Rats on the Balcony

AS I start writing this, I realize that there will now be two posts out of a whopping 7 on this Blog that have to do with rodentia. Little furry creatures are part of my life, what can I say. Well here, take a look at this, a page made by my wonderful wife, Jasmine.
As you can see, having these wonderful little creatures visiting your doorway can be considered a responsibility. They are wild creatures, yes, but we have chosen to help feed and maintain them. Walnuts aren't cheap! Besides, who could resist this face?

Last night, we were watching "The Day After Tomorrow." It was late, about 10:30 PM, when I saw some movement over on the balcony. I saw two little ears sticking up out of a rodent shaped head. Squirrels at night? That never hapens. Squirrels curl up in little balls and sleep during the night. What was this thing? I looked again and saw a sleek body and long, stringy tail attached to this otherwise squirrel-shaped creature. A Rat! Yup, a dirty, stinking, disease carrying, babies-eyeballs-chewing rat! Like this one:

This was horrible! A rat on our balcony! Maybe not as bad as a rat in the kitchen, but terrible nonetheless. Unclean people have rodent problems, not us! Jasmine was freaking out even worse than I. Put the cat outside, she said. Insisting we keep the light on on the balcony (this would drive them away), she started to clean the apartment. Cleaning inside isn't going to do anything to keep rats away outside, but hey, if it makes one feel better. Naturally, we had to stop the movie to "deal" with this situation. If you haven't seen "The Day After Tomorrow," you probably at least know its an apacolyptic thriller about the sudden coming of an ice age. Last night was the coldest night of the year so far. Add the cold to the movie to rat appearing at the slding glass door, and it seemed as is the world was coming to an end.

But is it really all that bad? Why do we feed the squirrels and think they're the cutest things in the world, while cringing in horror at the sight of a rat? They both can carry parasites. They both live comfortably in trees in urban environments. I'm not the first person to think about this question, and there's one obvious answer: THE TAILS. A rat's tail is very useful to the rat; it may even be prehensile, I'm not sure. Squirrels tails, on the other hand are great for show. Falshy, bushy things, I've seen them use their tails to communicate with one another and us too many times to count. Squirrels know their tails are potent tools for manipulation. Their tails have also gotten them in a bit of trouble. Read this anecdote written by the Devil.

Despite the fact that I can intellectually grasp the concept that roof rats and squirrels are cousins and not really all that different from one another, I would never be able to feed the rats. Feed wild rats? It sounds inhuman! As it turns out, we have been feeding the rats. Jasmine has been putting out handfuls of shelled walnuts before going to bed so that any early-morning squirrel visitors would find food waiting for them. Sure enough, she reported, the nuts would be gone when she woke up in the morning. Something was eating them. We figure now that the roof rats have been making their way to our balcony and eating the squirrel food.

Should we feed the rats too?