You're Not a New Yorker Until You Have a 'Rat in My Apartment' Story

The Rat (Chinese zodiac)
Originally uploaded by gail on the web.

...and this is mine.

The evening started out simply enough. Le Doug and I planned a date night where we went to see Snakes on a Plane. Afterwards we had some margheritas at the outdoor bar in Union Square Park. At the end of the evening he headed back to Connecticut to spend the weekend working on a project for work. I was going to spend Saturday in NYC, since I planned to go to a party.

The margheritas got the best of me and I soon fell asleep in my apartment. At around 4:30 AM I was roused from sleep because I heard a rustling around my window. Initially I dismissed it, thinking it was some drunk NYU kids wondering where the tiny window leads to. (This happens more often than you would think.) I turned a light on to indicate that yes, someone does live behind the window and at 4:30 AM, they would like to get some sleep.

Even with the lights on, the rustling did not stop. I thought it was a mouse, but mice are afraid of light. The rustling turned into scratching, like claws on metal. Was the mouse trying to get through my heater vents? If so, be done with it!

The scratching continued and I turned on a big light and looked over towards the window. That's when I saw the rat, sitting on my end table behind a lamp. I screamed like a little girl with a skinned knee and raced towards the kitchen. See, rats are the crack heads of the Animal Kingdom. Not only are they germ factories (black plague, anyone?) but they're crazy.

I peeked my head back into the studio and couldn't tell where the rat had gone. Immediately I called the landlord. Yes, by now it was 5:00 AM. But for $1,315 a month, I feel I can call the landlord at any time of day.

"John!" I shouted. "There is a RAT in my apartment!"

John was groggy. "Yes, Yes. I know. The guy across the hall has mice, too."

"No!" I shouted. "There is a RAT. Not a mouse. They're two different species."

"Okay, okay," he said. "I'll call the exterminator on Monday."

Perhaps something was being lost in the translation. "But John, the rat is in my house now."

There a brief pause. "Okay, I'll come by at 7:00. Okay?"

It was a compromise. Still, there was no way I could get back to sleep, so I started washing all my laundry and throwing away every magazine and newspaper that was lying around, carefully listening for any more rustling or scratching on metal. There wasn't any.

Right at 7:00 AM, John rang my bell. He looked around the place and up at the window. He shrugged. "Your window's open. That's how the rat came in."

"Of course it's open. It's August. I need air."

John shrugged again. "That's how it got in. If you close the window, you won't have any more rats."

"But I need air," I said.

John closed the window. "You also need a screen. Call the property manager and have her order you a screen." With that he turned to leave. He noticed the half full bag of cat food someone had randomly left at my door last week. "You have a cat?" He asked.

I shook my my head. "Nah. Someone just left that at my door for some reason. I haven't had a cat in over a year."

He considered this. "You know," John said. "If you had a cat, you probably wouldn't have a rat."

"Perhaps," I said. And John left.

John knocked on my door a few hours later as exhaustion was finally getting its grip on me. When I opened the door, he held out a small, potato chip size bag.

"You want some rat poison?" He asked hopefully.

I was too tired to deal. "No. I don't know how to use that stuff and I don't want it hanging around. I'll just mop it all down later on."

It's been almost a week since the rat came in, and I am very happy to report that I haven't seen another one since.

A few days ago I bought the book Rats by Robert Sullivan. (Know thy enemy!) He spent a year watching rats in an alley down near Wall Street. I've learned a lot about rats thus far, most of which makes me feel a lot better about my rat visit. The largest is that rats are serious creatures of habit, and they literally use the same route from their rat holes to food and garbage every day. They are also nocturnal. They don't like changes in routine.

That said, I think the rat that wandered into my house wasn't that bright. I've lived in that apartment for three years, most of the time with the window open. For a rat to come in, he would have had to stray from his normal scaveging route, into an area that he didn't know. Given that rats don't see very well to begin with, this is risky rat behavior.

So where did he go? In addition to being excellent swimmers, rats are incredible jumpers with agility that matches that of squirrels. They are also very smart, almost as smart as cats, if not pigs. Mr. Rat prob heard me scream and jumped right out the wuindow where he came.

Le Doug, though, had the best insight into the Rat that Came to Visit. He has been head to head with bears, moose and other assorted wildlife on his many remote fly fishing expeditions and believes we should all be one with and respect nature. Except racoons. They're vicious.

"How big are you?" he asked as I regaled the story to him.

"5'6 or so," I said.

"And how big was that rat?" He asked.

I shrugged. "Six, maybe seven inches long."

Doug went back to his newspaper. "Exactly."