We have [wild] rats in the house, help!

[ratsinhouse]

A week or so before Christmas some rats managed to get into our walls and occasionally in the attic. We set a live trap in the attic but have caught nothing. Knew that work was starting on our house soon so thought that as they were only in the walls and had no way into our actual house that we'd wait a fortnight and see if that drove them out.

Work started on our house last week and the builders found the massive entry that they'd been using to get in. Decided not to block it off as we didn't want to encourage them inside the actual house and we naively thought that the works happening around the house would drive them away as they dislike change. Instead they've now found a way into our makeshift kitchen and we've just spotted one of them after a left over sausage from dinner on the counter.

Now I'm going to need to spend time tomorrow calling out the pest controllers, but I'm not really sure of my options. I'm ethically averse to the sticky traps as they're fucking horrible frankly, also dislike poison which is out regardless due to young kids and a dog.

So that leaves live traps and snap traps? Anything else available? From what I've read, live traps are a death sentence anyway as releasing them into unknown areas leaves them very vulnerable. Snap traps would mean dealing with dead rats which is not ideal but obviously if needs must. Or do the pest controllers do that bit of it?

Do we block the entrance before or after vacating them? How the hell do we get them out of the house if our works are driving them in? The dog has not phased them at all either!

Get someone in. They have poison and traps you can't buy in the shops. Our were gone within the week. Worth every penny.
They breed every 28 days so get onto it now.

I agree with PP, look at getting it sorted ASAP. We were in a similar position rats got ingress when we had building work done, we tried all sorts to get rid of them but finally had to resort to getting the pest control guys in. They put bait in the eaves and inside the walls and the rats were gone within 10 days. I was reluctant to use bait due to our dogs and the potential knock on effects for wildlife but the bait was secure within the walls and the pest guy checked and ensured us that the rats were living in the house and didn't have a route out. It was super simple and I'm so glad that that stress is over!

Don't use sticky traps whatever you do. They are hellish and immoral. Poison will poison other animals and birds along the food chain. Snap traps are grim but better than most alternatives if you MUST use lethal methods.

Get hold of as much peppermint essential oil as you can (Amazon, etc.) and sprinkle it liberally all over, or on cloth/cotton that you tuck everywhere you think the animals are. Rats HATE peppermint and it will drive them away.

Be aware that pest management agencies are profit-motivated; they couldn't care less about using humane methods, the food chain, onward poisoning of cats and dogs, or any other consideration other than roping in a new client and making money off them. They also exaggerate and will tell you that you have dozens or hundreds of rats when there may only be a handful.

Rats do not like their areas disrupted so keep moving things around, applying the peppermint oil, etc. Trust me, it works.

See if you can get a person with ferrets & terriers in, might require a few visits depending on the numbers but it’s very effective.

we used poison (reluctantly) as it was more of a risk the rats started a house fire by eating through electrical wiring. Rats will tend to return to the nest to die rather than going somewhere where another animal (namely your dog) can find them. Only issue is then you have decaying rats in a nest somewhere possibly in your walls! Then the smell and flies come. But then after that you’re fine 😅good luck, it’s grim

Glue traps are more effective than snaps if you're willing to dispatch straight away, they can take a long time to get used to a snap trap. You should block ASAP or their scent trail will attract more rats in and they'll use the entrance as a run, it'd be like you seeing a nice paved street. If you'd like to stick with live traps, there are much better live traps than the typical ones you see, multi catch work alot better as rats will try to join the other rats vs live traps that will not reset once one is caught. They're very intelligent and if they see one caught in a live trap and taken away they might be unwilling to keep going inside.

Cruelty is never nice, but rats spread lots of nasty diseases and can chew through your electrical wires and cause house fires, their urine and feces are disgusting and may be worth a little cruelty to get ontop of once you have truly blocked off any entrances.

Just wanted to say don’t use peppermint if you have a dog, it can be dangerous for them!!

We had them in the garden so set up a bait station, inaccessibleto hedgehogs, cats and our usual birds. Snap traps.were useless but we got some of the poison thst makes them feel drowsy and go to their nests to sleep it off and thst seemed to do the job.

I agree that if their nest is in your house you might not want to do that, though.

I faffed about for ages with humane traps but they just didn't work and there was evidence of gnawing on electrical wiring. My friend had rats too and they got into bedrooms by gnawing through floorboards and ate clothes and bedding. It was horrifying. Just kill them and get them out of your house as soon as possible.

I live in a small island in Nz and local government is trying to eradicate rats to save the native birds. We have about 10 traps on our property. They have been trialling poison and snap traps and their experiment shows that snap traps are far more humane, deliver a quick clean kill and are significantly more effective than poison.
When we've had mice before the snap traps are super quick and effective. No blood or gore. I'm fairly squeamish but they are easy to release the kill into the bin and reload.

Google electric traps on Amazon, they give them a shock to kill them. Fair better than the other options out there in my opinion.

It is an offence to use a sticky glue trap.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/26/enacted#:~:text=1Offences%20relating%20to%20glue,glue%20trap%20commits%20an%20offence.

Either professionals or borrow some predator(s).

Bless, that you thought they might just clear off due to noise... they wouldn't be so successful if bothered by a bit of noise.

Get pest control in. They weren’t scared off by baby or noisy toddler or any of the suggested remedies (like peppermint, peanut butter). That was next door. Turns out she had lured them in and by the time she was gone landlord had 30k of work putting the house back into a liveable condition. They ca. eat through concrete to get in, nothing will stop them. Get rid asap before you end up with loads of them. It took a few weeks form me reporting to environ health to her house being condemned and her moving out (I to a brand new council house) and the builders found 19 dead rats by the time they’d got rid of them all and could start work. Small house, 2 up 2 down terrace. I still have trauma from worrying they would come through my walls.

@LaurieStrode
Be aware that pest management agencies are profit-motivated; they couldn't care less about using humane methods, the food chain, onward poisoning of cats and dogs, or any other consideration other than roping in a new client and making money off them. They also exaggerate and will tell you that you have dozens or hundreds of rats when there may only be a handful

This may be true for some but it certainly isn't true for all pest controllers.

Thanks all! I'll be getting professionals in ASAP regardless, just wasn't sure about options and wanted to have a better idea before they arrived. We are not equipped to try to manage this ourselves in a partial building site with two youngish and overly curious SEN kids and a stupid floof of a medium-large dog who has been hiding behind me and my husband all evening because she's scared of the rat in the kitchen 😂

RE noise scaring them away, the thought process there was less the noise and more disturbance of the environment as every space in the house is being renovated over the next few months. But yeah, naive. Should know better, have kept them as pets in the past.

Peppermint is a old wives tale, does sod all to repel rats, we tried it to stop ours eating through our PC power cable 🙄Many other owners had tried it for things like that too.

I categorically would not use sticky traps, as I said, fucking horrible, I couldn't do that to any creature. I'd rather not kill them at all but I'm not naive enough to think that relocating them to another town will mean that they survive. And it'll take ages, and they've already been here for a couple of weeks and they still haven't gone into the trap.

I'm very aware of the damage that they can cause and risk of disease, hence the concern that they're in the actual living areas. We've had mice previously and thought we'd blocked everything, but obviously didn't know about the previously inaccessible entrance, and they've made some of the internal holes bigger in the last 24 hours we've discovered. Going to get the builders to patch things up externally this week, they would be doing it soon regardless so will get them to sort it sooner rather than later.

I think it's going to have to be heavy duty snap traps, but will talk through my options with the professional tomorrow if I can get one out then.

I'll be choosing pest controllers carefully as well, I have similar concerns about some.

Don't leave any food out, leftover sausage from dinner is asking for furry unwanted visitors.

Set snappy traps and put poison down,it can take a couple of weeks for them to go especially as it sounds like you have a lot.

If you know it all, why post in the first place?

Well I clearly don't, hence asking? I clearly stated in the op that I wouldn't use sticky traps, and otherwise the only suggestion I've said is that it is not worth trying is the peppermint because I've direct experience of that one, albeit for different purposes. I appreciate the responses and they're helping me realise that it's very much something I really do need a professional for rather than trying to add it to my plate right now, and to find a good one who has heavy duty snaps as I don't ethically agree with sticky traps or poison and they seem to be the only other options. I was hoping that there would be other answers, but unfortunately the only other thing I can do is hope that the builders put them off as I can't move things around inside of the walls and floors myself, which is where they've been until the past 24 hours! But that would risk them multiplying very quickly and I cannot risk that with two kids and a dog in my house.

I'm unconvinced by the peppermint idea. Largely because I've had pet rats steal and eat my peppermints.

We tried it when two of ours in particular used to go for my pc cable every time they were free ranged. Little shits. Posted on the big groups about it and apparently it's not as disliked as originally believed 😅

I miss having rats and we intended to get some again soon, but this wasn't the way we planned to have them in the house again!

Oof yes. Our laziness this evening was stupid. The saussies would have been binned regardless, but the empty-but-used plates would have been left until the morning when the dishwasher was ready for a new load. I think we'll be hand washing anything that doesn't fit in the dishwasher of an evening for now!

Tomorrow I'll be moving around some of the bigger bits of the kitchen to ensure that there's nothing that's managed to get underneath that they could be snacking on as well. We don't have an actual kitchen right now which is a benefit in this situation. Everything in it can be moved relatively easily as the few bits we have are free standing.

In reply to another post peppermint oil is dangerous for under 5's if inhaled in large amounts. So don't use too much around babies if at all!

It can be tough emotionally sometimes, dealing with infestations, when you've had pets of the same species. I dread rats or mice or guinea pigs ever getting in the house for many of the same reasons others do, but also because of everything I've learnt about their behaviour, feelings, intelligence, and individual personalities, and the emotional connections I've built up. But you just have to detach from it, compartmentalise, whatever it takes, because they absolutely cannot be there. And I agree that killing them as fast and humanely as possible is kinder than capturing them and dumping them alone and vulnerable in foreign territory.

Yep. Honestly this one climbed up from behind the oven and looked identical to one of my old girls (an agouti obviously) and given that it was going for a whole bloody sausage it was just as cheeky too!

I was less concerned when they were "only" in the walls as I did think that the builders knocking things down, dealing with the roof spaces and so on would disturb them enough to make them leave, but now they are in our living spaces they do need to go. I've found two pest controllers who are with a national pest controllers association and advertise that they use poison as a last resort, so I'll see what they say tomorrow.