Dingoes ate my baby...

Rats got the bad reputation because they eat our stored food and host fleas that spread plague. Add in the fact that they can't be trained to be useful, and you've got a pest instead of a symbiote.

Don't get me wrong, I get along with most animals, including tame rats. I used to keep them as pets. I think it's natural to view a competitor for food and a link in the plague chain with no easily recognizable characteristics as 'bad'. Take your ants, for example. Judging by other things I've read from you, I don't understand why you think it's OK to kill them. Rats eat grain intended for us, squirrels eat food intended for birds, skunks live in places we don't want them, but they all have to survive. So do carpenter ants, who only want a full stomach and a nice, rotten place to live.

Jeri, with a humidifier going 24/7 in my previously sogged basement.