Rats & Mice

Apart from the damage they cause to agricultural production, wild rodent pests are also highly unsanitany creatures. Lacking a bladder, rats and mice urinate constantly and leave droppings everywhere they go. They are also notorious carriers of insect parasites and disease germs, have have been responsible for epidemics such as Plague. They are also responsible for damage to homes, gnawing woodwork and even electrical wiring, causing a serious fire hazard. In unsanitary dwelings they have also been known to bite humans - particularly sleeping infants.
 

Mice tend to urinate and defecate constantly, and apart from contaminating food, the dust from dried mouse droppings can be a very serious health risk. Inhalation of the invisible dust from dried mouse droppings has been implicated in the spread of several illnesses including Hantavirus, a dangerous flu-like disease which can be fatal in severe cases.
 

Also called Norway rats, Brown rats (rattus norvegicus) in fact originated in Asia, notoriously travelling among the cargo on ships to every part of the world. Its close relative the Black rat (rattus rattus) is similar in most ways but appears less dependent on the presence of man. Much larger than mice, rats are instinctively more cautious animals with an acute sense of smell - they will often refuse to touch baits which have the scent of humans.

Black rats and Brown rats tend to compete with one another and seldom share the same territory. All rats, like mice, are carriers of disease and parasites, including fleas, lice and various species of parasitic worm, and it was the Black rat which has been famously implicated in the spread of the deadly Bubonic Plague in Europe in mediaeval times.