Mouse extermination

The rat was always very close to man. Since the dawn of time, he walks in his path and learn to live in his shadow. This very complex relationship evolve somewhat over time.

Mouse extermination : The plague
 First there was the episode of the plague pandemics with three spectacular (the first of 540 to 665 approx. And the second from 1347 to 1771, the last in the second half of the nineteenth century, China and India) . Fleas carry the bacteria Yersinia pestis landed on this continent, traveling the back of rats. When the host dies, they found another rat or human.

Thus, during the second pandemic passed away a third of Europe's population, 25 million people. Few people know that rats do not transmit the plague just for spite. Instead, they are, chronologically, the first victims. The only "wrong" was to travel as stowaways on ships, and thus have been instrumental in the spread of the disease.

Among the remedies against the plague, Michael W. Dols (The Black Death in the Middle East) said: "That a devout Muslim repeats the" subjugation "over 2142 times the sick and plague go away. Some held the divine name" the believer "the best medicine in the plague epidemics. We had to repeat it 136 times a day, and even 299 times if necessary."

For the record, blacksmiths seemed strangely preserved from the plague. Were they protected by the underworld itself? It is believed that some minds. In fact there is no mystery about it, if it is known that rats have a horror of noise. These carriers of plague so carefully avoided the forge and not contaminating no one who worked there. However, by coming into contact with people infected, the blacksmith ended too consumed by the plague.

Mouse extermination : How to get rid
 In his book, Manon Tremblay discusses various means used centuries ago to get rid of rats. Here are a few, which are often of superstition:
rats coat of glue and feathers and set them on fire
introduce garlic into the rectum of the rat, sew, and let him return to his family. The rat was then supposed to tell his troubles to his friends and discourage them from approaching the men.
planted in the fields to protect a sign with the magic formula: "I beg you all, rats are evil, do me no harm. I forbid you to this field, and if after my defense, I never found you I certify that the mother of the gods I will cut into seven pieces! "
place a barrel of beer where there were rats and float on beer a lot of corks. The rats are expected to take the caps for a cap stable and go there. Caps give way under their feet, and they can no longer get out of the barrel. Drunk under the influence of alcohol, they drown.
the first Sunday of Lent, sprinkle three corners of your attic with holy water. The rats are then supposed to escape through the fourth corner.
adopt an albino rat. Seeing the wild rats take him for a ghost and abandonment.

Mouse extermination : Superstitions
Some read their future in the horoscope section of the Morning. Our ancestors, themselves, watching the rats to guess their fate:
if the rats gnaw the furniture in your home, especially in the bedroom, someone in your family will soon die.
if your rats leave a house without being driven, it will collapse.
if the rats leave the ship, is that it will sink.
rats on a new ship is a sign of luck.
rats entering a house for no apparent reason are again harbingers of death.
a child who throws a rat tooth that has lost in him by asking for a new, more beautiful and strong, has a nice teeth.
According to Barbara Hodgson (see his book), to get rid of rats "You can, for example, read the Gospel according to St. John in three corners of a house: the rats escape through the fourth. Wisely chosen, the fourth corner can even direct them to the house of a neighbor too rich you despise. "
Finally, if there is no rat is a good sign, unless it's a bad sign. And if there are rats, is a bad sign, unless it is a good sign ...

Mouse extermination : Domestication
 During the nineteenth century, Europeans have invented a game, which was to bet on the time it would take a dog to kill rats, the rat baiting. Billy, a particularly clever dog, is remembered for having succeeded in 1823 to kill 100 rats in 5 minutes.

The rats were sent to the butcher caught in the wild, but we soon had the idea to breed in captivity. Thus began the domestication of the rat. Over the time of selection, the rats eaten by the dogs we have become cushy pet.

Mouse extermination : Our grandparents
 Do you have noticed that the elderly are generally more resistant to our love for rats? I find it rather normal. In rural areas, while farmers worked the land hard, I can understand their desperation when a group of rats was attacking crops.

For a grain eaten a rat defiles ten. Imagine the mess ...

Mouse extermination : The sewer rats
 The sewer rat to man makes an outstanding job. Crossing the line in s'aménageant shelter, recovering which will serve as food or nest, it avoids the congestion of pipes and is involved in maintaining our sewer!

Rats of Paris, for example, eat 800 tons of garbage a day. Well worth a curse, in the end ... It is said that this city has 2-4 sewer rats by residents. The figure is vague, but you can imagine that a census in good standing is complex.


Mouse extermination : The extermination
All men do not hate rats. Instead, the animal fascinated by its incredible versatility, and all the many services it makes us everyday (clearing drains, experimentation, etc.)..

Still, the rat hunt continues. And for that we must cheat. If a rat eats poison and dies quickly, its affiliates will be the relationship between food and death, and they were careful not to touch the poison. Death should take some time. Vendors rat poison pearl a sweet sensation of heat that takes hold of the animal, the ratophiles a painful death.