Rats and Mice | Hazardous Holiday Creatures | HolidayTravelWatch
Rats and mice are rodent pests found in homes and warehouses.
These rodents eat any kind of food that people eat.
They also contaminate 10 times as much food as they eat, with urine, droppings and hair.
They can carry at least 10 different kinds of diseases including bubonic plague, murine typhus, spirochetal jaundice, Leptospirosis, rabies, rat bite fever and bacterial food poisoning.
Many times rats bite sleeping children while trying to get bits of food off them that were not washed off before bedtime.
Rats and mice also start fires by gnawing matches and electrical wires in homes.
The movement of rats and mice is usually related to food, water or harbourage.
Knowing where they are likely to go is important to managing them.
Rats use any method to get to food, water or harbourage.
Their excellent sense of balance enables them to run on pipes, narrow ledges and utility wires.
Rats, especially roof rats, will climb anything their claws will hold on to, including wires, pipes and rough walls.
Because rats are excellent swimmers, they often live in sewers and occasionally enter homes through toilets.
Rats like to use regular paths or runways along walls or behind debris.
To get food in the open, they will run behind things to get as close to the food as possible.
They are afraid of strange objects or strange food and may avoid both.
HTW has noted that amongst the submissions to the Committee on Toxicity (COT) it has been suggested that the symptoms highlighted by crew and passengers were akin to the condition of hyperventilation.
HTW has for many years received reports from concerned holiday makers or independent travellers as to the safety of their aircraft, ship or boat, train or road transport.
