Help, rats, and I don't mean LTB type. Humane deterrents??

[Ohhelpwhatnow]

I appear to have a rat infestation in the walls, probably coming up from a broken drain under the tarmac, according to the pest controller who came round. Oh God. I don't want them poisoned, it's horrible for the creatures and householders concerned, and anyway more rats will come up unless the drain is mended, which apparently is a big and expensive job.
Has anyone found a humane deterrent spray or similar which would at least keep them rushing around and possibly getting into the rooms until I've worked out what to do? Or any other advice please?

My sympathies. My subjective ordering of infestations goes bedbugs (worst) to rats (middle) to cockroaches.

The humane way to solve this problem is to fix the drain.

Otherwise, you can use poison boxes or spring traps. I'm guessing you don't want to do that.

They spread disease and they are a nightmare to deal with. Early intervention will serve you well.

I heard a radio programme some time ago about a rat contraceptive that reduced their fertility. I haven't heard anything about it since though.

I'm sorry but there is no alternative. You have to kill the ones already in (poison or snap traps) and stop any more from coming in (fix the drains). Nothing else will work. You just need to face it and do the work now before the problem gets worse, because that is 100% what will happen. Ask me how I know 😭

Thank you, @semideponent . Are cockroaches really worse? And bedbugs sound awful.
Unfortunately I think the infestation is well established now, we just didn't realise until we had to move some units around.
Drains it is, then. It's only money. And digging up the drive. Sigh.
I think I could tolerate spring traps being used, but apparently it's a slow and inefficient way of clearing the infestation. My attached neighbour used poison last year and I could hear the poor creatures taking days to die, it was horrible. And obviously didn't work, since we have them now!

Oh dear. I can guess how you know.
Thank you. I'll get on to the drain people tomorrow.
Unfortunately our house is on the market, I guess we will have to take it off for a while.

Google Liveline rte Ireland (it’s a radio show in Ireland) rats- they had two shows on it recently, I’ll be honest I turned it off as we had a mouse problem and I couldn’t handle it but they talked about it for two shows and might have answers

Poisoning them is pointless if they have an access point. More rats will follow, they can smell the trail.

You need to fix the drain . First step is to get a drain survey. They put a camera down via the manhole. They'll find where it's broken. Expect to pay around £500. Second step is to poison the ones that are inside and get the drain fixed. They'll probably be able to fit a sleeve inside the existing pipe, again accessing it via the manhole. You could expect that to be another £500. See if you have any insurance cover for your plumbing/drains to cover it.

We had a very similar problem, my prices are about 6 years out of date, it's not cheap. There isn't a way around it. Nothing else works and the rats will eat through your wires, pipes etc. Leave them and you'll be dealing with all sorts of other problems.

You need to block their potential entrances and exits to prevent a future infestation but I don't think there's a humane way to get rid of the rats that are there.

We have had mice and rats. We've been able to catch mice with humane traps but the rats were too smart.

We persisted for a long time because we like rats and didn't want to hurt them but in the end, we had to use poison. They seemed to take the poison to their den under the floorboards but we found one lying in the dining room. It looked very peaceful, as though it was asleep. I really hope that its death was painless.

Cats

@WaffleMacGubbins Thanks. I will order the drain survey. The pest controller told me that the drain has been covered with tarmac so it means digging up the drive, but so be it. I'll check the insurance but don't feel hopeful.
@BandyUrnham We have a super-efficient mouser who is tirelessly following the rustling, but complains that he can't get at them through the walls.

Thanks so much everyone. It's kind of comforting to hear other people's experience even though the news isn't what I hoped. My DH, who almost never goes away, is away for a month so I'm on my own with it. Trip of a lifetime, and I don't want to worry him when he can't do anything.

You can spray peppermint oil in the areas they’re getting into and going, it usually works to keep them away but I don’t know if they’ll leave. They don’t like it.

Sadly, speaking from experience, the only resolution is to sort the drain. We spent £1000s but we had some v complicated drains and it was a long process of elimination. If you know the force you can tackle it but you have to fix the drain.

*source not force!

I would be glad for the moment just to deter them a bit, so I'll try that.

I think our drains might be complicated too, as we have never found a manhole cover into the main drain.

Do any of your family/friends have a dog/big cat you can borrow - they are a great deterren.

We have two cats, one a very good mouser, but the rats are in the walls at the moment. He will be on to them if they come out, but I'm hoping they won't!

We tried peppermint, sonar deterrents, moving shit around as apparently they don't like change, borrowing a friend's dog, plugging visible holes with wire wool, removing any trace of food etc etc... the only thing that worked was poison and getting a builder to rip out some units so he could get to an entry point in the external wall.

Getting rid of them was less stressful than living with them.

As previous posters have said you have to do both things:

1. kill the ones who are already coming in
2. block their way in

Once you have sorted out the drains it is worth asking the pest control company to check for any other potential entrance points.

In positive news, although we had rats in the walls, floors and ceilings for almost 3 months, they never came out into the house. The sound was awful, but it could have been worse. So they may at least stay contained, hopefully.

Is that the order it's done? If the extermination happens first, isn't there a risk that more rats will come up after the drain is fixed?

Do not worry about humane, it’s a health risk in a human household. Get a professional in.

Our PC said rats tend to live as families so however many are there will likely all be part of a group so the whole lot will be there at the same time.

The poison will kill the whole family because they usually go back to their nest to die, spreading the poison into the nest and therefore the other rats.

We had to wait until we had a week of zero activity, then they were sure they had all been killed off, and sealed up as much of the house as they could.

One thing we did earlier in the process was install a one way sewer gate, which meant that no more rats could come in through that sewer, but any in the house could leave. It wasn’t the main entry point for us but we did it anyway.

What you don’t want to do is risk trapping them inside your house.

I'm going to. I was hoping for a humane solution but there doesn't seem to be one sadly. Just hoping they stay in the walls!!