Am I just going to invite rats with decking?

[AdditionalCharacter]

I live in a mid terrace, so access to my back garden is through the house. This reduces the amount of work I can get done.

Garden backs on to allotments, and my cats have killed the odd mouse or rat.

Ideally we wanted to pave a patio, but impossible to get any digging gear in, so was thinking about decking for the full length of the house, and about 12 foot long wide.

Am I just inviting rats in to live there?

Decking would cover part concrete part grass area.

As an aside, my partner replaced the deck last year as it was getting very rickety. There is no point paying for hardwood deck if the underneath is just treated soft wood as the soft wood deteriorates faster. We bought softwood on special offer from Jewsons and made sure we dipped any cut ends of the support wood into preserver before fixing into place on the concrete supports. My beautiful, new deck will last forever, but we sold the house 3 months later ...

Go ahead and get your decking. If there are rats around there isn't a lot you can do to deter them.

We have a very long raised patio with brick walls on 3 sides and the house on the 4th side. It's covered with stone flags. It's about 9 foot off floor level. Underneath is a steel grid framework, filled in with hard core and then concrete poured over the hard core. It's probably the most rodent proof structure imaginable. We still see the occasional rat out there though!