Some of these wharf rats are almost as big as your cat--He probably is very
smart by sleeping and pretending he does not see or hear the rats.

I keep Decon on boats which I am not occupying all of the time.
There is a risk of Mr Rat crawling into a corner and dieing--but I sure don't
want to wake up with one on my head, chewing on my ear.

I had one on a sport fisher.  We knew about it, but were unable to club it or
get it into the open--shooting it was not an option.
When we were about 10 miles at sea, one of the guests was in the fish fighting
chair--with a bit of mal de mar. The rat ran across the transom, my guest
leaped up and hit the rat with the butt of the fishing rod, knocking it
overboard to the cheers of the rest of the crew--the guest then tossed his
cookies and settled back into the fighting chair.  We all slept better that
night, knowing that the rat was gone.

These rats are hard to kill.  I hit one on the skull with my air rifle and it
just stunned him--took several more shots to finish him off.

I doubt if the exterminator or health department will get rid of all of the
rats.  Put rat guards (we use frisbees, with a hole cut on them on all lines
(including phone cords and power cords) comming to the boat.  Be sure that any
other lines or fenders are not touching the dock.

Good luck--

Bob Austin

You could always call Rent A Mongoose or there smaller competitor, Rent A
Ferret to take care of your problems. Just hide the cat. Maybe pet ferrets
are the PNW liveaboards' favorite pet of the future?

Ron Rogers

Unfortunately I have had experiences with rats on boats. I had them on three
of the four boats that I've owned. The last episode was in 2004 where one
did substantial damage to new wiring that I had installed including eating
completely through the wire to my remote pilot. This rat chewed the wiring
in a spot well into the starboard void making the damage hard to find and
harder to fix.

As far as keeping them off your vessel,  I don't think that 'rat guards' on
lines work at all. If they do it's only on the rats that have not adapted. I
have personally witnessed rats jumping completely over the large 'rat
guards' used on freighters. It appeared that they did this will little
effort. I have successfully used the traditional rattrap and found that
apple was the best bait. In saltwater marinas, especially in the summer
months, there is little fresh water around and the rats seem to go for the
apples for the juice. I have apple bait work when everything else including
peanut butter sat untouched. Unfortunately though some rats will not go into
a traditional trap. Perhaps they've seen their brothers die in one and are
too smart to join them. For these guys you need a live trap. Again with
apple for bait these things really work.
The trouble with traditional and live traps is they have to be set all the
time to ensure that a rat getting onto your vessel is captured before doing
too much damage. This is likely not too practical as in my case I've had
three rats aboard over a 19 year span. That's a long time to tend traps
between kills! Since the last stowaway I've gone to block poison screwed to
the walls inside my closed in areas. This seems to have worked in that I
don't see any droppings at any time since doing this. I believe (hope) that
any rat boarding will take the bait before eating my wiring. Once they eat
the bait they head to fresh water, hence leave the vessel to die. At least
that's the theory and so far seems to have worked.
A single rat can do a substantial amount of expensive damage in a
surprisingly short time span. I'll risk the possibility of having to hunt
down a smelly dead rat over hunting down expensive wiring repairs any time.
John Hughes