call the Red Rat, which is akin to the Brown Rat.

You will always catch these at a tannery, or about kennels, where hounds are kept, and they generally feed on horseflesh or offal. Red Rats are the "gameist" Rats I know, for whatever kind of Rats are put into the store cage, these Red Rats kill them the first night they are left quiet.

I may describe another mode of catching Rats. In any Rat-overrun warehouse, storeroom, or cellar, where there is a deal of rubbish such as packing cases, wrappers, waste paper, etc., throw a lot of food, say oatmeal or soaked bread, carelessly amongst the cases or rubbish and let the Rats have a full week's feeding at their leisure, and then if you know the holes round the floor wherefrom they come, go in some night as quick as possible, turn up the lights, run to the three or four holes, and block them up with pieces of rag, etc. Now as all the Rats will not run out of the packing cases or waste paper, but will hide amongst the same, this is the time to take a good terrier dog or two with you, and to have a bit of sport. Let one dog hunt among the cases, etc., and hold the other, for the Rats will soon make for the holes, but the rags preventing their escape you will catch and kill a great many by this means.

It should be stated here that as Rats are very cunning, it takes a lot of study, dodging, and experience to be able to rid them entirely. When you are feeding Rats anywhere, never feed them with other than soft stuff, which you can squeeze through your fingers, for if you feed them with anything lumpy, they will carry pieces into their holes and eat at their leisure.

FERRETING.

Ferreting is a very good plan for destroying Rats in cottage houses, stables, hotels, etc., as it can be done in the day, but in buildings, say five or six storeys high you cannot ferret very well as you cannot tell where to set your nets. The only way to ferret a large building is to ferret one floor at once, and always start at the top storey first.

The majority of floors are laths and plaster. This is what the Rat likes, especially the Brown Rat, and there are more nests found in these places than anywhere else. To ferret thoroughly in such places you will require to have a board up at each end of the floor: the two end boards that run crossways with the joist; then you must have a man to put the ferret in at one end, and ferret one joist at a time; have a net set at the other end. The best way at the catching end is to have a long sheet net about a yard wide, and the full length of the boards that are up, for sometimes under the boards the Rats can get out of one joist into another, and if you use the long net you can catch them whichever joist they bolt at.

Now we will suppose you are ferreting a seven-storey building, which might occupy three or four days. If you have ferreted two stories the first day, during the night the Rats that have not been ferreted on the lower stories may get back again to the top storey.

How to prevent this happening I will give you a plan of my own, which I don't think any Rat-catcher but myself has ever employed. The course of action--a rather expensive one I admit--is the following: While you have the boards up you must go to the druggist and get two shillings' worth of cayenne pepper, and put it into a pepper duster. Scatter the cayenne along the boards and joist where you have had the long sheet net, and also along the other end of the joist where you put the ferrets in, and you will find that under no consideration will Rats face the cayenne pepper. Cayenne is alright for any dry place and will last a long time, but it will not do in any water closets or any damp places, as dampness takes all the nature out of the cayenne.

After ferreting in any kind of building, always go carefully round the outside, and see that there are no broken air grids, or broken cellar windows, as these are likely ways that the Rats get into the building at first. When ferreting always be careful how you set your nets, and be extremely quick on the Rats when they bolt, for sometimes if they get back they will face the ferret before they will bolt again; then the ferrets kill them under the floors, and this as in the case of poisoning them is liable to cause an abominable smell, more especially where heat is near.

In the whole of my experience of Rat-catching, which is a lengthy one, I never gave a guarantee to clear a place completely, in Manchester or any other town where so many large buildings are so close together. And let me show the reason for this. Take Cannon Street, Manchester, as an ill.u.s.tration. Here are six or eight different firms in one block of buildings. Now, suppose four of these firms are suffering from the damage the Rats are doing. Well, one or two of these firms may go to the expense of having the Rats cleared away. But between the two buildings there may be a hardware business or ironmonger's shop, where Rats cannot do any harm to their goods. The owners of these shops will not go to the expense of having Rats caught, nor will they let us go into their shops at midnight; therefore the result is the Rat-catcher in his trapping and ferreting is limited to these two places, and all he can do is to catch some and drive the rest into the hardware shop. When under the floors in such places one finds there has been so many alterations made at different times that one joist may be a foot or six inches below the other, and when the Rats are completely driven out of these places it would require joiners and bricksetters to work for weeks under the floors to stop the Rats returning. And most firms will not go to this expense.

I only give my readers this as an ill.u.s.tration of what has often happened with me, and to show why I never guarantee to clear Rats completely in large towns. If they are in a private house, stable, greenhouse, or any block of houses, of say five or six, I might then, after looking through, give a guarantee to clear them completely.

These are the fullest details I can give you, and if you will put any of the ways I have mentioned into practice you will find that they are all successful, especially the covering of traps. I can give you just one more instance in Manchester, where I was engaged. The workpeople had been tormenting the Rats with traps, not knowing how to set them. They sent for me, and on my looking round the place I knew there was a lot of Rats. I submitted my price to do the job, and when I went down one night with 40 traps, dog, and two ferrets I thought I should catch 20 or 30 Rats, but I found that they had plagued them so much with their attempted trapping that I only caught three in the whole night. This place belonged to a limited company, and when I went before the committee the next morning they were not satisfied. I told them that their own workpeople had tormented the Rats so much with traps that the Rats would not go near one. I then told the committee that I would still stick to my terms, but I would leave the job over for a fortnight. Now during that fortnight I went down a good many times, and laid the sawdust as I have already described, and thus got the Rats used to it. The first night that I went catching I took with me 33 traps. I had them all set by 8-30 p.m., and by 12-30 a.m. I had trapped 45 Rats; the next night 31 Rats; and before I completed the job, with the trapping and the other ways that I have mentioned, I caught 183 Rats! This I give merely as an ill.u.s.tration to show the necessity of engaging an experienced man to catch Rats--that is, if you want them caught. And to confirm the statements above, I shall be most happy to supply privately the name and place of the firm, and also to give a personal interview if necessary.

And now a word or two respecting the different ways in which Rat-catchers are treated. Many people think that a Rat-catcher is favoured if they give him permission to catch Rats on their farms or round the banks of their corn or wheat fields. Well, on some occasions I grant this may be a favour, for I have seen when I have had an order in hand for about 10 dozen Rats, and have had only a day or two in which to get them. Such are the only times and circ.u.mstances when a Rat-catcher gives his services gratis, and simply because he wants the live Rats. Most farmers will send you word when they are threshing their corn, and then the value of the Rats are worth the day's work to the Rat-catcher.

This is all right as far as it goes, but when one comes to consider the yearly expenses of the Rat-catcher it will be found that they are very heavy. Now, first of all it will cost, at the least, 5 pounds annually for the wear and tear of traps alone, then there is the wear and tear of nets; two dog licences; always three or four ferrets to keep (and ferrets are often lost down drains or killed by Rats); also sundry other expenses, such as store cages, etc. Then, again, the Rat-catcher always has to pay a man to help him.

I don't call Rat-catching a trade only: I maintain that it is a profession, and one that requires much learning and courage. I have found this out when I have been under a warehouse floor, where a lot of Rats were in the traps, and I could not get one man out of 50 to come under the floor and hold the candle for me, not to mention helping me to take the live Rats out of the traps. I just relate this because at some places where we go and where we catch perhaps 30 Rats, the first thing they say when the bill is presented is "Why, you have got 15s. worth of live Rats!" They don't think of the damage 30 Rats can do to fancy goods, nor do they consider the evil smells that men have to tolerate under the floors or from the bad drains.

I could relate many interesting anecdotes of what I have seen and heard about Rats, but I fear its perusal might take up too much of my readers'

time. There is, however, one thing I will mention. I dare say you have heard of Rats running about in "swarms" in the night. Do not believe it.

In my whole experience I have never been so fortunate as to meet a "swarm" of these, when I have had an empty cage on my back, and an order for 12 dozen live Rats at 5s. per dozen. When trapping at farms on a moonlight night I have seen a train of Rats almost in single file going from a barn to a pit or brook to drink, and then I have simply run a long net all along the barn very quickly, sent my dog round the pit and caught all the Rats in the net when they ran back to get in the barn. For in these places you must be as cunning as the Rats to catch them. The quickest way for a farmer to get rid of Rats is to run a long trail of good oatmeal outside his barn doors, and shoot them on a moonlight night.

I have seen 11 killed at a shot in this way. They will stay eating the oatmeal because they cannot carry it away. At farms or out-houses you might poison Rats round a pit or along brook sides where they go to drink, although I don't believe in poisoning, as one never knows where it ends--the Rats being likely to carry the poisoned food about, and then dogs, hens, pigs, pigeons, etc., may pick it up.

There may be a few more ways of catching Rats than I have enumerated, but I think I have given the best ways in detail. Some people think that to use