Rats in Voodoo?

Just wondering if anyone out there had heard anything about or knows anything about using rats in spells; most likely a voodoo spell. We found a rat underneath a carpet in New Orleans. It was directly in the center of a doorway, obviously dead and squished after many years of people walking on top of it. We were trying to figure out 1)How the rat got there 2)Why no one noticed a large rat under the carpet in a doorway and 3)If perhaps this was some sort of Voodoo ritual for luck or not so much luck. Just uming some kind of Voodoo connection because it is New Orleans. Might just be a dead rat in a doorway in New Orleans...in that case its not so interesting. What is interesting is that the homeowner wanted to keep the imprint that the dead rat left in the wood floor there and instructed us to sand around the area to preserve the rodent indent.