Rats eat anything just because that's what they do, submitter. They are vile, evil, remorseless eating machines that have no match for appetite on earth outside Homer Simpson, and he's not real.

logruszed: They still make better pets than mice.

Rats are more intelligent, they are cuter, and they can be trained. That doesn't relieve them of "pest" status if they aren't pets.

The common field mouse (the bane of my existence) is the mammalian equivalent of the roach. Stupid, loud, relentless and too Goddamn fast to shoot with a pellet gun. If you live in an old farmhouse, "mouse season" is always October and May when the temperature changes. Thankfully, the animals are too stupid to avoid traps as long as there is peanut butter on them.

I did have a two week showdown this winter with "Herman" who must have been an older mouse because the farker would run out of the coat closet he was camping in and into the kitchen, check to make sure I was there, and then run back. If I wasn't there he would go straight for the cat food bowl 20 feet away, which is quite a hike for a mouse. He never took the bait in the traps. I had to lock a cat in Herman's closet for two hours to get Herman.

To that end, Herman was a dumbass. Mice can smell cats, but he risked it anyway. It was the middle of winter, so maybe he was hungry. Herman so vexed me that instead of going to the dump I actually buried him at the forest edge of our property out of respect. RIP Herman, you farking asshole mouse.

/yeah, I sealed the hole with steel wool and epoxy.
//it's only going to buy me a year or two of peace.