ARE RATS REALLY AS SMART AS THEY SAY IT TO BE?

In my experience as a Pest Controller I have heard many stories about how Rats become violent after you begin to curse them. Please share your Rat experiences with us and we can come to the conclusion to see if Rats are really  smart animals.

As for my part, I was once  called  to control the invasion of rats at a  famous restaurant in a well known shopping complex in Kuala Lumpur. The restaurant  owner tried many methods on his own but could not get rid of the rats and the rats were multiplying at such a rapid rate that he could not keep up with the cleaning of the rats droppings and the smell of urine.I was called to take care of the problem. I was amazed that he was not closed down for business and no customer of his, had actually complained about the smell and the visibility of  rats dropping. It dawned on me much later that the lighting at this restaurant was way down and he had strongly scented potpourris all over his restaurant to camouflage the smell as well as the droppings.

A couple of days later we got down to work and as my staff was laying the baits and traps for the rats, the most amazing thing happened. I came eye to eye  with a huge black rat with deep red eyes which actually made me take two steps back. This 'monster' was observing all that we were doing and was following us from a distance, above the false ceiling it was a common open area for the entire complex which allows the rats to move freely beyond the restaurant perimeter. There was nothing I could do about this 'monster' but lay every trap there was for it. One would have thought that I had gone mad when they saw me telling the 'monster' to stay away from this restaurant or else he will surely be caught in my trap. He just ran away after the telling off and I thought to myself, okay that's done with.

I got a shock on my return to the restaurant a week later for further treatment when I again came face to face with this 'monster'. This time around I felt a certain shiver run trough me, I began  greeting it by saying hello and it responded with a loud squeaking sound that almost threw me off the ladder. I realized that it could be the leader of a pack of rats and after recomposing myself, I spoke gently to this 'monster' saying that we are putting a barrier against all rats to the restaurant and it should stay away and tell its  friends to do the same. The 'monster' ran away never to be seen again and it was never caught in our traps. The owner said that after a week later,  they have not seen any rat droppings or urine anymore.

You wonder whether the 'monster actually understood what I was telling it or it has observed the barrier we had created against the rats. The last I heard is that the restaurant below the one we were treating was terrorized  by rat invasion.