Animal
The rats
The hotel's smallest, most persistent guests
Wherever food is kept near the sea, rats turn up. Keep the pantry covered and the cat busy.
About The rats
Rats aren't part of duppy folklore at all — they're just rats, the same kind that have always turned up wherever food is kept near the sea. Real Jamaican great houses, hotels and country shops have dealt with them for centuries, usually with a cat, sealed-up holes, and rice, flour and salt kept in covered tins. There's no old tale of a "rat duppy" here; the trouble is a practical one, not a supernatural one. So this page is a deliberate break from the rest of the book — the ordinary, everyday pest problem before the real ghosts turn up on Night 2.
