night time visitors

[zoom star]

Any one ever had rats, mice, snakes,anything come in the tent in the night while sleeping.
I am planning camping, but cant get the idea of a rat walking over me while asleep.
Any experience of this, anyone

[Truckosaurus]

Modern tents should zip-up tight enough to keep out all mammals. You might get a spider or two inside but that's a whole different phobia...

[anonymous-user]

It's the big bears you need to look out for!

[Mr Gearchange]

Whilst fishing I once woke up with a rat the size of a Yorkshire terrier sat on my chest whist I was zipped up in the bag.

Obviously I went bat-st and threw if off - but my tent was a dome type that zipped up from the bottom so although the door was mainly open the first 18" or so were zipped up.

I suspect that the rat just jumped in - but in the panic he couldn't get out again. So I was trapped in a tent, with a fking massive rat, in the dark. I was screaming - the rat was screeching - when cornered they go for your throat you know and their teeth can chew through concrete.

In the end I killed it with a metal pole - but it wasn't a clean dispatch and I had to hose rat guts out of my sewn in groundsheet.

I'm sure that none of this will happen to you though. Sleep well

[GAjon]

Mr Gearchange said:

Whilst fishing I once woke up with a rat the size of a Yorkshire terrier sat on my chest whist I was zipped up in the bag.

Obviously I went bat-st and threw if off - but my tent was a dome type that zipped up from the bottom so although the door was mainly open the first 18" or so were zipped up.

I suspect that the rat just jumped in - but in the panic he couldn't get out again. So I was trapped in a tent, with a fking massive rat, in the dark. I was screaming - the rat was screeching - when cornered they go for your throat you know and their teeth can chew through concrete.

In the end I killed it with a metal pole - but it wasn't a clean dispatch and I had to hose rat guts out of my sewn in groundsheet.

I'm sure that none of this will happen to you though. Sleep well

Have you ever considered working for the samaritans?

[LordHaveMurci]

GAjon said:

Have you ever considered working for the samaritans?

[zoom star]

Mr Gearchange said:

Whilst fishing I once woke up with a rat the size of a Yorkshire terrier sat on my chest whist I was zipped up in the bag.

Obviously I went bat-st and threw if off - but my tent was a dome type that zipped up from the bottom so although the door was mainly open the first 18" or so were zipped up.

I suspect that the rat just jumped in - but in the panic he couldn't get out again. So I was trapped in a tent, with a fking massive rat, in the dark. I was screaming - the rat was screeching - when cornered they go for your throat you know and their teeth can chew through concrete.

Ho st, this is what I was afraid of.
I forgot to say, fishing bivvy is what I am sleeping in, fishing, rather than camping, and a rat on my chest is not on..
I used to fish, with my camper parked by my fishing peg,luxury I know, but now I only have a LC now,and did not plan on sleeping in that.
Smashing a rat to pulp would not be an issue,being in the same area as a rat would..

In the end I killed it with a metal pole - but it wasn't a clean dispatch and I had to hose rat guts out of my sewn in groundsheet.

I'm sure that none of this will happen to you though. Sleep well

[The Tea Boy]

LordHaveMurci said:

GAjon said:

Have you ever considered working for the samaritans?

Have another

[Rosscow]

[Lotus Notes]

We saw vipers in a campsite on the Côte d'Azur - Quite rare I hear.
The tent was double / triple checked before leaving it and then again on return..

Viper bites lead to a hundred or so hospitalisations per year in France. Should be nothing to worry about then

[stuartmmcfc]

Where are you thinking of going?


I've heard some very scary stories about campers in that area.

[Dog Star]

Jesus! Nothing to compare to Mr Gearchange.

What I have had is....

- woke up to a slug slurping across my face
- camping out in the back garden when I was a kid my cat shat on my head

[Ilovejapcrap]

You talk of animals but what happens if some nut case blokes decided to pop in whilst your asleep

[Mr Gearchange]

GAjon said:

Have you ever considered working for the samaritans?

I'm too sensitive

[Pit Pony]

After being served a particularly dangerous meal whilst camping with my parents, (They in caravan) me and the wife went off hungry and got some chips and pie. We left the wrappers in between outside and inner tents. Woken at 3am by a Hedgehog. Once we knew what it was, we left him to it.

The worst was camping at Santa Pod, where at 4 am the Welsh tt like Chavs in a tent nearby started playing football, which started bashing our tent. I'd rather fight with a bear, than politely ask a drunken welsh tt to shut the fk up, but eventually I snapped, and had a rant at them. They seemed genuinely not to care. But did stop. I think I saw one later staggering back from the toilets covered in his own wee. (By the way my parents and sister live in wales and speak welsh fluently, so that makes me half welsh doesn't it?)

The Hedgehog was welsh too.

[zoom star]

AS am I
Although the part about welsh chavs playing football..
That cannot be true, I thought we could not play football,singing,now if you said they kept you awake singing, I could believe that..
As to camping,here in Wales, it sounds dangerous, there has to be rats around a fishing lake.
I will have to sleep in the LC

[Mr Gearchange]

zoom star said:

Ho st, this is what I was afraid of.
I forgot to say, fishing bivvy is what I am sleeping in, fishing, rather than camping, and a rat on my chest is not on..
I used to fish, with my camper parked by my fishing peg,luxury I know, but now I only have a LC now,and did not plan on sleeping in that.
Smashing a rat to pulp would not be an issue,being in the same area as a rat would..

It was pretty horrible - I was also on a bedchair so a good 12" off the floor.
Commercial fisheries have loads of rats due to the amount off food/bait that gets left lying around and the resident rats/mice are pretty bolshy in terms of proximity to humans.

I take a couple of big rat traps if I am fishing where they are prevalent.
Also I've had the bds eat through Cordura holdalls to get to what's inside - and a during a trip in the summer I had one chew a fking great hole through my waders - that I only found out about when they started filling up with lake!

[Johnniem]

1985. Cote D'Azur, south of France. Campsite to the back of Cavaliere. Two person tent. Woken up in the morning (too early) by grunting; and it wasnt anywhere near toilets or adjacent tentery. Turns out it was a small but worthy band of Sangrier (wild boar to thee and me) who had decided to wander into the campsite and snuffle around for goodies.

I tentatively made my way out of the tent and took off to the reception desk to report it (Sangrier can be dangerous if troubled too much). Shortly thereafter there were many men with shotguns looking for their supper. I would have thought that this was, in fact, more dangerous than sangrier wandering around pushing their noses into peoples rubbish bags!

I doubt that this would happen in blighty.

[DeuxCentCinq]

A few years ago I was camping around the Zambia/Malawi border with some mates. Early evening a herd of Elephants came around and stole a massive bag of trail mix from my tent. It was zipped but with a tiny gap that one of them got their trunk in.
Later that night a hippo tripped over the guy ropes between two of the tents, nearly killing my mate and ripping my tent out of the ground. Then when we packed up the next morning a warthog decided he wanted to lick our dirty mess tins clean for us.
Other than that, just ants. Lots and lots of ants.

[madbadger]

I was camping in the Masai Mara and we had a lion come wandering around our campsite. The thing is - there were no rats in the campsite at all, so my recommendation if you are worried about rats is to hire a lion for the evening.