If you had rats in your house

[NinNinJin]

Sorry for the disgusting topic.
This morning I noticed that half of my bananas were eaten and also a potato had been nibbled on and I suspect a sweet potato has gone missing. I’m terrified of the idea of the size of the creature that attended to my veg/fruit corner. It must have been a v v hungry beast.
We have had mice in the past. So I don't mind them too much, a mouse trap usually sorts the problem in one go.
THIS is a different league! No way would a mouse be able to move a huge heavy potato into the other corner of the kitchen.
And what puzzles me is that there are zero droppings. Literally zero.

Do you think a rat is smart enough to move things? Munch on that about of food and yet not do a single poo🙄 and also take a sweet potato with them?

I have the rat man on speed dial. They get in our loft and after 30 years we've never managed to find out how. Very expensive rat proofing everywhere and they still get in once or twice a year. I now have camera in the lift that alert me of any activity. After 6 months of peace one set it off at 4am this morning.
Do you have anything like a blink camera or doorbell you could use to see where they come from?

Yes its real, that is me sleeping on a recliner. I blurred out my face. I only checked the camera as I thought it could be the dog climbing on me but it felt to light. It went right near my face. I didn't sleep much unsurprisingly after that! Spent most of the night trying to find it

We had one two weeks ago. We've had mice before and they have gone, but I saw some huge droppings on top of our fridge which were absolutely not mice droppings. A few days prior one of the kids saw one on the deck outside which I assume were attracted by the bird seed they (used to) put out. Then I noticed the back door had been left open a few inches overnight and found a few droppings by the door.
Glue traps are absolutely the best thing here- I put one outside the back door and caught it overnight. Thankfully there was just the one, we live backed on to a forest and close to a few streams so they are obviously around, but having one wander in the house was fairly horrible. I'm just happy I didn't see it.

@Nippi The rodenticide wax blocks from Screwfix were very good at getting rid of mice in the loft last year. They gobbed them up in no time. Never found out where they went to die though.

You can also get a bag of bait blocks and a couple of sturdy bait boxes (the bigger ones for rats) for about £20 off Amazon.

We had them in our previous house. We lived in an Edwardian semi and it appeared that they were getting into the house joined on via a broken air brick on the side of their house. We checked all around our house and there was no way they could get in, we’d completely renovated and everything was secure but the elderly couple next door had let their house go a bit and they had problems before we did, they heard them scurrying around behind the kick boards in the kitchen and saw them in the hall too.

Being an old house there was a gap underneath the floorboards and they must’ve squeezed through the party wall foundations below there and got through to our house. We ‘only’ had them in the understairs cupboard, they managed to chew their way into it, but that was enough. I opened it one day to get the hoover and saw a rat staring back at me. There was a lot of screaming and swearing (from me obviously).

We had pest control out several times and it’d solve the problem for us in the short term but because they neighbours weren’t doing anything about it they kept coming back so it was an ongoing problem.

We moved, not just because of the rats but they were part of the reason.

We had an old, large detached property near a river, with cellars, and pest control never really eradicated the problem. The only thing that did deter them were our house cats (even the smell is a deterrent). In our smaller house we only had the mice appear when our cats had been in a cattery for a couple of weeks.

The pest control people used things like expanding foam, steel wool and traps, but they would still find a way in.

@MegaClutterSlut That photo is horrifying! I feel so bad for you!

I saw a juvenile looking rat nonchalantly walking past my door today, thankfully still outside. We have a humane trap, time to set it up again.

That's a shame. My retired grey is an excellent ratter. Perpetually lazy and dopey - until she sees a rat in the garden - then she turns into a ninja, killing machine 😳

Sadly the DIY method has worked for mice but not rats. They wouldn't touch the bait, or even if they ate it all it didn't kill them. Pest control have access to bait that's not available to the public and there is also a new one that doesn't kill secondary prey.
I find pest controllors are very enthusiastic and knowlegable about their subject.
Apparently rats leave some kind of scent trail that can be picked by other rats 5+ years later. It basically says come this way there is something good.

Ratty decided to help itself to nearly a whole loaf of bread the other night. Took him 4 hours back and forth, bless him 🙄

On the plus side after obsessively looking around for entry points, the little shit has chewed two holes in the floor boards. 1 in the front room where its most active, and one under the stairs. Have used expandable filler down the holes and filled them in.

No rat sightings last night for the first time! Although I'm sure it will chew its way out at some point when the bread runs out 😭 Thursday can't come quick enough!

Oh... that photo. I just don't even know what to say and I am not fearful of creatures normally. But it is just making my think of what else has run over me while I am asleep.

I have had a few Ratzillas, and I find they don't poop where the food is. They may pee but they poo and pee even more, closer to their nests. Which is just disgusting anyway....

I had one recently and had to put out poison as it was just being so destructive. Found it thankfully so I could dispose of it. But rats are changing and evolving. This thing was a monstrous size and I couldn't help but notice how glossy its fur was. (clearly it had been eating well). And it had some markings from it's head down. My ds found it with me and I was convinced it was some persons rodent pet that had got out. But when ds picked it up and we gave it good look at, it was most definitely a rat... but bloody huge and looking incredibly healthy, well apart from the fact that is was now dead...

I had one once that kept stealing Quality Streets. I was blaming the dc for taking my orange creams (they can have all the other ones, but the OC are mine) and they were quite adamant that they did not take them. A little while later I was looking for something and looked under my bed... to find Quality Street wrappers, and one was a half nibbled toffee. So the fker had been under my bed at night scoffing its finds... AND it had taken loads, there were plenty empty wrappers there. Cleary preferred chocolate over toffee.

Did I read somewhere that you can't buy mothballs in the UK now? As they are a great deterrent for shoving up in your roof. I have just recently played ping pong throwing them around randomly in my roof as this mega ratbloke did startle me a bit and we do not want the rest of his family here.

@Knittedfairies2 we had that too - capped it off - went away for a few days and came back to a kitchen full of enormous blue flies as the rat died somewhere in the piping system- yuck!!!!