Rats and Wheat -Stuffed door stops... Warning.

[oakleaffy]

Just a 'heads up'.
In the heatwave I had back door open for several nights...{posted elsewhere about it} and a rat had accessed my upstairs, foregone the kitchen, where back door is.
It had gorged itself on wheat from a ''Voyage'' National Trust gift shop door stop..
These doorstops are lavender scented.

I put down Brodifacoum, and the rat appears to have gone...and no smell of dead rat either.

However......In the Hardware shop yesterday, I noticed a large new display of rat baits.

The assistant {whom I know to speak to} said these had been a spike in rats entering homes, probably because of heatwave and open doors..

I mentioned the Door stop, and she said ''Oh my goodness....Same thing happened to us! A rat ate the kid's bedroom door wheat doorstops.

It seems as if these things attract vermin .

The rat ate cherry pits it had taken from a bin, and also taken a chocolate wrapper, but the only available food was the Wheat in the door stop.

It really shook me up..And in each case, the rat had gone upstairs.. ugh.

I have ''rat proof'' house normally, the open door and odiferous wheat was an attractant.

Not to worry though if your secret stash of does get eaten, set a trap loaded with peanut butter.

They love that even more and would sell their own Mousey Granny to get at it.

Never fails.

They like sweets too.

Wheat stuffed door stops?

This must be a middle class problem

I'm surprised it ate cherry pits. They're poisonous, aren't they?

My cat has brought rats in and taken them up to the bathroom. They scream like humans !

He has done this a few times, and on two occasions I have not been able to catch them and they have disappeared completely.

He brings mice in and I can catch them easily in my hand and put them out but no way am I catching a rat in my hand, so in an effort to catch it with whatever comes to hand it gets away and we never see it again.

One rat went at the back of the toilet and he caught and killed it. I removed it by the tail and disposed of it and then washed my hands thoroughly.

We have a tall cupboard in the garage with spare crockery etc in the bottom half and then food in the top half - tinned tomatoes, bag of rice, breakfast cereals etc. All unopened. Somehow mice got in there and ate their way through breakfast cereal and Sweet Chilli crisps (sob). We have no idea how they got that high in the cupboard. We put down humane traps and eventually got rid of them.

Even in really hot weather we didn't leave the doors open at night, because of foxes. I never considered rats coming into the house.

We have the opposite problem; cant open the doors during a heatwave because the rats might get out!

Rats got into mine and ate weetabix and dry super noodles. They seem to love the dry stuff.