Help! My Friend's Vacation Home is Full of Rats
David Eddie hears from a reader who's been invited to summer with a friend. One catch: their vacation spot is overrun with rodents. Should they say anything?
Writing in the Globe and Mail, David Eddie hears from a reader who's been invited to summer with a friend. One catch: their vacation spot is overrun with rodents. The reader writes:
For the past few years, childhood friends have invited my sister and me to join them at a tony vacation spot. It’s fabulous, hilarious fun. They are quite well off; we are not. Last year they rented a charming place on the ocean. They stayed in the cottage-style regular house, and gave us the “coach house.” While we were cleaning up on the last day, my sister found a rat trap under the bed. We also found some rat poison discs on the lawn. One night, I heard some suspicious scrabbling. Our friends have rented it again this year. Needless to say, we’d rather stay in a nearby hotel. We really don't want to bring up the rat issue, however. The sisters just wanted us to have a comfortable place to stay. But there are likely to be rats no matter what the owners do. There appears to be no rat problem in the main house. Any advice?
Should they say anything? Stay mum? Eddie responds:
Your question brings to mind a classic Monty Python sketch: After a dinner of “unjugged rabbit fish” (a disgusting-looking, half-dead creature with both fur and fins, plopped unceremoniously on his plate), disgruntled working-class husband Eric Idle asks his wife (Terry Jones in drag) what’s for dessert.
“Well, there's rat cake, rat sorbet, rat pudding or strawberry tart.”
“Strawberry tart?”
“Well, it's got some rat in it.”
“How much?”
“Three. Rather a lot, really.”
“Well, I'll have a slice without so much rat in it.”
One slice of strawberry tart without so much rat in it later:
“Appalling.”
“Moan, moan, moan.”
Similarly, you'd like a holiday without quite so much rat in it. I empathize. The beady-eyed little beasts give me the willies. My kids used to have some as pets, and I guess they were quite cuddly and almost kind of cute. They hung out in the kids’ pockets. But I could never shake the fear/phobia they were going to run up my pant leg and sink their ferrety foreteeth into whatever they found up there that looked like a bag of food.
Not that it sounds like there was too much rat on your vacation. I mean, you didn't actually see one, right? Sounds like your friends are shelling out for the ratty coach house. If it were me, I might be tempted to put up with a little “suspicious scrabbling” and a couple of scattered traps for the sake of free accommodation.
But I’m cheap like that. ...
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