I just love to blog about rats. Except for the pet kind—rats are hard to love—and just about nobody wants to hear about them being inside the home. They are very common in attics and crawl spaces and if they can find a way in they love to be inside the living space as well.
In high school one of the track events that I participated in was the “high-jump.” The current World Olympic Record is something like 7′-10.” In high-school I was able to high jump my own height of 5′-8″—–a long, LONG way off the Olympic record.
These records pale in comparison to the rat’s abilities. The rat has to have a few points taken away for use of the wall to propel itself upwards, but its efforts are still most impressive. The “evidence” on the walls show the first point of contact at the jump to the hole in the wall at about 32 inches off the floor. The hole is another 16 inches above that. Even a BIG rat wouldn’t be more that 12 inches tall on his hind feet (how is that for an image?).
Even using the wall surface, with a good running start, how high of a hole could a human being reach and drag their sorry butt up into? This hole in the wall is at least 5 times the rat’s height—-that would be approximately 30 feet for a 6 foot tall human being. Can my math possibly be correct on this? I think so.
Can’t you just hear the fans cheering him on as the rat high-jump champ vaults himself through the hole in this basement wall?
A scarier thought—-it is probably routine—and no record at all!
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Charles Buell, Seattle Home Inspector
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