$%@!$%& Escaped $&*@!$ RAT!

I used to think an occasional escaped rat on the loose from the rodent room was little more than a nuisance, easily managed by the judicious use of havahart traps. Yesterday, after my laundry room FLOODED because one of the little varmints got inside the washer and chewed the hoses up, I learned that they can be COSTLY nuisances!

I sent my husband to work this morning in the same undershirt he wore yesterday and now I have to either wait a week for the repair company to come out and see if they can fix the washer, go buy a new one, or try and figure out how to fix the thing myself. This on top of my laptop kicking the bucket yesterday too (it died of old age, but still). I HATE rats!! I'm not a violent person, but...I was not sorry that the snake that got the culprit made it suffer.

Man that SUCKS... but you can always get a washboard and return to the past and do laundry by hand in the meantime.

**** I have overturned the freezer, moved furniture and gotten out my trusty shopvac to swoop up escapees (even though I have traps and poison over the place).

That sucks, but I've never had such an experience with a rat. We have 6 pet rats and they are amazing animals. All of them are litter box trained (they know to only pee and poop in thier cages) and they have free roam over the house. They know thier names as well as most basic commands that you would teach a dog (come, stay, go away, beg, high five, etc). Never once had a problem with them chewing on stuff. They are spoiled, so I guess they never felt the need to. Sounds like your rat experience is about the same as my experiences with hamsters.

I had a male and two females escape a couple of months ago. One of the females had a litter. I eventually caught or killed them all but not until they chewed through the tv cable and tore out insulation in one of the walls. I decided to go frozen and I don't miss having to deal with them at all.

and thus the reason I have a house cat. If it moves... she kills it!

I know that sucks. I had a couple escape at once and they destroyed all kinds of stuff from wires like extension cords and wire from my drill and shop vac, to the stuffing out of a cushions. The last two little bastages got up in the part of the ceiling where I hadn't finished dry-walling and they thought they were safe. That was until I broke out the pellet gun and sniped their little wire chewing asses.

We had something living in our garage for about a year. Went through 2 washer hoses and countless other items that it chewed up. Golf balls?? it chewed up golf balls, plastic tubs, all kinds of stuff.

[quote]try and figure out how to fix the thing myself[/quote

They really aren't difficult to fix. I had to declog the pump in mine recently after a rug disintigrated in the wash. Find your model, google it and there is all kinds of info on how to fix stuff yourself. I was very surprised there was so little mechanical stuff in there once I pulled off the front cover.