FIERCE RAT IN HOME

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 452, 4 January 1934, Page 5

FIERCE RAT IN HOME

MAN AND WIFE ATTACKED MAINY BITES Melbourne. Dec. 27. A graphic account of how she and her husband were attacked lam night by a big, vicious rat, which it took them more than five minutes to fi aht off, was given today by Mrs. F. Dunstan, of Gipps Street, Collingwood. “I was lying on the sofa in the kitchen reading,” said Mrs. Dunstan, ‘‘when I heard a faint scratching noise on the floor. I looked down ami taw a fat brown rat about eight inches long, sitting in a crouching posiion a tew feet away. “Before 1 had time to call to my husband the rat sprang. It seemed to tly through the air, and landed on tlie sofa near my head. 1 was so terrified that I cannot say now who, thcr it bit me or scratched me. All 1 know is that i felt blood running down my cheek. “I screamed to my husband, who came Vanning in from the next room. The rat did not seem at all afraid, but kept on scratching my arms and Ll “My husband tried to drive it off by hitting it. He then grabbed it in his hands and tried to pull it off the sofa. The rut turned on him and ran up his arm. It dug its teeth into his llesh while all the time he was trying frantically to dislodge it with his tree hand. "Finally he threw it to the floor and it scurried out of the back door into tne yard. The rat did not appear hungry, and seemed to attack me out of sheer viciousness.” Seven in a Night Mrs. Dunstan said that rats were a serious pest in the house. They i seemed to come from a stable at the ! rear, and no amount of trapping 1 would keep their numbers down. ’ “We have caught as many as seven ! und eight in a n.ght,” she said, “but | iluy .4 ill eomgL They art' t very ! cheeky. Sometimes when t am. only j out of the room for a few minutes ! they will steal the food from the i tabie, and once a rat took a crust I out of the hands of one of the ehildj ren." j The scratches on Mrs. Dunstan s j face, although not deep, are numeri Oils. Her husband, she said, fared ! worse than she did. j Mrs. Dunstan has set a trap loi the rat but so far wituoat 11~.....