My second rat, Gretel, got a lot bigger once I got her. I suppose once you no longer have to live life in fear of being devoured and digested alive, you can direct your attention to things like eating and enjoying life. I no longer felt like my cage was big enough to house my two rats. I thought about buying a second story to add on to their cage, which was basically a wire mesh cage that sort of fit on top of the aquarium, but after I realized that it would cost me $50, I figured it would be cheaper to just build my own rat cage.
On the way back from Home Depot, I swung by my usual dumpster diving spot - which I will keep secret, so that nobody else will steal my great bargains, as I refer to them, or garbage, as my roommate does. I found a big shelf in a cardboard box, which I took with me. The old shelf in our garage was a wobbly piece of shit, which I eventually decided to throw away after it tipped over on me. I didn't know it at the time, but not only would the newly found shelf be even more of a piece of shit than the old one, it would actually turn into a home for my rats.
After gathering the tools that I'd need from the neighbor's garage, I headed down to try and assemble the bookshelf into it's intended form. It soon became pretty obvious why it was in the dumpster - it was missing an entire half!
It quickly dawned on me - I could turn the useless bookshelf into a rat cage by liberally applying the electric saw and hammer to what parts I still had. If I cut the long part of the shelf that I still had in half, I'd have a shelf that was only half as tall - which would be perfect for my rats! Thinking back to the grotto, I realized that if people who are directly descended from British convicts can put together a rat cage, a Russian mastermind like myself could do it, too.
After a few tries, I finally managed to get the damn thing to stand level, and started to figure out how the shelves would fit. I needed at least one tall shelf to fit their wheel on. The rest could be shorter, since they generally run around on all fours.
I did, however, run into a problem. The shelf sort of tends to tip over to the left without anything supporting it. The little bar they gave me didn't really do enough - the shelf would still tilt dangerously, and I didn't want my rats to get squished.
I finally figured out that I could just use one of the shelves in its place. Since it was much taller, it would give the cage much more structural support, so in case terrorists tried to fly an airplane into my cage, it wouldn't turn my rats into jelly.
The top shelf was now much, much taller than the rest since I used some of the holes to screw the support shelf in place, but that's alright - as I said, they don't need as much vertical space. And if they feel crowded, I can just take one of the shelves out to rearrange the cage.
At this point, the cage is half complete. I still have to add something to the back to keep them from, you know, just running out the back. I also have to add a swinging door to the front with some sort of wire mesh that they can't chew through. I'm also going to saw trap doors through the shelves. Once those things are done, all I have to do is decorate the cage, and hope my rats won't chew their way out on the first night.