Rats in the House

[Jacky Smith]

Does any of you have any experience with having a rat infestation at home? My best friend has a young child and had to move to stay with family last week after calling pest control out to deal with a rat problem. They put lots of trays of rat poison in the affected rooms and one of the trays was emptied (eaten) a couple of days later. None of the others have been touched. But the pest controller put some poison down a hole in the floorboards too. All has been quiet since then. Does it seem they might have died/disappeared? How long does it take to get rid of rats? The pest control will come back next week to check. Of course he knows all about keeping the trays away from the child, we are just curious why only 1 of about 12 or 13 have been eaten!

[ichitaka05]

Um... don't remember exactly what happened, but I remember one of my buddy had that problem 4~5yrs ago. These poison stuff do kill &/or make rats sick enough to make them avoid it. But later down, new one comes back. Worse part is AFTER part. All the dead rats plus their shit in the nest bring bugs and smell to it.

One shit to another shit got my buddy & fam go crazy. In the end, he pretty much bust every wall and floors. cleaned up the mess. It was pretty disgusting scene (so he claims). He wanted to remodel the house, wife didn't let him... but he had excuse. So it kinda worked out in his favor. lol

[humfrz]

Hi Jacky Smith -

Let's hope your friends rat(s) problem has "gone away".

It's possible that the rat(s) got a lethal dose of the rat poison and have gone off and died.

As long as your friend doesn't see any further evidence (rat droppings) of the presence of rats and the pest control person has re-inspected, I would be comfortable the the infestation has gone away.

Be sure to suggest to your friend gets rid of all the poison traps that the child could get into.

As a test to see if all the rats are gone, your friend may wish to put out a baited , old fashioned "rat trap" out to draw out any rats that have stayed behind.

[soundman98]

most importantly, your friend needs to figure out what attracted the rats to the house, AND how they were getting in.

animals don't just happen to exist in a properly sealed, and clean house.

[Captain Snooze]

Originally Posted by soundman98

animals don't just happen to exist in a properly sealed, and clean house.

Mmmm, I'm not sure about that.
Yeah, I know these are mice but maybe the mice invited their larger siblings along.


Worst mouse plague in decade hits parts of Australia

[JD001]

I think that this lot found a solution..

[thomasmryan]

seal the perimeter of you home. everything. if you have holes in the yard, stuff them with wadded up metal gutter guard.



my method is one baited trap circled with 5 traps. 100% kill rate with this method using victor old school traps.



my ex roommate has a bloodthirsty outdoor cat living for a purpose. Manx cats will bring you their kills as an offering including birds.

[Sapphireho]

I hear they have some pretty big rats in Australia.

[JD001]

Originally Posted by Sapphireho

I hear they have some pretty big rats in Australia.

And then they give them pet names like "Skippy"..

[humfrz]

All this rat infestation talk brings to mind a back-in-the-day story about when I was managing a 130 acre agricultural research station in California.

Some critters were eating some of the yields in our experimental plots, thus messing up the yield data. I instructed my lead technician to determine what it was and get rid of the problem.

The next day, Frank, my lead technician, brought a 20 gauge shotgun to work and headed out to the back 40 with it. I ask him what he was going to do with that shotgun on our research station, he said that the "rats" were eating in plots and he was going hunting.

Although I thought that was overkill, I said go ahead. The next day, Frank brought up some of his kill. DAMN, I never saw "rats" of that size -

(actually what Frank was hunting were rodents called a nutria)

THE END

[Jeremiah Snowden]

Originally Posted by thomasmryan

seal the perimeter of you home. everything. if you have holes in the yard, stuff them with wadded up metal gutter guard.



my method is one baited trap circled with 5 traps. 100% kill rate with this method using victor old school traps.



my ex roommate has a bloodthirsty outdoor cat living for a purpose. Manx cats will bring you their kills as an offering including birds.

Not sure that sealing will work as there will always be some tiny holes left through which rats can easily get to the house. As for traps I would like to avoid killing them. Just pity them Better use something more effective and more humane. Like this https://everpest.com/ for example.

[OsageJJ]

I tend not to like putting poison down where other animals (i.e., pets) can be exposed to it, so I found some plans for a bucket mouse trap when I had a similar rodent issue in a house I lived in years ago. This bucket mouse trap can be either kill or no-kill, and it can be assembled pretty cheaply. Here's the link to the instructions (I used a discarded soup can for the roller part of the trap, instead of PVC parts you'll see in these instructions): https://www.instructables.com/Bucket...ll-or-no-kill/

[bcj]

Discovered a raccoon living under the front door stairs.
Don't think the bucket trap will work for those.

Going to look up where I can get some of that Cabin Masters lobster screen to fill the holes.
Out here it's used for shrimp and crab traps.

"Slather yourself in butter and carry a lemon! He's vengeful!"

[Sapphireho]

Rats were always a problem in San Jose. What attracted them most was people leaving out bowls of pet food. That and gardens. I always planted extra tomatoes each year because the bottom ones would get eaten by rats. I've never seen one in the house, but they love the attic and crawl space. Like us, they like food and drink. Make sure you don't have any leaky pipes under your house. Remove any food sources. Poison is good. Make sure all vents in crawl space and on roof are covered. Norway rats are quite adaptive and will forever live in the shadows of man.