In short, no!! Rats themselves should not be "Stinky."

Do you know what's always stinky? You guessed it!  

Urine  &  feces  are  what  stinks!

Both genders of rats have a smell about them that reminds me specifically of alfalfa hay. I would say the males also have an equal amount of a cornchip-y, popcorn-y, buttery-ish scent to them. Females tend to smell more like a clean alfalfa smell. Some people compare the smell of the does to flowers or grape soda, though I would not say that I agree! I think they maybe just haven't smelled alfalfa!

When you have rats, the room they live in will, in fact, smell like there are rats living in it. This does not mean that they are dirty or that you are cleaning poorly. Now, HANG WITH US HERE, even though this is a lot of words!

Think of when you walk into a clean and well kept home. You can smell the ''home smell'' which is the smell of the people who live there, and maybe what they cook, or cigarette smoke, or the smell of motor oil from the family mechanic. Even in the most immaculately clean home, you can always smell when a dog or a cat lives there, too. It doesn't mean that your house is dirty, or that your pet is dirty. Our pets become part of our "home smell," just like the human people in our household contribute to the smell - because they are part of our home.

Some people will think that your house "stinks," no matter what you do if you keep certain animals. Sometimes, you'll get an exotic only to find that you hate the natural smell it has. Some people are more sensitive to certain smells, and the smell of rodents is distinct, just like the smell of a cat is distinct from a dog. The same phenomenon happens to people who keep reptiles, amphibians, and aquatics. It doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. In a typical home, these smells are not commonly found unless some problem has arisen. This means that our bodies have learned that those smells give us the information that we need to clean, repair, or de-pest our homes. Because of this, when someone is not accustomed to the smell of any exotic pets you may keep, they may feel like your home smells "dirty" because of the sensory association with those smells and an issue that needs to be fixed or cleaned.

Some people just "do not like that smell."

Some hate the smell of a turtle tank. Others hate the smell of a dog. Some people hate the smell of hay, or mint, or coffee; all kinds of things. Some people hate the smell of rodents, even if they don't know that the 'smell they don't like' is rats. Those people usually describe the smell as 'hay.'

If this is not your first exotic pet, you are probably used to people asking you how you get your pet, "not to stink." In truth, all pets have the propensity to smell bad- if they're not clean or cared for properly. Dogs need baths. LOTS of reptiles have their own bitter-ish musky scent. Turtle tanks tend to smell fishy and stagnant. Amphibians often have a 'boggy,' earthy, decaying dirt-smell to their enclosures, and so on. Exotics tend to have uncommon smells your home wouldn't typically harbor. It can be the enclosure or the animals themselves, which is not what the inside of most people's house is supposed to smell like!