Mumsnet Talk

MoreBeta, how did you catch them in your cage trap? Where did you put the cage trap? We have had a cage trap out for 2 weeks now, mainly because we are not sure if the "visitor" is a rat or squirrel and it is apparently illegal to poison a squirrel, according to the helpful man from the Council, but we have not caught anything and I am getting desperate.

The only way to be sure is get a cage trap and bait with meat. If the rat is about it will come for the meat and be caught in the trap. I then humanely kill them once they are in the cage trap.

I sleep fine at night btw...

Of course invite them in! In fact.. Lets allow them in restaurants..why shouldn't they be allowed? Rats need to dine too..
Ridiculous! They are vermin!

Poison is disgusting you should be ashamed of yourself. You people need to realise rats have feelings. How can you actually live knowing that something is in unimaginable pain for 2 or more days???? You women need to sort your heads out.

Lol - reckon we must have the rogue fly by night ones too. You'd think they'd learn wouldn't you?
Oh well, at least we don't seem to have the bold-as-brass-skipping-round-the-garden ones any more...

Council pest control told me it took about 8 days for the rats to die - haven't seen a dead one yet, though. We have a similar problem (guinea pigs and all) and did have rats under the shed. Then the rats stopped taking the poison but my neighbour kept seeing them in her garden. The poison was taken last week, but then not again, so we may just have rogue 'fly-by-night' rats slipping in from the back alley for a quick poison snack!

Oh dear, really feel for you. Suspect our recurring rat problem is neighbour's guinea pig and compost heap plus lots of streams running through village.

Back garden is only place to park so I have to make lots of noise when approaching the house in the hope that they'll run away [wimp emoticon]. DH doesn't believe they exist as he's never seen them.

We have guinea pigs in the passageway to the courtyard, which I'm sure is part of the problem, as however much we clean up after them, they always kick a bit of food out of their hutches. So I have to go out to feed them (am making DH clean them out atm though!)

If there is only one rat, he's eaten a ton of poison and still not died

Have exactly the same problem and am about to put poison down (now that council charge a fortune for it).

Don't they go off somewhere to die? Not sure how much they need to eat before it kills them.

Have same worry about back door - also not enjoying sitting in the garden at the moment!

Or is that a 'how long is a piece of string' question?

First saw Ratty in the courtyard at the back of our house a month ago. It was completely my fault - put some old scones out for the birds and it attracted some blackbird fledglings, so kept doing it - might has well have put up a big ' Cream Teas For Rats' sign . Put out poison in three different places along the route where he/them seemed to be running. When we had them before (two years ago) I'm sure this worked in about two weeks, but although two bowls are now remaining untouched, one bowl still has a few pellets taken from it every other night or so. I saw Rat every day for four days after we put the poison down, but haven't seen any signs since then.

I guess this just means there are lots of them [yuk] There's nothing else that could be eating it, is there?

Oh and another question - if I keep the kitchen door open during the day, how likely
are they to come in? I've been keeping it firmly shut up to now, but am sweltering!