AIBU to worry about children in the garden after rat poison?

[RatsRatsRatss]

Help! My neighbour knocked on my door yesterday to tell me she had found a bucket of 4 drowned rats in her garden and she’s called pest control. I’ve moved any rubbish bags and bought big bins for the black bags. I did find a hole in my fence where they might be going in between properties.

My concern is now - I’m pretty sure that pest control have put poison in her garden so is it safe to let my children out the garden? My concern is my youngest who puts everything in his mouth and a rat bringing a bit of poisoned food into our garden.

Ive got an appointment but it’s not for another two weeks. How long until it might be safe for my kids to play out? The person I booked appointment with didn’t know. 🐀

The freakiest thing is that she said it wasn’t her bucket but a neighbour had placed it there with the dead rats in! 😱

We had rats in our garden before. I did ask similar as I was worried about other wildlife/neighbour's pets (not so much about my kids as they are old enough to know better!) And he said it has an incredibly bitter taste that no other creature would go near. It was very specific poison though so it is worth checking that's also the case for what they will use.

Also they get placed strategically (under patio in our case) and it gets fixed in place for that very reason, so they can't start carrying it around and dropping it everywhere.

You can get rat station traps that are child and pet safe.

These are brutal though and cause a long, slow, painful death.

I know they are “only” rats but even so, it’s inhumane.

as pp have said it’s almost unheard of for children to get rat poison, pest controllers no where to place it so they are inaccessible. It’s also small amounts so not enough to poison a larger animal.

even, absolutely worst case scenario, your dog/cat/child did manage to grab a significant amount and eat it, there’s a simple and effective antidote- vitamin K.

Pest control place the poison in little “stations” or boxes that are not accessible for pets and children.

When we had rats they put the bait in locked boxes. The bait blocks were square with a hole through the middle and threaded onto a little pole .that way the rats nibble the blocks but can’t drag them off. They cause intense thirst so rats look for water hopefully disappearing off to a sewer but a bucket would do. I bc wonder if someone else has been poisoning and holds neighbour responsible hence the bucket?

The rat stations are bated with rat bait.