Discuss Detroit » Archives - July 2008 » Talk of rats « Previous Next »
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Chuckjav
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Username: Chuckjav

Post Number: 1008
Registered: 09-2007
Posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 6:51 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The Famous Fullerton-Foley Alley Rat Raids of 1970 - some of the largest rats I've ever seen.
We would sneak up on the clusters of garbage cans; sticks & bricks in hand....tip over the cans - whammo !

Postscript: Fact is, nary a rat or child was harmed in the making of this remembrance; I am fairly certain we ran faster than the rats.
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Detroitrise
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Username: Detroitrise

Post Number: 3852
Registered: 09-2007
Posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 6:53 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

What's up with all of these subliminal threads?

First it was wild chickens, now it's rats!
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Chuckjav
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Username: Chuckjav

Post Number: 1010
Registered: 09-2007
Posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 7:05 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Detroitrise....well, rats do taste like chicken; so I am told.
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Bulletmagnet
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Username: Bulletmagnet

Post Number: 1661
Registered: 01-2007
Posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 7:11 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I see a theme here. Now I know why it's called 'City Chicken". Anyone here ever try roof rat?
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Dannyv
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Username: Dannyv

Post Number: 447
Registered: 08-2007
Posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 12:43 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Pigeons are for racing, not for eating, the proud Buffalo said.
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Drjeff
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Username: Drjeff

Post Number: 37
Registered: 06-2007
Posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 4:22 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I've never actually seen a rat in Detroit.

In Baltimore there are dozens in every alley.
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Cycledetroit
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Username: Cycledetroit

Post Number: 34
Registered: 09-2008
Posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 4:27 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"I've never actually seen a rat in Detroit. "

come to Hamtramck.
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Raptor56
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Username: Raptor56

Post Number: 566
Registered: 05-2007
Posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 4:51 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I always have to chuckle a little to myself every time I walk from the parking lot to the front door at the Olive Garden on Gratiot and 10. They have big ol rat boxes sitting out in plain sight along the side of the building.
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Dougw
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Username: Dougw

Post Number: 2192
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 5:27 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I've lived in Detroit 6 years and I have yet to see a rat either. I wonder if moving trash collection from the alley to the courville-based street pickup in the 80's reduced a lot of the rat problem.

I've seen plenty of other things such as squirrels, pheasants, raccoons, and mounds of trash/debris, but I guess it's usually not food-based trash.
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Chuckjav
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Username: Chuckjav

Post Number: 1014
Registered: 09-2007
Posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 6:19 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Raptor56....Yes!
Same thing, outside Famous Dave's in Roseville
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Chuckjav
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Username: Chuckjav

Post Number: 1015
Registered: 09-2007
Posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 6:25 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Dougw & Drjeff...you make a good point.
Back in September, I was walking the same Fullerton-Foley alley way; I was all-the-way-up-in-it....vacant lots, vacant homes...chest-high weeds, woods & thicket.

Not a single rat...(or human skeletal remains)
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Scs_scooter
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Username: Scs_scooter

Post Number: 112
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 7:12 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

We've got rats in St Clair Shores. I have one of those big ugly bait boxes beside my garage. I've trapped, snapped and poisoned the little buggers but they won't stop multiplying. The neighbor behind me thinks it's nice to feed the birds! How many times do I have to tell him to knock it off because of the vermin? The rats showed up, bags in hand, when the I94 sound wall went in. The city even hired a company to try to get rid of them. Didn't work. You need cooperation from the whole neighborhood and it just doesn't happen around here.
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Eastsidedame
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Username: Eastsidedame

Post Number: 616
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 - 3:23 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Roxanne says: "Time to bring in the reinforcements."


roxanne
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6nois
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Username: 6nois

Post Number: 741
Registered: 11-2006
Posted on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 - 9:14 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I ran a rat over at 14 Mile and Coolidge Hwy. It came out of the storm drain just as I drove by and it was gone. I too have never seen a rat in the city. I've seen mice, but no rats.
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Pffft
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Username: Pffft

Post Number: 1782
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 - 9:22 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Never seen a rat in Detroit?

Come downtown. I saw one crossing Fort at Shelby at around dusk, he stayed in the crosswalk too. There are lots in the Joe Louis parking decks. I know a guy who bangs the door of his car in the company lot before getting in, to make sure there are none under his car.

They lurk in the bushes around our lot.
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Gencinjay
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Username: Gencinjay

Post Number: 61
Registered: 03-2008
Posted on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 - 10:01 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

There are indeed rats downtown. I've seen many in the Fort and Shelby area also. The old Fed building used to be infested but then they closed up all the holes in the alley. The rats are still around but not as bad as they used to be.

When I was a kid my dad owned a truck tire replacement business. He'd have to go to Wayne Soap all the time. I could never get out of the truck at night because of all the rats. They were HUGE. I never understood how they could make soap out of animal guts.
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Detroitchef
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Username: Detroitchef

Post Number: 20
Registered: 09-2008
Posted on Thursday, October 30, 2008 - 8:16 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

During the recent St Regis hotel remodeling, we had several rats in the basement who had names and lunches courtesy of the kitchen staff. One was, I swear to god, the size of a chihuaha. There was a sump well in the hotel basement and 'Bubba' could usually be found paddeling around down there, apparently just for fun. When we tried trapping them, they usually just laughed at us as they tore the traps to shreds.
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Greebomusic
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Username: Greebomusic

Post Number: 17
Registered: 08-2008
Posted on Thursday, October 30, 2008 - 9:09 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Back when I'd hang out at the old Bookies Club 870 in the 80's, we use to go rat hunting in the apartments surrounding Palmer Park (many things "seem" like a good idea when intoxicated). I've also seen rats in the area surrounding Greektown recently. Face it, if there are people about, rats are about too.
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Docterry
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Username: Docterry

Post Number: 105
Registered: 08-2008
Posted on Thursday, October 30, 2008 - 9:19 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I've not seen any rats in Corktown - opossums and mice, but no rats. My dad has some stories, though, like Gencinjay's, when he was a kid near city airport.
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Tkierpiec
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Username: Tkierpiec

Post Number: 139
Registered: 03-2007
Posted on Thursday, October 30, 2008 - 9:42 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The rats that hang around the dumpster behind my loft are defiant as hell (and big).....they either stand there and look at me with no fear or stroll off slowly.

As an aside - last week, I carelessly tossed a garbage bag through the side opening of that dumpster and it caught my key chain I was holding also. Arggghhhh! I had to climb in the dumpster to get my keys. Horrifying.
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Docterry
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Username: Docterry

Post Number: 106
Registered: 08-2008
Posted on Thursday, October 30, 2008 - 10:20 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Tk - thanks for the laugh. Much less threatening, we had a mouse last winter that would sit on my daughter's bed and watch her yell at him/her to go away. She ended up with him/her in an aquarium for a week or so as a pet before he/she finally made off in the middle of the night. Scared the living daylights out of her at first, then she kind of got used to him/her. They don't come downstairs because of the cats. It was my "I told you so" moment of the month, as I've told them not to leave food up there.
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East_detroit
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Username: East_detroit

Post Number: 2235
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Thursday, October 30, 2008 - 10:55 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

When they knocked down the Madison Theatre, we saw a bunch of cats running around at night on the pile of junk. Except that when we walked closer we realized they weren't cats.

Hey, btw, whats on the menu at Angelina's?
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Partyhardy
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Username: Partyhardy

Post Number: 33
Registered: 09-2008
Posted on Saturday, November 01, 2008 - 2:44 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

SCS is definitely rat infested...all over the city. My sister has had problems with them and I've heard exterminators talking about how bad the problem was in the city.

New York, on the other hand, is like no other. I remember crossing the street and seeing a dead rat laying there by the crosswalk (two separate times)...everyone else seemed not to notice, like it was common. I remember seeing cockroaches twice on the street, too...kinda like the cockroaches in the WSU Student Center. :-|
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Snoringbeagle
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Username: Snoringbeagle

Post Number: 50
Registered: 02-2008
Posted on Saturday, November 01, 2008 - 7:00 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Lately when it comes to gas prices, the financial melt down and taxpayer funded bailouts a lot of people are smelling 'em. Rats that is!
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Dustin89
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Username: Dustin89

Post Number: 266
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Saturday, November 01, 2008 - 10:22 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Snoringbeagle, I think you may have my favorite handle of anyone on this forum. =)

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