rat problem...losing the will to live...

[misspollysdolly]

Title says it all really...

What started as a mouse problems as soon as the autumn set in has now become a rat prolem and it is becoming significant. They are in our kitchen and the dirt (not dropings...droppings I can cope with really...no this is GRIME, presumebly from their feet and fur...BOAK!) which gets everywhere. They are active throughout the night, knocking things over and if they can, getting every speck of food going. We have de-fooded our kitchen as far as possible, I start the day cleaning all worktops with antibac spray so that I can use the kitchen for food prep, but as of last night they are definitely now in our dining room, living room, hallway etc and I feel in total despair today, plus completely ashamed that we have this problem.

Does anyone have any tips, advice or experience in this area. I feel totally at a loss as to what to do or how to sort it. We live in an inner city old terraced house with a cellar running under our whole house. The rats are gnawing their way in and as fast as we fill holes with wire wool and other things, they are springing up from somewhere else. Totally despairing.

Get the Council man out to sort it, we did.

And then if you can get a cat. This is what we did, apparently the presence of a predator can be enough. Though given that my cat spends at least 80% of her time asleep I can't see why they are afraid! But it seems to work.

Its not your fault, these old houses are the way they are.

I would rather clean the litter tray once a day than worry about rats near my babies!

Urrgghh it's horrible isn't it. Nothing to be ashaned of though.

We had a serious problem with them at our last house. It was old and in the countryside and they came in through the tumble dryer outlet vent. Blardy things.

Rentokil came in put down loads of poison under the kitchen units and in the loft space.

The only thing I've found work totally is cats. As many of them as you can house and particularly female cats. Usually great hunters.

Agree with Yurtgirl, I would be surprised if you have rats and mice together think it's fairly unusual. I would think it more likely to be a baby rat.

Good luck.

bring in the exterminators - if you are lucky, your local Environmental Health Office will do it for a small fee, if not it will haev to be rentokil. They have MUCH stronger poison than you can buy over the counter.

I had a bad rat problem a few years back - the EHO came weekly to refresh the poison for 4 weeks - that = a lot of rats, apparently! She also said that it's important not to disturb their "rat runs" as they are creatues of habit so to ensure maximum effect of the poison, place it along their runs and then don't move anything else - it will take a couple of days for them to even start eating it.

Get a cat- when we moved into a house there were lots of mice.
Got a cat and she killed the lot. In our present house she regularly killed enormous rats from the railway at the back and sometimes presented them to me as a trophy - ugh. But a live one would never dare come in the garden She was very good hunter. Sadly the hunter died after 13 happy yrs. The other cat who is the exact opposite nature but still kills mice at 15yrs.
If you can borrow a jack russell first and then get a cat it might solve all problems.

Make sure all poison and poisoned rats are gone if you get cats as it is horrible if they eat one.