RATS RATS AND RATS

[HJWT]

So my neighbour has noticed RATS living under her shed 🤢 not even told me but has told the neighbour at the other side (terraced houses) and she has informed me THANK GOD because today I was sat in the garden with DD and one ran through my garden back into hers! I nearly had heart attack

We have lived here for 2.5 years and never seen a rat before but we do live next to water were they will live!!

SO how do I get rid of them, and what should I put down to make sure they don't keep coming back!

Call you yr council. Many local councils pest controllers will treat rats free of charge.

I wouldn't be too fussed about rats, they'll get killed by a fox or cat. And apparently if you have rats you don't have mice, as they don't co-exist, and I'd rather the odd rat than mice, tbh.

I surprised so many people are saying you shouldn’t be worried. The fact the rat population has exploded following Council cuts to rodent control is not a reason to tackle them. They are vermin. They transmit disease. Councils have a statutory obligation to remove rats when they become aware of them.

Get a pest controller in to check your property (check no nests in your garden). They will also give good advice on how you can prevent them coming in your garden.

Ring council and report as well.

Our local council doesn’t even have a pest control service any more let alone a free one.

Get a dog.

My parents had a similar issue with field mice before and all the pest controllers couldn't really get rid of them. You're going to need to remove sources of food from their access (i.e. bird seed, dry pet food on the ground, etc). All dogs are not equal in this though, the bigger dog they had and the terrier were not interested but the dachshund they had thoroughly enjoyed going after them.

Watching with interest - My dog walker messaged earlier to say she say a rat in our driveway, and it went under the gate to the back garden.

I phoned DH who just said Rats were everywhere. No where it can live in our garden and as we have toddler DS and a Dog, we would't be putting down poison. He thinks we should just leave it - especially as we've never seen one.

I'm less convinced...

Honestly, I'm not sure why all the drama? Just carry on as you were.

If you use poison put it in a length of drain pipe pushed to the hole on your fence.Birds can get to it.
Staer now before they have lots of little baby rats.

Move to Alberta, Canada. There are no rats or so it is claimed by the Alberta government. It is illegal to bring a rat into the province and there is a rat patrol employed to guard the border. A true rat free zone!

Fill in the hole in the fence. Make sure there's no food or food waste to encourage them to visit your garden. DIY pest control isn't always useful when the professionals have already been called.

Waiting a week for a council control call out isn't very long.

Rats have almost certainly been visiting your garden longer than you're been living there, and long before they were using the gap under your neighbours shed for shelter. It's just a fact of life, where humans live there will be rats.

The ‘get a dog’ advice is ridiculous. It’s a very specific type of terrier you’d need anyway, with an instinct and practice at killing rats. We had one when I was young and she was an amazing ratter, but we didn’t get her for that, wouldn’t specifically get a dog to keep vermin down anyway etc.
Just having a dog won’t deter rats. It hasn’t at our current house where a neighbour feeds the birds all year round.

so should I just tell DD she cant go out into the garden then? Because I don't want to be cruel to the rats what exactly do you think they're going to do to her?

I can hear my own screams ringing in my ears when the fucking cat brought an alive rat into my kitchen the summer before last.

I don’t know how she carried it because it was about a third of her side. I have an irrational phobia of everything with a tail so I hysterically called my brother in law whilst the baby and I hid in the front room.

Not my finest hour; and we learnt never to leave the door open for her to roam in and out.

@bigKiteFlying it's odd when they are out like this, isn't it. Only one I saw walking around and nit giving a fuck about us was poisoned one. It was quite confused.

don't get a cat! we don't have rats, but someone else nearby must do, as one of my cats keeps bringing live rats in through the catflap .

But keep everything edible out the garden - herbs, rubbish etc and DO NOT wash food down the kitchen sink if the drain is outside.

A pest controller told us rodent cannot drink so they absorb water through food and a soggy piece of bread, pasta etc that was washed down the plug and stuck in the drain is ideal food.

Rats are no dirtier than squirrels if they are living wild on a fairly natural diet, they’re only dirty if they’re living on human waste surely?

I would move out. I couldn’t cope. I think I would die on the spot if I saw a rat.

We had rats on the back garden last year, well they weren't nesting out there they were running through because neighbours either side have bird tables loaded with food year round. Haven't seen them this year but we have a dog now that patrols the garden as does another neighbour and there are a couple of cats about so think they must have decided it was too risky and gone back to the brook where they no doubt came from.

A pest controller told us rodent cannot drink

WTF?! I've had many pet rodents, including rats. They drink.

You’ve lived there a couple of years and this is the first time these rats have made an appearance. I think that’s pretty good going considering rats are everywhere. Tbh this wouldn’t bother me in the slightest. There will always be rats nearby—they are incredibly resilient and adaptive. So long as they’re not in the house I would be inclined to leave them to it. Blocking a hole in the fence will do nothing. Rats can contort themselves to fit through spaces the size of a 50p piece. The only time I got pest control out was when I was working on a farm and we had a plague of hundreds of rats—could literally hear them crawling in the walls of the barn. The pest controller trapped some of them and removed them (I don’t like to think where to!) but the best solution in the end was a pair of ferrets—they can fit through the same spaces the rats can and rip apart their nest and rats are repelled by the scent of them. The majority of the rats moved on fairly quickly and the ferrets killed any stragglers. A little horrifying yes, but much more humane and safe than poison.

There is a lot of open land around me and it is not unusual to see a rat in the garden. If I do I just ensure there is no food souse for them and no where dry for them to nest. So the compost heap is nosed down, bird feeders taken away and when I put in a shed it went on a concrete base not wooden, don’t have decking either as that is a prime breeding ground for rats.
Without a food source or dry nesting place they will soon move on.

Of course your daughter can go in the garden, the rats won't go near her

This isn't true. Rats are used to humans. We had a problem last year, similar thing, using our garden as a throughway to a nest in the neighbours. They were not scared of us at all and didn't run off even when we were really close to try and shoo them off. I wouldn't let my dd out to play until the council pest control had dealt with them.

next doors decking had rats living under it until a fox moved in and took up residence there, in the past i have nuked them with poison.
TRIGGERING i hate wild rats with a passion, years ago one of my guinea pigs was savaged, but i couldn't think why, the other unharmed, the next night there was loud squeaking in the garden and a bastard rat had attack my other piggie and caused fatal facial injuries, she had to be put down. it was only after the event that i realised the rat had killed the first piggy.
my poor girls must have been so terrified, especially with the second visit. i still feel bad about it and teary

Have you actually spoken to the neighbour who has the rat problem?

The drama is unnecessary - there’s no reason you can’t use the garden because you’ve seen one rat. Talk to the neighbour, get pest control in, problem solved.