# Living in a Studio Apartment and Owning Rats?



## Daniphobia (Dec 4, 2011)

So, I'm moving into a studio apartment with my fiance next weekend. It's _tiny_! Literally the size of a hotel room. I have a huge rat cage (it was custom made for a friend and she gave it to me after her rats passed away) for my two rats but it's *WAY* too big to even fit in the apartment.... ****, I even had to remove the doors of the cage to even fit it in my house, and it wouldn't fit in the hallway to get it in my room so the rats stayed in the living room haha! Point being, they'll need to be in a smaller cage after I move. I hate to sacrifice their space but they get plenty of free roam time every day either way. I have a small cage (I think it's 3' x 1.5', so pretty small) I'll be keeping them in until I see how much extra space we'll really have in the apartment -- then I'll decide from there if I can buy a larger rat cage or small ferret cage. 

So here's are my questions...

How do you manage rats in such a small apartment? What are some safe ways to reduce odor? (I only ask this because, although I change the cage out weekly, there is still that male rat "smell". It doesn't bother me but my fiance is very sensitive to smells and I don't want him to complain about it LOL ) And what type of cage should I get if I have enough space for something bigger? If anyone can think of any multilevel cages that have more height than width, that would work out well seeing as how it would be taking up relatively the same amount of square feet in the apartment as the one-level cage I have now.


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## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

I’ve kept rats in small student flats in the past, it can be a challenge. In terms of picking a cage do you have an idea of the dimensions of the room and what furniture you have to fit into it. That could give you an idea of the floor space you could fit a cage in. It may be that you could make or buy one that would suit fairly easily. In the UK we have a couple of ok cage that is tall rather than wide which may be available over there, the ones that spring to mind are the maricharo Sara C3 (about 24inch x 24 inch base and nice and tall, am not that good at imperial units) and a speedy chinchilla or mini brio which are a little wider but similar. If you can manage a bigger base though it is worth it, I personally find that a good balance between floor space and height is to go for a cage that is 50x80cm base (20”x32”), that gives a reasonable amount of room and seems to be a common size for cage bases over here, which means you can look out for 2 second hand cages and make a tower out of them. One of my fave cages for bucks was a maricharo Tommy T3 (80cm version, they do a 100cm one too) the bar spacing was a bit wide for does or tiny babies but it had brill access and gave them loads of climbing room. Here’s a couple of pictures of it with only 2 of the section in (there was a third smaller section that would have made it taller), it was a spacious home for 4 bucks, I am sure there is a US design cage that is similar I have seen around




















In terms of reducing the smell, you’re never going to get rid entirely unfortunately however I have a fussy husband and the following have helped me quite well;
*get rid of any solid shelves, replace these with cat litter trays with a bit of litter in them, this means they no longer wee on the shelves
*look out for an air purifier (like a fresh air globe), these really help get smell and muck out of the air and add some essential oils and they smell nice too
*ionisers can help too, they get rid of some of the small particles floating around
*Use a good absorbent bedding, the best I’ve found is hemp (though this is messy when kicked out) or paper cat litter, aspen is pretty similar to hemp so probably comparable.
*Have a cage with more space than the number of rats in it (so I have a cage that could fit 12 comfortably with 4 – 6 in it)
*don’t clean out too often, no more than once a week, though you can get rid of icky bits in-between
*don’t feed too much protein, keep the diet for adult males around 12-14% protein, extra protein means smellier rats (if you’ve ever smelt baby rats on a high protein diet you will know what I mean), as does feeding a lot more veg than normal.
*try and clean the bars of the cage regularly, especially where they join, these hold smells easily. Coated bars are far better than just galvanised, in fact if you have bars that aren’t painted/coated try painting them with a child safe paint/enamel (plasticote and japlac are good brands in the uk).
*Catches, absorbant toys, hammock clips etc are also prone to getting smelly, let these soak in warm soapy water regularly if you can, this will help keep them smell free.


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## Egween (Jul 9, 2012)

Another thing that has really helped me with the smell is to leave a small cup of white vinegar near/on top of the cage. It will absorb much of the annoying smell for you! I use eco bedding and have no problem with the litter boxes smelling. I have a DFN suitable for up to 12 rats and have only 3. I think this is part of the reason my boys' cage doesn't smell. When I clean the cage out, I will leave a hammock and the litter boxes in there for a few days before I change those too. That way something will still smell like the rats and my boys don't feel the need to mark as ferociously. I have also just changed one shelf liner every few days instead of swapping it all out at once. With my boys, these tricks work great and my boyfriend who sits at the desk right next to the rat cage never complains about the smell. 
I have heard that you can also put a drop or two of apple cider vinegar in their water to cut down on the urine smell. 
When you wash whatever fabrics you have use a cup or so of white vinegar in the last rinse cycle. It will come out completely void of smell and it is not harmful to the rats. I clean the shelves and bars with either soap or just white vinegar when I swap everything out. Their pee can be absorbed by cheap plastic, so if you get a cage such as the 2'x2' Superpet cage make sure to line the shelves. That cage also has a plastic base which my boy chewed through in a night, so be wary of getting a cage with a plastic base if you have chewers! 
Good luck!


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