Greek Rats?

Yanni Varkas, the local engineer (very good value for money!), was making an estimate of damage for the insurance company. He asked me aboard to have a look and get some education. I was astonished. All the wiring visible had been damaged, several poly pipes had been chewed, and hardly a shred of cotton remained. His first action was to pull out the batteries in case a short occurred upstream of the isolator switches. One locker, which presumably had contained clothes, was just a heap of cotton wool and a few buttons and zips.

They sure do a lot of damage when confined . . . that boat wasn't going to sail again until completely rewired . . . and it had a load of extra stuff on board; generator, air conditioning, television, you mention it.
 
Thanks for the info.

I was hoping that tales of Greek rats swimming out to anchored boats were just an urban myth.

I won’t be showing ATM this thread. We didn’t actually see any rats last summer in the Ionian, but then I’m sure they would prefer to be aboard the bigger posher yachts, rather than the tatty jag we had.

I’m assuming that there will be rats in the Spoarades, so I will go armed with moth balls, fuel funnels, poison , rat traps, a cat and a copy of YM with which to thump them.
 
Here are two first hand experiences for the jimbaerselman and other sceptics !
The first experience was when I stuck my head out of the hatch in the middle of the night after hearing a noise and was suprised to see a large patch of dried leaves at the far end of the boat blow onto the next boat.
I then realised that there was no wind and the dark shapes were not leaves but about 20 rats !
I had disturbed them........but not as much as they had disturbed me !
Our other experience was when moored bows to and returning from the taverna late at night, feeling no pain, we were climbing over the pulpit, legs akimbo, one foot ashore and one over the toerail, hauling ourselves over the pulpit when we met several rats going the other way, leaving the boat, in a scurry of tails and glinting eyes !
Not a good position to be in when meeting rats !
It was few years ago but I am pretty certain that the "leaves" were at Spartahori on Meganissi. The "akimbo" moment was at Sivota on Lefkas.
Suprisingly Sunsail did not mention the opportunity for close rat encounters anywhere in their brochure.
 
As most responses confirm, rats are a problem in the Ionian for sure and probably elsewhere if they don't have a good cat population.

Apart from chewing clothes and fingers, rats LOVE the insulation around electric cables and co-axial cable. I spent some hours helping a friend in Corfu fix a problem with his B&G instruments/autopilot. Eventually traced to one of the yellow network cables being knawed through in 2 places. At the same time I found the main cable loom had been attacked but mainly only the binding tape and some insulation, no conductors cut. The rat had used this for a nice nest near to the hot water tank. In my TV studio days, it was common to find co-ax cables running in basements or ducts to be chewed through. If your electronics start to act up, this could be the cause.

The sticky goop sold to catch rats had no effect and it was hard to find a trap. They eventually bought a trap and caught the little blighter after 5 days. There is a kitchen/laundry goods shop down opposite the old harbour in Corfu which does a great trade in funnels for mooring ropes. I went there and was looking at the different sizes and without any prior discussion (other than "kalimera" (sp)) the shop keeper came up and asked if I had rats and what size ropes I had!

The stories of rats swimming to the anchor chain or other mooring ropes and climbing up is a bit scary. When I run stern ropes to shore I use chains to submerged rocks for preference over tying to trees but I can see that is not foolproof, maybe reduces the risk a bit.

If you do get rats on board, look for the warmest place, near the engine or hot water tank, to find their nest/sleepover spot. The trouble is it still doesn't catch them. A beefy trap is certainly the best - pack a couple with your swimsuits before you go!
Ray
 
Just to add to the joys of boat ownership, or should that be rat ownership, it’s not just the physical damage caused by the little brown darlings we have to worry about. My understanding is that they are blessed with a week bladder and they trail a film of urine wherever they walk. Leptospirosis, Lyme disease and Salmonellosis are all vectored by rats, as well of course plague and Typhus. Note that the bacteria that cause these diseases can survive in dried urine. So think next time when you take a swig from an unwashed can or bottle that’s been sitting in a cellar.

Mind you, char grilled rat is a prime source of protein along the Mekong River. Kebab anyone?
 
Correct re Leptospirosis, and perhaps Salmonella, Lyme disease however is vectored by ticks mainly from deer , Plague is associated with rats, but again it is not the urine but the rat flea which is the vector. (there is some recent work which casts some doubt on this, but that is the long established belief)

Typhus is a human to human spread disease, again fleas and lice are the vectors, mainly found in places where there are large numbers of people with poor living standards and access to washing etc.
Nazi concentration camps were full of Typhus victims, and at the end of the war many of the volunteers who worked there contracted the disease.
 
I should have known that I should be careful how I phrase things on a quick reply.

Murine “rat borne” typhus is transmitted to humans by rat bite or by their fleas. I also seem to remember reading that there is evidence that urban rats can act as reservoir hosts for Lyme disease spirochetes - ticks then do the transmitting as with deer. I would also like to add “rat-bite fever” into the mix.

A quick Google suggests that rats are responsible for carrying nearly 70 different disease types http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s781304.htm No wonder that most of us seem to have a primeval hatred for them?
 
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