pack rat

pack rat

A person who collects and hoards worthless items. Primarily heard in US. My old roommate was such a pack rat that, after six months, I could barely walk through the living room without tripping over his collection of junk.
See also: pack, rat
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • rattlebones
  • rattle-bones
  • (as) useful as tits on a bull
  • (as) worthless as tits on a boar (hog)
  • bastardly gullion
  • skivvies
  • lonesome
  • mind-bender
  • mind-blower
  • undies
References in periodicals archive
With a twitch of his whiskers, Pack Rat left the yo-yo and began rolling the roller skate up the hill to his house.
Pack rat's treasures
Yes, 2008 is sure to be the year of the pack rat. Now it's up to companies like us to make sure it's also the year of the storage vendor.
2008: the year of the storage vendor
Animal pack rats, I learned after doing some research, store an ever-expanding collection of artifacts and ecofacts in their nests, known as middens, or refuse heaps.
Phase two: if it's useless, get rid of it: make your laboratory valuable now, not thousands of years from now as part of some archaeological dig
"A friend of mine lost his glasses to a pack rat," says Kenneth Cole of the U.S.
Pack rat piles: rodent rubbish provides ice age thermometer
Also, researchers constantly struggle with a clear reference, but in certain regions they have been able to develop a historical range of variability, as Botkin suggested, from photos, written records, preserved areas, fire scars, pack rat middens, lake bed pollen, and other sources.
Restoring the forest: putting the woods back the way it was is expensive and the species are ever-changing. In many cases, though, it's worth it. Read on
I'm a pack rat, I can't resist this stuff; besides, it's too unwieldy to pack all those steaks and bagels from the focus group dinners and breakfasts.
Kelly's random acts of kindness cart. (editor's desk)
The influence of two burrowing rodents, Dipodomys spectabilis spectabilis (kangaroo rat) and Neotoma albigula albigula (pack rat) on desert soils in Arizona.
MAMMAL MOUNDS STIMULATE MICROBIAL ACTIVITY IN A SEMIARID SHRUBLAND
Regularly scheduled are Nat Hentoff's "Getting It Right" the first week of each month, Allan Wolper's "Ethics Corner" the second week, and Alicia Mundy's "Pack Rat" the third week.
Changes: 'At Thirty'
One imagines Frost's art emerging from a pack rat's studio piled high with rotting treasures from vacant lots and abandoned buildings: rusting lockers and cubbyhole cabinets (the latter, filled with old-fashioned curvy Coke bottles, is a key component of E.O.
PHIL FROST
Defining Characteristics: The pack rat can't throw anything away.
Planning for When Your IDN Technologies Disintegrate
How much creativity is lost in such natural preferences, but how cluttered my life becomes when I indulge my inclination to be a "pack rat" who saves every scrap.
Walking around the Buddha
She has published three books, Pack Rat (Reference West, 1992), fire water (Ekstasis, 1994), and The Uncertainty Factor/As a Rock (Tears in the Fence, 1995).
Don't turn your back on the ocean
Does the inbox on your desk look like a pack rat's nest?
Get things in order: organize the clutter on your desk
Perry Pack Rat arrived with a huge ball of twine, an umbrella, a fishbowl, a bagful of rocks, a bent bicycle wheel, and his big wooden box.
Boat trip
* Avoid coming into contact with rodentsand rodent burrowsot disturbing dens (such as pack rat nests).
The hantavirus: will it come to camp?