Giant Rat Trapped in Swedish Home
OutdoorHub Reporters 03.31.14
Here at OutdoorHub.com, most of our trapping stories happen in the outdoors. This story from the Swedish capital of Stockholm, however, is a rare exception. According to The Local, a Swedish family finally managed to capture a monstrous 15.7-inch-long rat—not counting its tail—in their home in Solna after a week-long hunt.
“It was quite a shocking experience,” said Signe Bengtsson, a mother of two teenage daughters and two young sons. “No one wanted to go into the kitchen after, and the cat was terrified for a week.”
The family’s struggle with the rat began three weeks ago when Signe first started hearing noises from inside the kitchen. The BBC reported that the rodent, which was dubbed “Ratzilla” by local press, had chewed its way into the home through cement and wood barriers. It eventually entered the family’s kitchen through a ventilation pipe. Bengtsson initially spotted the rat hiding under the kitchen sink, but it quickly fled. Her husband, Erik Korsas, refused to believe at first that such a giant rat could exist inside their home—until he saw the animal resting underneath the kitchen table several days later. The family quickly cordoned off the room and called for exterminators.
“The pest controllers said they’d never seen such a big rat before,” Bengtsson told The Local.
The exterminators had brought three large traps and baited them with hazelnuts. It did not take long for the family to hear the characteristic snap of a trap activating. Surprisingly, the rat did not die immediately but ended up dragging the trap into the space beneath a dishwasher. Korvas later dispatched the rat and weighed it, finding it to be about 2.2 pounds.
City rats have to either be very lucky or very smart to grow to Ratzilla’s size. Wild rats are generally larger, and the woolly giant rat of South America is generally thought to be the biggest living rat species in the world.
