Gardener found a dead rat outside.

[MumTeapot5]

Hi everyone.
I need someone to calm me down or something 🤷🏼‍♀️
As the title says my gardener has been around for my monthly maintenance visit and while deweeding my raised flower bed and pulling off the ivory on the garden wall growing over from next doors garden he has found a dead rat in there. Looks like it may have been poisoned as it was intact 🤢 I’ve spoken to both my neighbours who we are friendly with to ask if they know of any issues on the street and both have said none that they are aware of, I guess I’m just freaked out where it’s came from and now I’m walking around my house checking for any entry points and hoping if they are about that they can’t actually get into my house!
Rats are my biggest fear and the thought of them has me freaking out.
Please help and put my mind at ease!

Trust me I won’t be going out my way looking for them, this one just appeared and was found by my gardener

Good 🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀

Did the pestcontrol guy say which rat was it?

Roland hasn’t been spotted in a while

Our rats are very good at chasing pigeons off the lawn. So that’s one benefit.

😂

Oh, I saw a herringull eat a rat in a Tesco carpark recently!

Hahaha. If you don't control their numbers, you'll end up with thousands which you'll have to kill off. Is that more humane than killing10?

Rats are everywhere! Don't they say you're never more than 10 feet from a rat at any given time? We've had the odd dead rat in the garden, I just assume they've either been killed by a cat or poisoned. As long as they don't come in the house, I'm not bothered!

I went around behind my house today as it backs on a drainage gully and then the back of another house( our garden is in front over the driveway). I saw my first rat it was dead & intact lying there and I have deducted that one of the neighbourhood cats must have clobbered him. I welcome them into my garden for this very reason. We are a rural farming village so there are mice and rats everywhere. They’re part of the ecosystem. I don’t want them in my home though and don’t hesitate to prevent them coming in. If they get into your home, you’d know within a few days. Same with things like squirrels in the attic. You hear them. Heck I heard when a deathwatch beetle was in the eaves of the terrace one night and hunted him down the next day.

I have a cat who is an excellent hunter and at one time, this was a daily occurrence for me. Came home one day to her snapping the bones off a dead rat in the middle of the living room floor. It's a good job she's cute.

I once saw a seagull trying to pick up and eat a pigeon that was sitting in the road because it had been hit by a car and stunned.

Yes rats do tend to live outside. They are everywhere.
My cats bring them in dead or alive and present them to me. They are a bugger to catch, I use a fishing net.

We had a lot of mice in the house. They used to sit on top of the cooker eating the leftovers off the baking trays. Very cute but they do leave little packages everywhere.

Rats are everywhere. So long as they’re not in your house you’re golden.

Don't put poison down OP, it will painfully kill wildlife and cats. You could get a survey of possible entry points to your house and get them blocked. Rats are everywhere but they like to stay out of sight. You were unlucky to find this one.

Just put normal traps out. We baited ours with chocolate and the one I saw twice running along outside the French doors was dead within 48 hours. No heed to use poison - far too risky for people’s pets.

My cat brought me one last week.

You must be glad you didnt move into my last house then. After I moved to Somerset my old neighbour rang me to say the council had found a network of rat tunnels under all the houses in the cul de sac and the rats were climbing up the inner walls of the houses and popping up in bedrooms. They had a hell of a job getting rid of them.
They were properly big. I didnt see any before I left but then I have cats.

I don't know why you'd jump to the idea of it being poisoned rather than just very recently deceased. We all have to die somewhere. As long as it was outside I don't think you need to worry. If you were to get an indoor infestation you would hear them in the walls.

Ah, so that’s why we are all literally knee deep in rats …oh, wait…no…no, we’re not.

Don't be so bloody ridiculous, they're as common as flies, it doesn't mean you will ever have them in the house or getting in or anywhere near you.
And do not understand any circumstances put poison down: its inefficient as rats get immune, ineffective as rats are usually too smart and an indiscriminate poisoner of wildlife. Everything from moles, shrews, red kites, buzzards, cats and dogs will be at risk.

I used to work for a water and sewerage company.
One of my colleagues in the sewerage side said that rats are just like you and I. They like a nice warm bed!!! Common places for them nest is under sheds and in compost bins -basically anywhere dry. They just use sewers as a path.

It’s all those selfish arseholes feeding bread to ducks, of course. 😊

In my local park, there’s a sign telling people not to do this, and it has some cartoon rats on it. Someone wrote on one “but they are so cute”.