The Cadaver Under the Settee.

Sorry everybody! Hopefully dead rats falling from the sky is a rarity!

I'm coming with you Nfk, the notion of dead rats dropping from the sky has done for me

Apparently that's a problem with Frontline and such flea treatments. The fleas land on the animal, somehow sense the treatment and then drop off quickly still alive and kicking!

My phobia is dead things. Any dead creature makes me squirm. The thought of a dead rat dropping from the sky is my worst nightmare. I shall go and quietly sit in Soops kitchen for a while!

A few years ago, our cat at the time had fleas, and I went into Boots to buy flea treatments. I bought a few things, stuff for the cat and stuff to treat the carpets and furniture. Imagine how embarrassing it was when the girl on the till said very loudly, "Ugh, flea stuff, it makes me itch just handling this!" I couldn`t wait to get out of the shop.
The other week, I started to itch, and found a few bites on myself, but thought that Mia couldn`t have fleas, we Frontline her regularly, but then I found a couple of fleas on myself (shock, horror!) Then my son picked a flea off Mia`s head, but after rooting in her fur (she`s white), he couldn`t find any signs of fleas. Since then, no more bites, and no more flea sightings, so hopefully she`d either picked a couple up outside, or, hopefully not, they`d come into the house on SOMEONE!

My DDs mother in law who lives in South Yorkshire found a large fish dead in her garden. They are miles from the sea and no obvious idea how it got there.
The only real possibility could have been a heron or other such large bird. There are several reservoirs nearby but she lives on top of a hill. It was rather maggoty and she had to get her son to come over and remove it.

On the rat front, I just have to tell this story even though it doesn't involve sofas. DD3 was away for a few days. I called at her house to leave off some things of hers. I locked up and walked towards the car. Suddenly there was a thump behind me. I looked round and there on the ground I had just walked over was a dead rat. It had clearly fallen from the sky!! A few seconds later and it could have been on my head. Euch!

DH reckons a bird of prey must have dropped it. DD was horrified as she has a rat phobia and still has nightmares about being hit by flying rats.

Nelliemoser your story takes me back to my childhood, when we went on holiday for a fortnight. The dog and cat went into kennels while we were away so the house was left empty. When we came home we had hardly got the cases into the house before my mother and I realised that we looked as if we were wearing long black socks! Hundreds of starving fleas had come leaping out of the carpets! Cue industrial quantities of flea powder

Don't start me on frogs Dragonfly1 one of mine was absolutely obsessed with them last year!

My two cats rarely brought in mice. Frogs, however.....

We lost Ringo the gerbil one year and discovered him running between two of our 4 cats, they were pawing him back and forward, we returned him to his cage but the next day he seemed dead, I was about to bury him when I saw him move so we returned him to the cage to keep him warm. If it had been daytime I would have taken him to the vet. we assumed he was just suffering from shock, the next day though he was dead as I examined him carefully to make sure I noticed that half his tail was gone. I felt terrible as he must have suffered for almost two days and we didn't notice. A few days later one of the cats vomited a grey and rotting tail, so at least we knew the culprit.

No, Iam64 - MrMarelli has a morbid fear of rats, too! I think he shoved it off the roof with a big stick!! He worked for a poultry firm before he retired, and he said that seeing rats running here and there was just part of it, but often the lorry drivers would play jokes on each other by leaving a dead rat in the lorry cabs..........maybe it's a man thing !

Marelli - did Mr M touch the dead rat with his hands, or did he wear gloves,use a plastic bag. Oh, the back of my neck feels creepy just writing that.
Nellie, thanks for introducing yet another of the grim realities of dogs and especially cats. I had a cat and a dog, went away for a week, leaving my pal to come in and feed the cat, and the dog to stay at her house. I got back around midnight, walked, in and was horrified to see the rug in the hall had a flea infestation. My pal told me her home was infested as well, but she wasn't blaming my dog, we both blamed the cats. Anyway, we set to and cleaned, hoovered hoovered and hoovered some more. I went and bought the best the vet had in terms of sprays for the furniture, the cat and pills for the dog.
I'm now a member of a number of dog forums, related to rescue. The young idealists all start by saying they'll never use chemical flea treatments, they'll use non chemical preventers. Humph. They're back as soon as we've had a sunny spell, asking for advice about frontline, and advocat - used monthly, no flea survives.

Years ago, we had a cat which we called Spider. He had very long legs, sort of brown in colour and he used to catch and eat flies (hence the name).
He didn't bring in rodents apart from on one darkening winter afternoon, when I saw him staggering proudly up the garden dragging a rather long-dead rat. It had only one leg, and Spider must have thought I would like it.....
I shooed him away from it, scooped the rat up with the garden spade and flung it over into the field. I've not got a good aim, though, and it landed on the shed roof where it had to stay until DH came home from work. He wasn't at all chuffed at having to get the steps out to climb on to the shed roof in the dark....!

I find it amusing!
We did have a cat years ago. We had both been away from our flat for about a month, with my cat parked at my mums.

This was summer and in the meantime the fleas all hatched and with no cat to jump on it was me they attacked. Several tins of flea powder on the carpet and then a good vacuum up helped helped.
This was before the days of "spot it on" flea prevention stuff.

It made me think about my lack of regular cleaning habits.

I wonder if any of the folks who don't share their lives with cats or dogs find this thread as amusing as those of us who do. I wonder which comes first, the ability to live with the extra cleaning, dead rodents and general area of chaos - or learning to do this because the joy sharing your life with animals brings.

One of our cats has killed several squirrels, but never seems interested in eating them. One of the other cats did find one of the bodies and ate the back feet though [ Ugh emoticon]

You have now!

Best to try not to picture the loo incident. I haven't told many people about it.

Oh! Nfk - you've got me laughing here! ! I can picture all of this.....!

Thank you all for making me feel so much better about my cleaning abilities/inclinations - lack of. We used to have a large black cat who answered to the name of Frederick (Rory lookalike). He ignored all things feathered but fur was a different matter. He would catch and eat mice, rats and voles leaving only the stomachs and sometimes a tail laying about the place. When I was disabled with a back problem and having to sleep on a put-u-up downstairs he would bring live mice in in the middle of the night and present them to me in an effort to cheer me up. Thankfully I don't have a problem with live rodents, but crawling around the floor in pain at three in the morning while cat looked on was not my idea of fun. He meant well though.

Once when I was enthroned on our gardeners loo the old piece of carpet on the floor started moving. Fred had left a mole under it - probably to play with later. It was a very small loo room and trying to reassemble my clothing and get out without letting the mole escape I felt was quite an achievement. I did manage to catch the poor thing (wearing thick gloves) and release it in the woods where at least it stood a vague chance of survival.

In his time he managed to get several fully grown rabbits through the dog flap but the thing I'm most ashamed of is the squirrel. Fred hadn't been eating for a couple of days. Nothing. I was starting to get worried. Sitting watching TV in the evening there was a rustling, crunching from behind the sofa. I thought it was the cat with a crisp packet hiding there out of dog reach. Looked over and he was tucking into squirrel. There was just the head, skin and fluffy tail left. And a couple of rat sized stomachs.

My cleaning improved.

Oh, if only! (sighing)

- it would be good if we could do the same again one day, number. XX

The only niff was the lovely one coming from the direction of the kitchen Marelli!

If there was a bit of a niff, I do hope that you didn't think it was DH or me, number....!

Katy - I don't even move light furniture to hoover underneath it!!