AIBU to want to kill the rats

[ratstails]

I have included an image because I knew its obligatory for AIBU. This is a combination of a neighbour issue and a rat issue so open to advice and input on either.
We live rurally in quite an old house. Next door is another old house with a huge garden and an outbuilding that forms part of our boundary (red square), the outbuilding has attracted rats for as long as we've lived here. Until about 6 months ago the neighbors where a lovely old couple and between us we dealt with any rats moving into the outbuilding quickly with posion, blocking holes and on a couple of occasions when things got bad a pest control company.
Usually it would be a problem only a few times a year. The old couple downsized and the house was bought by a buy to let landlord, new neigbours moved in and seemed friendly enough we've had no issues until a month ago when I started to see rats running up and down the outbuilding wall again.
I went over to tell them and explained how this is usually resolved and they said rats in the building didn't bother them as they have no intention of using the building and they didn't want to put poison down. Since then the number of have rats has escalated, my office looks out over the building and everyday I see multiple rats coming out from under the roof, down the wall and into my garden. Neighbours are still refusing to do anything, I have offered to pay for the posion, put it in the roof myself, pay a professional pest control company to come sort it. They just keep saying its their property and they aren't bothered, of course they aren't because they can't actually see the building from their house and don't use that part of the garden.
Its really awful, I can't go in my garden without worrying about the wee and poo they leave behind, I can't sit at my desk without getting distracted by 10+ rats running down the wall and its really only a matter of time before they end up getting into my house despite me checking for holes, chew marks etc. everyday.
I am pretty sure I ANBU but perhaps I am.

Have you spoken to the landlord? Or environmental health?

you can put poison in your garden as usual? and get on to the landlord and then environmental health about it.

Treat this as if it's your rat problem and bait the buggers.

My neighbour scatter feeds his poultry and his garden is a haven for vermin in other respects too. I use a type B grain based bait that costs about £100 a year and I throw the carcases onto his patio by the tail with a gloved hand.

It's a PITA but by the looks of him he won't see out another winter so it's all good.

Can you contact the actual owner of the house? Surely they don't want rats running wick on the land they own? Mind you, my neighbours don't seem to be arsed with the rats' nest beside their garage that borders my garden. I've had to dig down 4ft along my boundary to bury sheets of strong cage wire to keep them out.

I have put traps with bait in down on my side of the garden but its not enough, I think they're using it as a breeding ground. The entire building needs dealing with and the holes sealed in. I am tempted to send DH up the ladder to seal all holes in the roof eaves that he can reach from our garden but also thats probably illegal isn't it.
I unfortunately don't have a contact for the owner landlord, we only know its buy to let as the couple who sold told us.

Surely, you follow the normal route of escalation...

1. The neighbours
2. Their landlord
3. Environmental health

www.gov.uk/search-property-information-land-registry

With a bit diligence you can find out from land registry who bought the property. Download the deeds. Go from there to contact the landlord/owner. Or contact the estate agent that was used. They might agree to forward a letter, or message from you asking the owner to contact you.

Contact your council, they will be able to advise whether any action can be taken. My gut instinct is there's not much you can do other than to put traps and bait in your garden to try to get them when they visit you.

Horrendous!!! Even if you put poison in your own garden, not all of the rats will come that far. Those not entering your garden live to breed every few weeks making the problem far worse. I don't know what the answer is if your neighbours won't cooperate. Maybe. Get pest control in yourself and tell neighbours that they will come on their property to rectify the problem? Tell them that it is of no cost to them but pest control have said that both properties must be dealt with? Maybe hint that if the problem gets worse and the rats are coming from their property, legally they will be responsible for any damage the rats do ,( don't know how true this would be) I really feel for you. Rats are vermin. They carry disease and destroy cables and other property if they get inside. They leave urine and faeces everywhere and can climb everywhere so none of your food is safe unless sealed in and the can still climb all over the sealed container s leaving their urine and faeces so anything there needs throwing. They cause endless cleaning and awful stress. If no solution presents itself I would have to move house myself 💐

@ThePollutedShadesOfPemberley which bait do you use please? We have a recurring rat problem and deal with it once or twice a year. last year it was much more difficult and I think we need to change bait.

You can get a copy of the deeds from Land Registry for £3 and that will give you the owners details.
If you search Google on for example 'to rent + postcode' you might also find the letting agents old advert so you can contact them.
Alternatively contact Environmental Health and they have powers to contact the agent and homeowner

When you opened your post by saying you had included an image I was bracing myself for a photo of one of the rats! 😱

I didn't know you could just buy title deeds online so easily, that is great thankyou all who suggested it. Off to see if I can find out who the landlord is and work on contacting him. I think PP is probably right that while the tenants don't care the landlord might not want his property being destroyed by rats. Its actually a lovely outbuilding was previously a stable block and then the old owners used it to store a classic car.

No advice but absolute buckets of sympathy for you op this would be an absolute nightmare for me

I totally empathise as we had a very similiar situation at the start of year with a neighbour who just ignored the problem. I would be trying to locate the owner of the property and contacting environmental health. They breed very quickly so the problem needs to be tackled ASAP, don't waste any time. We also put poison down in our property and were told by the pest control officer that by doing that we were actually attracting them to ours and to take ours away so he could tackle the source of the problem next door. Good luck, you have my sympathy

Formula B+ from a company called Pest Expert. I think I paid about £60 for a hundred sachets and it's got the problem so sorted that I still have over half the box left from last year.

Follow local rules and common sense. It's grain based which is better than blocks as rats carry block bait away from the station and then other, non target species, can get it.

Bait all year round with it though. They breed all year, especially with warmer winters.

Env. Health, used to be they could take action under the Prevention of Damage by Pests Act but this may have been replaced by more recent legislation. As well as harborage rats need food. Ideally, removing the food source would be the way to go, if only because it means they're more like to eat poison bait or enter traps. I appreciate this isn't always possible.

So definitely contact the council, they'll find the responsible person. Maybe try to get some film of the rats to back up your case. If poison is used obviously clean up any corpses to prevent secondary poisoning.

YANBU. I like rats but vermin issues are not on. Presumably you can't get a cat to safeguard the house - we live near water so will always have a rat family or two, but the cat and his neighbourhood friends keep the gardens largely rat-free. Escalate with landlord and EH. This might not be helpful, but in the meantime can you get help for rat phobia if it's taking over your life? It might help make you feel more at ease whilst the actual issue is being dealt with.

If you get nowhere with this. Then you could try a last ditch attempt doing what we did. It worked for us. Neighbour had chickens - we got the rats. Poison worked for a bit, but then they got a dog and I didn’t want him harmed. So we put up birds feeders in the next field hedge, away from us and the rats were attracted to that. The local birds of prey and owls were attracted to the fat rats. The local feral cats/foxes finished of what was left. End of problem.
I wouldn’t do this in a heavily populated area, and there is the chance it might make things worse. But we were desperate for a solution.

Not sure how committed you are but the best stuff by far is Tomcat bait blocks. They find water to die in so we found a few corpses in the shallow bits of the burn/?a bucket of water but it dealt with a massive problem.

They changed the rules so you need a professional certificate to buy it. You can do an e-learning course online for 80 quid valid for five years. Then a further 60 for large tub of Tomcat. It was worth it to me. Felt it was cheaper than pest control overall.

Do you reckon I could just scatter this over the top of my 6ft fence into the neighbours patch? They'd never notice as its a tangle of brambles and weeds in the farthest spot from their house (hence why they don't give a shit). If it needs a bait box I've no chance.

Have you considered getting a terrier or adopting a hard to home feral cat or even a feral cat family? I'm surprised that you don't have a load of foxes if you're rural. What about an electronic rat deterrent? It means you won't have to keep killing them incessantly.

If the rats aren't coming onto your property, I'd leave them to get on with it. If not contact the council who, unless the legislation has been repealed, have a duty to deal with neighbour nuisance and vermin problems. My local council used to treat rat and mice infestations foc, they no longer do because of austerity. But it doesn't seem right that you should pay anything when your neighbour's are the source and/or the cause of the problem. Ntm scattering poison around is a bit reckless. The baits are usually dyed bright blue so your neighbours might see them.

See what the council says, I hope they'll help, they should.