To sell this stinking rat hole, I mean house because we have rats?

[RedWineAllMine]

So to cut a long story short, purchased first house a year ago, have since discovered the bastards that sold it to us never told us of the rat problem. I found rat droppings tonight in living room, and knawed pieces of wooden coving and doors throughout the house. I have been away so noticed it when I came back. I have just paid £99 for the council pest control, they will be here within the next 2 days. I know it's rats because we caught one in the loft not long ago, but laid down poison and that was the end of that until now....
So, told my Partner we are selling or I'm leaving him once council have sorted the rats. I can't live here.

Sparkly that is incorrect, the councils generally use much cheaper stuff. The one I worked for used stuff you can buy in cheap high street shops!

@MissDuke ah right could be the case your end?...the guy who came to my uni house was Ex-Rentokil staff...he was saying that the council have stronger stuff as Council estate houses generally can't afford Rentokil prices so stop the rat problem escalating to uncontrollable levels (because people can't afford to have them come back over and over) they are given much stronger stuff...Rentokil you can buy in the shops Council stuff you can't apparently...just saying what he told me.

A lot of people who aren't Council tenants think they can't use Council services too...not realising they can just pay extra if their not Council...so go for companies like Rentokil who charge the earth!

Yes Sparky my house isn't council, it's owned and my estate isn't council either and I used the council services so that is true.
He did say the poison the council uses you cant buy from over the counter. This is industrial stuff. He explained the poison you buy in shops is something like 0.2 strength, and his is 0.05 strength.
He also said they become immune to the stuff you buy in shops and it doesn't always kill them. You're definitely better off getting the council out or a professional firm for the industrial strength poison.

Can I Upload videos on here? I have some recordings of what I have to listen to every night!

0.2 is four times stronger than 0.05.

Sorry other way round!

Councils is 0.2 shop bought is 0.05

I wondered 🙂

Op

Sympathies. I could not stay there knowing that all the neighbours were infested too.

Even if you manage to get rid of them you would be on edge wondering if they were back.

I would certainly borrow a terrier type dog to leave it scent around your home.

Also if they die under your floor boards won’t that leave a dreadful smell?

I would sell up!

Yes council man said if they die in the house I will sure know about it. It will be a dreadful smell and would last around a week he said. No awful smell as of yet. We want to rip up carpets etc to rid of the old ones but no point in doing that until we are sure they are gone. When we change the carpets I told my DP we will have to look under the floorboards for dead rats....🤮🐀

@RedWineAllMine
Believe me you will know about it if they die in the house and the smell won't go until the body (and anything nearby which may be spoiled) has been removed.

In the summer I would think it might mummify in shorter time period, but in this weather it would take way longer than a week for the smell to go.

We had an idea of the location in the house of our dead rat because of the flies, then our dog gave us a bit more of a specific area to investigate. Unfortunately the smell filled the house 🤮

Once the body was removed it took a few days for the smell to completely disappear. We stuffed those pouches which are supposed to mask the smell in the floors and ceilings wherever we could.

Good luck, I really hope it's all over soon for you. The noise at night is awful - I honestly thought there were 20 rats in the house at one point.

Red I speak from experience They will stink. Be prepared to have every window open and buy some really good air fresheners. It's a sweet sickly smell so maybe go with a heavier air freshener smell to counter act it. Also don't rip the carpets up yet because following the smell we had the blue bottle invasion. I ended up using tissues to block any cracks around radiator pipes so they couldn't escape.

Get your drains checked too, get the cover in the back open and a water company to check it out. We had ongoing issues for years (not continuous but on and off), rats under the floor boards, rats chewing through plaster board in the kitchen extension and the scampering up between the wooden boarded wall and the brick. Thankfully they only got in once and that was just the babies. It's still a memory of horror etched on my brain but it could have been worse.

We had loads of different people out, Thames Water too. Everyone said it must be drains but we couldn't find anything. Finally we got Thames Water again and the guy and my dh checked a drain cover that hasn't been checked before () They found a disused drainpipe that hadn't been capped off. The cost of a cap is less than £1!! Anyway dh did it and touch wood we have been rat free since.

Good luck!!

We had rats under our kitchen floor a few years ago, despite a pair of lakeland terriers being in residence, so I'm not convinced that terrier smell is enough to deter them. The first we knew about it was when the dogs started trying to dig up the floor in the corner of the kitchen.

The council rat man came round and explained that they were basically using my house as a maternity hospital: they'd come in, give birth to a litter of ratlings, wean them and then bugger off until heavily pregnant again. He also identified where they were getting in, it was a tiny gap in the mortar where 3 bricks joined. He advised us to plug up the gap when we knew we were rat-free (ie, when the dogs weren't trying to dig the floor up). We did this and were never bothered by them in the house again.

We still see them in the garden though. There are 2 racing stables and a livery yard within a mile, and 2 houses out of our 4 have chickens, so plenty of food and water for rats. And our stupid neighbours chuck all sorts of food out in their front garden "for the foxes and the birds".

We only have one dog now and despite her great age (13) she still manages to catch a rat every now and then. I spotted a magpie disembowelling something on the lawn on Monday and sent DP out to investigate. It was a dead rat, with what appeared to be small canine tooth marks in its carcass.

I bloody hate the things, so totally sympathise, OP. I was very relieved that ours never ventured further afield than behind the kitchen cupboards and under the floor. I think I'd want to move if they'd actually got further into the house.

I wouldn't use poison though, because I nearly lost the previous dog to rat poison, presumably from a rat. I know someone who does pest control with a pack of terriers, they are incredibly efficient and it's a very quick death for the rats. The poison can take 2 weeks to work, and I think I read somewhere that they're developing immunity to it.