shithouse rat n.
1. used as a general negative image.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | GBH 74: ‘Of course Farlow’s stupd. But [...] even shithouse rats can see in the dark’. |
2. used in comparatives as a (usu. negative) measure.
In phrases
(US) extremely unstable; thus used attrib (see cite 2023).
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Stand (1990) 728: Boy, you sound as crazy as a rat in a shithouse. That’s OK. I like crazy people. | |
| (con. c.1967) Firefight 22: He’s crazy as a shit-eating rat. | |
| Another Day in Paradise 30: Alcohol [...] makes ya [...] act as crazy as a shithouse rat, crying one minute, killing people the next. | |
| Nature Girl 167: You’re as crazy as a shithouse rat. | |
| Swollen Red Sun 207: ‘He’s crazier than a shit-house rat. Hell, he put his own mom in the hospital’. | |
| Razorblade Tears 111: ‘You really are crazier than an outhouse rat, ain’t ya?’. | |
| Back to the Dirt 175: ‘You done went shithouse rat loco on this wannabe kingpin’. |
(orig. Aus.) very cunning; sometimes euph. as …lavatory rat.
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Truth (Sydney) 12 May 5/4: In concocting a deliberate crime, she was [...] as a cunning as a sewer rat. | |
| [ | | Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Jan. 14/3: He’s my ruddy off-side leader, / And a skulking swine at that – / He’s as lazy as an M.L.C., / And as cunning as a rat]. |
| Capricornia (1939) 445: They’re as cunning as dunnikan rats. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | (con. 1940s) Borstal Boy 189: That fellow’s as cute as a shit-house rat. | |
| Delinquents 136: Mrs. Hansen called Lola [...] cunning as a shit-house rat. | |
| in Great Aus. Lover Stories 121: Cunning as a lavatory rat. | |
| Pushed from the Wings (1989) 66: Boss’ll have something up his sleeve. He’s as cunning as a shithouse rat. | |
| Chopper From The Inside 28: He is as mad as a hatter, as shifty as a shithouse rat, smart as a whip and as dangerous as a black snake on a dark night. | |
 | Aus. Phrasebk 33: As cunning as a dunny rat. | |
| (con. late 1950s) Amaze Your Friends (2019) 199: Max gave me his shithouse-rat smile. | |
| Guardian 5 Sept. 35/2: Specific to New Zealand (you don’t want to be a sexo or kid fucker in parrie Max, unless you’re cunning as a shithouse rat. | |
| Bug (Aus.) July 🌐 But, Bash, you gotta understand you don’t get to be boss cocky of any tinpot Aussie outpost dunny unless you are as cunning as a shithouse rat. | |
| letter to Guardian (NSW) at www.cpa.org.au 🌐 He shows signs of being as ‘cunning as a shithouse rat’. What a contribution he makes. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Bone People 211: Simon has the luck of a proverbial dunny rat. | |
| Bookshop on Jacaranda Street 368: I’ll lay a bet he's told you he’s dying of a broken heart. Told me the same bull and I fell for it big time. Our Jim’s as cunning as a dunny rat. | |
| Good Girl Stripped Bare 231: Our son — who’s as cunning as a rat with two tails. |
to look pleased with oneself, to sneer.
| Opal Country 152: ‘Yeah [...]’ she says, grinning like a shit-house rat, making sure he knows she doesn’t believe him. |
to have shifty, but acute eyes.
| DSUE (8th edn) 371: [...] since ca. 1910. |
(US) very fortunate.
| Pimp 86: Brother, you are as lucky as a shit-house rat. |
(Aus.) extremely unattractive.
| Rough Wallaby 211: He invented this character for her, where she was nine hundred years old, ugly as a rat’s ding. | |
| Lingo 78: There is also the crass but widely used shithouse, a term which has generated many useful and colourful combinations as ugly as a shithouse rat, built like a brick shithouse. |