Urban Wildlife

Upon our one am return from Gili Trawangan, I made straight to bed and fell into a semi-comatose state.  Ten hours later I was greeted with a series of messages from Clare, who found herself alone on the streets of Shanghai at 3am clutching her backpack in a state of shock.

It appears that whilst she was taking a holiday, a new resident moved in.  The individual in question, a rat, was of the extra-large, brown, beady-eyed variety. Calmly, it picked its way through the contents of the open-plan kitchen oblivious to the screams it induced.  

A rat in of itself is relatively unremarkable.  Big cities have them and big cities with really old buildings are prone to this type of invasion.  What is notable is the aftermath.

After forlornly clutching her backpack, sending messages to friends and receiving no reply, Clare finally decided to check herself into a hotel.  But the timing was bad.  Her mum was arriving that afternoon and rats aren't exactly kind houseguests.

Phone calls were made to landlords and agents, a dizzying process when you don't speak the language.  The first comments included dismissive laughter and 'You have a rat. You get a cat.' After a smattering of Chinglish, the landlord eventually agreed to foot the bill for Clare to stay in a hotel for the time being.  They would need a week to 'deal' with the rat.

One week later, Clare returned to find rat droppings around her wardrobe and near her clothing.  Next to the kitchen table a new sturdy packing box lay unassumingly to one side.  Inside the box a fat, ginger cat intent on causing no beast, great or small, any deal of harm dozed; its leg was tied to the table and the 13- centimeter turning radius only served to provoke the rat more. To recap, rat meets fat cat tied to table and sneers its way through its cheesy dreams.

More phone calls, more shouting. After logistical dramas with old paperwork, Clare terminated the contract and moved all her things out a week later.  Oh, China.

Addendum: The Ferret
I've relayed this story to many people as they've wiped the tears of laughter out of eyes. But one of my students was entirely unsurprised. A friend of her mother's had a similar, larger, issue.  It seems that the city of Shanghai is well-versed with its rat problem.  So much so that they introduced ferrets to eat the rats.  Only conditions were so good that the ferrets got full and happy, began to breed and created their own infestation.  So this woman actually had a family of ferrets living largely and loudly in the rafters of her flat.  How's that for a new urban food chain?