to think i can leave a decomposing rat in the wall cavity to decompose?

[Anna1976]

My parents live in a double-brick cavity-wall house, built in about 1905. It's become apparent in the last few days that something is very dead indeed, somewhere quite close to the back of the house.

The stink is appalling today, but the revolting blowflies of the last few days aren't around any more. It took us until yesterday to localise which wall vent they were coming out of, having already checked under the house, the chimney, and pulled up the floor in the loft, to make sure we couldn't find anything emanating flies.

Getting the bloody thing out of the wall cavity would be basically impossible, and the stench should only haunt my parents' house for... um ..not sure how long....

Yuck. Any ideas how long it might go on? or what else to do? I think it would cost less for the parents to move into a hotel for a couple of weeks (or just grin and bear it) than for any attempt to be made to remove the thing.

Oh I hope it isn't a dead bushtailed possum, how cute are they ?

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we have rats getting into our cavity wall from the outside we cant find the hole but its an utter joke. the rat also found a hole when an incompetent plumber put our new boiler in and didn't seal it so left it open for any visiting rats.
so far the rats have chewed all the electrics in our kitchen ceiling and burnt them out. we had to cut a huge whole in our kitchen ceiling to fix the lights and i regularly shoot the little bastards with an air riffle in my back garden. they make me sick its ruining my life and actually making me quite depressed. if there is one rat there will be more id call in pest control and see if they can determine there entry point.
they can and will get through the smallest hole as we found out the day after our sons christening when we had to throw away 3 quarters of the made to order christening cake away, as a dirty rat and been eating it in the night. 3 years the rats where in the ceiling and land lord (MIL) wouldn't do anything or pay for anything to be done.

I don't live in a city OP, I live in very leafy countryside OP - rats and mice are a way of life everywhere.

It's exactly when people think 'Oh it's only one' that there becomes a problem, as there never is just one

We thought we had just the one, we laid some traps and 5 dead rats later...

Fastweb Just spat coffee all over the keyboard ...

The smell goes after a few weeks, grit your teeth and open the windows. Then get the pest control chaps in to bung up the hole the little sods are coming in through pronto or it won't be your last!

AhsataN have you tried chemical warfare? We laid down copious bait traps in garden, sheds, loft, etc and it seems to have dealt with the problem. I hated having rats around all the time - lifting the lid of the dutbin to find a rat staring back at you with the air of "yes? what do you want?" was not one of my better living-in-the-country moments.

valium - ok, sorry for the assumption. I think this will be ok - though your caveat is noted - since there have been rats in the walls/ceiling here all my life and this is only the second one that has been ...er.. problematic...

Ahsata and fastweb, god i know how you feel. A few years ago I lived in a country cottage with chickens in a big coop in the yard, lots of farm outbuildings around, everything dilapidated and perfect rat territory. The rats were all over the place, running round in the middle of the day, nesting under the chicken coop, in the outbuildings, in the roof.... and the landlady wouldn't help us do anything about it... and it made me sick with fear to even go outside. I cleaned the sheds, got rid of the chickens, but just couldn't stomach dismantling the coop. The rats were still there partying when we left. Completely destroyed the rural idyll I'd hoped for...

the fear was the result of a childhood spent in the house where i am now (pong central) with rats running round inside the house as it hadn't been renovated back then. Stuff like rats in your bedclothes, rats jumping out of your stuffed toys, rats rampaging through your precious collection of load of crap tiny porcelain figurines and breaking most of them in the middle of the night right next to your bed, rats nesting in your shoes and chewing through your party dress in the cupboard, all when you're less than 5 years old - and continuing intermittently until the house was renovated when I was 16. AAARRGGH.

rats in your bedclothes, rats jumping out of your stuffed toys, rats rampaging through your precious collection of load of crap tiny porcelain figurines and breaking most of them in the middle of the night right next to your bed, rats nesting in your shoes and chewing through your party dress in the cupboard

fastweb exactly

I quite like the idea of living in a 7th-storey apartment with double glazed windows that are kept shut (or at least permanently perfectly covered with flyscreen), no chimneys, doors that fit their frames PERFECTLY, built-in shelving for books, and absolutely zero clutter. Minimalist stainless steel, instead of edwardian plasterwork and clutter everywhere? ooh yes please.

oh and a thoughtful relative once gave me that collection of feckin' terrifying short stories by Philippa Pearce, including the one called "The dog got them" about dead rat ghosts. Oh how I loved that relative ever after

at the rats inside the house childhood trauma. I think DH and I would have been scrambling over each other to get ourselves the DC out of the house and call in the troops (options around here ranging from chemical led to jack russell terrier led approaches) if the bastard things had been in the house (as opposed to in roof/floor voids, lean-to, garage, chicken run)

ooh yes please

Seconded.

Anybody wish to buy 17th centuray cascina in rural Northern Italy.

Great schools, rat free, lovely and cosy, no insane pilgrims seeking fake holy magic water by the coachload, no wannabe guru flogging Madonna infested fake holy magic water, quiet neighbours and the dolce vita in such vast dollops that tooth decay is a real health concern.

Honest gov.

Will swop for teeny small new build flat in Basingstoke. Or similar.

It's ok OP :)

Can I make my point even more with what you said in your post? since there have been rats in the walls/ceiling here all my life and this is only the second one that has been ...er.. problematic...

There shouldn't be rats in your walls - you HAVE a problem regardless of wether they stink when they are dead or not. They will be chewing your wires and cables. Unexplained house fires are often put down to rats chewing wires.

Seriously, put some poison down

valium - noted. am not sure whether there is cognitive dissonance or genuine lack of need to worry going on here, but my parents' house is typical of all the ones the same age owned by parents' friends. Nobody my age could possibly afford to own a crumbling federation mansion...

I think they might have done something about wiring early on in my childhood - I remember the house being re-wired and it has not been thought of as a problem since, whereas rats chewing wires in other contexts has been mentioned. I think all wiring goes along skirting boards/ picture rails here maybe?

They do put poison down when the rampaging in the roof gets a bit much. Dad used to have live traps available through work. Thankfully he was perfectly happy to empty the live traps. God only knows how. There is clearly a breed of people out there that are incomparably tough. (shudder)

fastest, I'd need a lifetime of therapy to get over that one

fastweb, that is...

My DMum was Australian (grew up in Cairns). When I was about 6 she gave me a china doll she'd had as a child. I asked her why it had no fingers. She said the rats had eaten them

Dealing with rats was one time when I sort of wished I was a dog person. Ask people round here about rats and they shrug and say "that's what you have terriers for" (although they use poison as well, especially in farm buildings). Fortunately DCat is a complete townie and thinks even the spiders round here are too big to hunt - the only cat I have ever had who took on rats ended up with a nasty infected paw where one bit her .

OP the reason I am very twitchy is that we have neighbours nearby who have had what they thought has been a 'manageable' rat problem for the last 3 or so years. Recently it suddenly ( like overnight!) got worse and they got into their kitchen pipes, some died and blocked up the sewer and they have had work men there for DAYS ripping out their kitchen and replacing pipes and soil pipes. Also they had to have their driveway dug up too to access the pipes. They had no idea things could be so bad. Since it's been fixed we no longer have a rat problem and the sink doesn't smell anymore - the smell was coming up our pipes too!

The pest control man said it should never have been left to get that bad and really people should keep traps in their lofts all the time and the minute any noises are heard then poison should be put down. He said they come in at ground and below ground level - so check for open sewers as they will come in via them and then climb into lofts and if left long enough into your house.

The rat we caught the other week would've had a cat for breakfast it was so big!

The rat we caught the other week would've had a cat for breakfast it was so big!

I think three of my cats may be feline ninjas.

They take on these horrible things.

And leave the decapitated remains as presents for me to fall over/onto as I stumble out the front door bleary eyed at half past stupid in the morning.

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Always a slight "laws of physics" problem when walking the big dogs if we wander striaght into the paths of one of these creatures (from the depths of hell itself.)

Mainly cos the dogs go mad trying to move like greased lightning towards the hissing, snarling, evil tail swishing thing......while I'm doing my best impression of a hysterical nuclear powered rocket equally determined to run as fast as possible in the other direction.

Fuxking nothing like "No Going Back" this rural Italy lark.

Country Life-esque glossy mags are a Big Fat LIE !

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OMG I am literally shaking, I have a proper phobia of rats...

When we had our hob replaced, the guy found a dead mouse underneath the old one, he called me in to show me, I was holding DD1 who was a baby at the time and I literally went hysterical, he thought I was going to drop the baby....funny thing was it didn't smell at all.

My friend who went travelling to South America felt something nibbling at her toe one night, she threw her foot up and the rat got caught in the ceiling fan it wasn't pretty by all accounts.

Other great rodent story, my friend was on holiday in a gite in France and her dad (who is a bit short sighted) did all the washing up before realising what he thought was a sponge was a bloated dead mouse floating in the washing up water.....

Mice are tiny who - rats are enormous! Dh said the one we got the other day was honking even though it had only been dead a couple of hours.

Fastweb: rural italy sounds about as dire as I'd imagined it might be. Still at least you don't have the pontine marshes any more to give you cerebral malaria .

We can secretly imagine ourselves living in a nice sterile apartment somewhere with decent schools, doors that fit frames, double glazing, functional tax system, etc. How about the suburbs of Stockholm?