I smell a rat...

[bhskittykatt]

So we have a couple guests here who are begging off friends and family to pay for their rent. CW pissed them off, because as she was talking to the guest's sister (who was paying for the room), the sister mentioned she was surprised there were no cold-weather shelters open, at which point CW informed her of several in town. The sister called back after calling the shelters, and was pissed off as hell.

Why can these guests not get into a shelter and have to mooch off others instead? They have a pet rat that the shelters won't take.

Actually, we think they have several pet rats. A couple parents and several babies. And according to the housekeepers, they are letting these rats have free-range of the room! One housekeeper reported feces all over the sheets!

I have not been able to personally inspect the room. I work maintenance tomorrow, and I will have my camera phone to note anything nasty. I think the current plan is to let them stay until they check-out, note the damages, and then not let them return. (Fortunately, we are not busy this time of year so if the room is down for a few days we won't need it, and if they've already messed up the room then we might as well get as much money from them as we can before they get perma-banned.)

UPDATE

So today, they checked out. No surprise, there were rat feces over everything! The carpet was covered, as was the mattress.

They also stole everything as well! Blankets, towels, sheets...all were gone. They even stole the welcome mat in front of the door!

They are not welcome to stay here anymore.

[anniesbar]

um, eewwwww!

[Kristev]

I don't understand. Homeless people are staying in a hotel? And getting their sister to pay? Because they won't lose their rat?

[bhskittykatt]

I don't understand. Homeless people are staying in a hotel? And getting their sister to pay? Because they won't lose their rat?

Sounds like you understand perfectly!

Except the wife's sister is refusing to pay any more. They're talking to some guy now who's going to come in tomorrow to pay. I'm warning CW who will be here in the morning...I'm sure she'll have a nice chat with whoever this new guy is when he drops by.

[Mytical]

Wow. I've put up family that had nowhere to stay, and even helped financially..but my brain just BSoD reading that post. Hey, I'm all for protecting any animal..and I guess it would be hard to find somebody to take care of rodents..but at least keep them where they won't be able to damage somebody ELSES property....

[geek007]

I'm thinking this might be a health hazard? Rodent crap in my crapshack means that we have to uber-clean and disinfect the room.

[Daemonmonkey]

Seems like a situation where "client" has to stay until inspection of room is finished, and anything beyond normal cleaning/repair has to be done by client.

[Thatgirl71]

I know a few people who've owned rats as pets but never let them run all over the place and crap everywhere, that's so gross.
Hopefully when they check out they don't leave any of the babies behind.

[Lachrymose]

I used to let mine have full reign of my apartment at times.

Sometimes they crap. It's what they do.

But I'd clean it up, of course. (And obvious difference is it's my own place...sort of.)

[Jester]

BSoD

Okay, that's the second time today I've seen that, and I haven't the foggiest fucking clue what it means. Clue this old(er) fart in?

at least keep them where they won't be able to damage somebody ELSES property....

Now hold on. Dude doesn't have a home for himself. Are you really all that surprised that he doesn't have a house for his rats, either?

[JustaCashier]

Jester;

The Blue Screen of Death (also known as a stop error, BSoD, bluescreen, or Blue Screen of Doom) is a colloquialism used for the error screen displayed by some operating systems, most notably Microsoft Windows, after encountering a critical system error that can cause the system to shut down to ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSoD

Mike

[Jester]

Oooooooooohhhhhhhhh.....okay.

[bankworking]

I used to own a pet rat. She was a wonderful pet. We trained her to wear a lizard harness and she'd sit on my shoulder under my hair when I took her out of the house. She did live in a cage, but we let her out to run around a lot. But as one of the above stated, if she did end up pooping, it got cleaned up immediately. You know though, she tended to only want to poop in one corner of her cage, so it very rarely came up.

She didn't stink. She had plenty of gnaw toys and the one time we caught her chewing on something she shouldn't be, it got taken from her immediately. In all, she actually was a lot less hassle than my cat (and the cage was easier to clean than the kitty litter).

People tend to get grossed out by the idea of a rat, but if they're properly cared for, they aren't any dirtier than any other pet. Just like a cat or dog can be gross as all get out if they are not trained and cared for properly.

Of course, I wouldn't have gotten upset if a place didn't want to take her in. Hotels/shelters/etc have rules on what pets (if any) they will take. And you better believe any place that did allow me to take her in would not find any signs of her presence after I left. You clean up after your own pets. Drives me batty enough when dog walkers don't clean up after their dogs...

[chainedbarista]

it is a health hazard; rat and mouse urine can carry leptospirosis, which can be deadly if it enters the body.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leptospirosis

[Lachrymose]

That is very rare in pet rats.

Edit: CDC fact sheet. http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/disea...osis_g_pet.htm