Just saw a RAT- help!

[Jenkeywoo]

I feel physically sick - just saw Mr Rat helping himself to a crust that DD throws in the garden for the birds (I know I'm a fool but have only ever seen birds eating them). I quickly removed all food but it kept reappearing bold as brass - about 6ft from open patio doors! DD shouted 'look mummy a mouse' so no doubt neighbours will have heard - thank god she doesn't know the word for rat... the worst thing is that it seemed to be coming from/heading to the hedgehog house we have - We lifted the lid a while back and something has obviously been living there but could be a rat family? I'm so scared they will come into the house now as we like to have the door open in this hot weather - rest assured it is closed now.

[southeastastra]

get some poison, they do rat and mouse killer everywhere now. ew we have a mouse but it's tiny.

[thefuturesbright]

Rats love cooked human food. Feed your birds bird seed from a feeder; if you want to give them bread hang it from something, a hook on a tree or a flat based feeder.

you will have to poison the rats, and yes they could well be living in your hedgehog house. if the hedgehog house is not full of baby hedgehogs then move it so the rats can't squat there.

[Quattrocento]

Gosh - I saw a rat last week - rather worryingly it was outside my supermarket

[Jenkeywoo]

Thanks I'm going to contact the council pest control on Monday, DH thinks I'm over-reacting but it is so close to the back door and the kitchen table is right by the door complete with floor covered in various bits of food my two lo's have chucked on the floor at various times of the day. I just can't risk rats in the house. I've told dd no more feeding the birdies her crusts as well., I'm trying to convince dh to move the hedgehog house but I think he's a bit freaked so might have to get my brave mum to do it as she is not scared of anything. I keep getting involuntary shudders just thinking about his fat tail..!

[flibbertyjibbet]

I saw a documentary last week with Kim and Aggie (how clean is your house) doing a special on vermin in a london borough. I am sure it mentioned in the programme that ANY rats MUST be reported to your local pest control. So you are not over-reacting.
We on the other hand recently had mice in our kitchen, lol at dp coming home with tons of traps and went round each night setting them after the kids had gone to bed. Worked though - we only saw one little mouse and the traps caught eight (ugh!!!!) so if you see one rat I bet all their friends and relatives are not far away.....
In fact you might not need to wait till Monday, see if there's an out of hours number?

[SofiaAmes]

We had a rat infestation. Council were happy to send rat catchers out .....for a fee!!!!!!! All they did was put poison out. Could have done it myself and would have put in a little more safely so my toddler coudn't get at it. Dh also trapped and killed at least 8 (in the house).

You must definitely get rid of them right away before they breed into even more and move into your house for the winter.

[Nbg]

You are deffo not over reacting!

We had one earlier this year which had made its way into our house via a small hole next to the outside water tap pipe. It was living in a recess behind a false wall where we have a wide windowsill.
I heard it scurrying about one night and chewing the wood. Called out some pest control company because it was so late and I was worried about it coming into the living area of the house and they charged us £60.
Luckily the shelf of the windowsill lifts off and when they looked inside the bloody rat had made itself a bed in there with bin liners and all sorts!
Poison was put down that night but in the early hours I had a really weird noise.
When I came downstairs to get ds a bottle, my kitchen was flooded.
Apparently the poison makes them very very thirsty and they search for water. The thing had chewed through the plaster board into the kitchen and chewed through the water pipe on my new dishwasher!

So needless to say when we found it dead, I was elated

I was told in the end by enviromental health not to feed the birds anymore, even bird feed and that they dont eat raw food but cooked as thefuturesbright has said.
Also your hedgehog house will be a lovely home for it.

I was really disappointed that we had to stop feeding the birds as we'd started to get some lovely ones but weird as since I have taken up the bird feed, one of my trees has become infested with caterpillars so the birds are still coming

Sorry for the ramble lol.