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Original poster

Question for anyone who has had rats (and not as a pet!!)

32 replies

moonshine · 09/03/2006 17:13

How long did it take you to get rid of it/them?
Seems we have a ratty intruder (please God let it only be one), so we got the Council pest control in and they put down poison 10 days ago. But the b**s still have not touched it (even though we know they have been where it is).
I have never swept and cleaned so much to make sure that it there is no other food source, and we are really trying to to block off all points of entry.
I am an absolute wuss when it comes to rodents and am constantly on a knife-edge atm (especially when I can hear it gnawing away in our bedroom, even if it is under the floorboards - I hope). It has also 'stolen' pan scourers and a soft ball and tired nesting with them under the cooker Shock.
I want to feel happy in my house again and sleepSad. Please please tell me they will eat the poison and die soon.

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Original poster
moonshine · 09/03/2006 17:50

Am I really the only one or are you all cowering atop of your sofas like me?

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WickedViperWitch · 09/03/2006 17:51

Oh god, we had a normous rat, pest control came and it died, can't remember how long it took, sorry.

poppiesinaline · 09/03/2006 17:51

we had rats in our old house - well they were in the garden. They had dug a tunnel from the drains up into the side of our patio. The rat man came (very tasty rat man I have to say! Blush ) and put down poison. And came again 2 weeks later to check. They had eaten poison. Phew.

BUT a few weeks later we spotted another rat in our garden :( Called the rat man again.... and he put more poison down and then DH put cement down their tunnel and that was the end of that!!

nasty things.. Poor u.

Original poster
moonshine · 09/03/2006 17:56

Eek! Thanks for replying poppiesinaline and WickedViperWitch (? must go read that thread now to see what you are all up to). Please, don't want to know that they are not really soft small cuddly creatures. I have a dread of coming upon It and It being the size of a cat!

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Pastarito · 09/03/2006 18:53

We had a rat (old victorian house). My cat ran away from it and it screeched at me! It turned out to be more than one (as they reproduce every 2 weeks you have to get rid of them fast) and they had got in through old crumbling cement between the bricks - they only need a small gap. Our council were rubbish and had a 3 week waiting list for someone to come round and put the poison out so we had to call a private pest control company out who put down poison in 4 places - garden, kitchen x 2 places(behind units)and loft (as they climb and can get in through holes higher up).

It took about 10 days to poison them out (3 of them that we saw). We then had to repoint the wall and my dh found a hole in pipes underground (this is also common with this kind of problem - check for that too).

The poison should have worked by now. They are intelligent so will leave it to start with but as long as you don't touch it or move it, after 3 days they should start taking it.

Your council should have a follow up service to rectify this - they should put more poison down/different type of poison etc. Good luck!

Once the little offenders are out you need to find all holes possible and concrete them up.

Original poster
moonshine · 09/03/2006 20:08

Thanks Pastarito, you have given me a glimmer of hope. And over a glass of wine tonight dh and I have declared war on the bugger! Am still hoping that it is a rogue rat that is not making babies. The last flat I lived in was infested with mice which we never managed to get rid of (despite 4 years of trying). Not sure which I prefer tbh, because mice seem to enjoy bedding in and always seem to come in large packs.

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poppiesinaline · 09/03/2006 21:04

PMSL Pastarito at the cat running away!!! That sounds like my cat!!

themoon66 · 09/03/2006 21:06

We have just got over a major rat problem. We have cow sheds behind our garden and when the cows moved out recently, the rats decided to move over the fence into our garden. The council wanted to charge us a fortune to sort it out. As they weren't our rats, we argued the farm should pay and so the farm did get the bill (asylum seeker rats I reckon). Trouble is the weak pathetic poison put down by the council was hopeless and the rat problem dragged on for months. They got in my neighbours car and chewed her brake pipes and fuel lines. We had to park our cars away from the houses in the end. Finally - the happy ending - I sweet-talked the local gamekeeper to put down his serious poison. it comes in the form of yellow wax blocks. Did the trick in a day or so. Hope you get sorted soon - rats are truely horrible creatures. :-(

Blu · 09/03/2006 21:26

If your council won't put poison down for free, you can just buy the same stuff v cheaply in good harware shops, anyway.

Sorry they haven't eaten the poison yet monshine. Brace yourself for a new problem when they do: dead rat smell!

Original poster
moonshine · 09/03/2006 21:40

Shock at chewing through brake pipes. The Rat Man did ask if our lights had been flickering but luckily we have a modern electricity trip system so, even if they did go for the wires, it wouldn't start a fire (hopefully).

The Council poison is free but obviously of an inferior quality (obviously more KFC than Gordan Ramsey). I may regret saying this but I feel I could cope more with the smell of a dead rat than a live running wild one, although I gather the smell is fearsome.

Dh has now put a trap down tonight and I cannot get over the size of it, gulp.

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Original poster
moonshine · 09/03/2006 21:41

Gordon of course, sigh.

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themoon66 · 10/03/2006 13:15

Once youve got rid of them, buy yourself rodent repel screechers. They plug in and you cant hear them, but the rats can and they stay away. When I found rats in my outhouse I put a screecher up and they literally shit themselves (unfortunately for my outhouse floor!) I now have a screecher in the outhouse, one in the garage and one in my conservatory. However, you can't use them in houses where you keep rodents as pets as it would obviously torture the poor things (gerbils, mice, rats, guinea pigs too I think). Anyway - I think I paid about £30 for 3 screechers. They look like Glade plug-ins with a little red light on. Totally unobtrusive.

Normsnockers · 10/03/2006 13:26

Re the smell of dead rat,

A friend tells of the rodent problem at her place of work where the offending rodents snuggled up to the inaccesible (without ripping out the office wall) bit of the hot water pipes in their poisoned dying state. Apparently it stank and the pest control department sprayed rodent deodorant to mask the smell until the bodies had dried out sufficiently not to be smelly anymore.

Honestly I kid you not.

themoon66 · 10/03/2006 14:13

Oh god Norm. I work in a hospital and we re-opened one of the old buildings as an office. It stank really really bad despite spraying everywhere and shampooing carpets etc. Finally, works department came and had a look coz we said we could smell rodent and thought we had a rat problem. They looked down under the pipes under the floor with a long fiberoptic thing and said 'well you DID have a rat problem'. They meant they were all dead down there and no way to get em out! Yeuk. We had to put up with the smell until they dried out and shrivelled away. Urgh urgh!

Waswondering · 10/03/2006 14:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Flossam · 10/03/2006 14:20

vomit.

WickedViperWitch · 10/03/2006 14:24

Pest control man told me yesterday 'if there's a smell, get an air freshener' eewww and this is just mice atm. Sympathy.

wannaBe1974 · 10/03/2006 14:59

rats are also very partial to chocolate so you can put the poison on the chocolate and wait for them to take that, or alternatively you can put chocolate in a trap and ... snappity snap snap bye bye rat. I think that both poison and traps have their downsides, traps are very quick, very effective, as long as the rats aren't too clever and can get the food without triggering them (maybe put poisoned chocolate in the trap so that if they get out of the trap they'll still die). But if the trap kills the rats then you have to deal with the dead bodies, and those traps can be brutal (my parents had mice and when they cleared their trap one day the trap had choppped off the mouse's head), so body retrieval can be horrible (but that's what DH's are for), and poison is horrible becaus you know there are things dying somewhere in your house and will shortly be decomposing.

bigbaubleeyes · 10/03/2006 15:59

Oh the smell .... I lived in a shareds house and we had two rats decompose right under the doorway between the kitchen and living room - the smell is unbearable but it does go away somewhat. We got burgled not long after that so we all had to move.

Do try and find the body or else you won't wnat to cook or eat for days and will spend o fortune on doinf alternatives (well we did but mainly went to pub)

Good Luck Smile

Sallystrawberry · 10/03/2006 16:09

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
moonshine · 10/03/2006 23:20

Presume I won't be able to mistake the smell of a dead rat then! Lol at the thought of rat deodorant - it may die somewhere inaccessible, but it will be a sweet-smelling decomposing rat! I can laugh now but won't be once I am lying in bed in the dark.

Lucifer the Trap has been set with a nice bit of twix - putting poison on it was a good idea, dammit, and I shall make dh do that tomorrow maybe (if he dare touch the thing again).

Thanks for all your help and sympathies. Here's hoping for a better night here....and a quiet one for you all (who's going to be listening out for scrabbling noises now, eh Grin).

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Mirage · 11/03/2006 09:12

We have rats in our out buildings.I have seen them running around the garden in broad daylight.First I borrowed my neighbours dog,but she chased them as far as their nest & couldn't get to it.Since then I have used poison & have also chased them up the garden trying to hit them with a spade if I see them!

They have taken the poison,but are still around.They ignored the traps I set,so I'll have to carry on with the poison.

Next door caught 5 rats by setting traps baited with banana.Apparently rats love bananas.

My neighbour rang me the other day to ask if I'd got the air rifle handy as there was a big rat that had run from her garden to mine.It turned out to be a stoat,which we are all really pleased about-they kill rats,so hopefully it will solve our vermin problem.

My animal loving friend said that I shouldn't worry about rats,as they don't cause many problems or much damage,& I should just leave them alone!Shock

tinyFox · 11/03/2006 09:25

do sympathise with you in my old house we had mice and it was awful listening to the scratching as it seemed to live in the oven.

Get rid of them as quick as you can, you seem to have done the right thing by calling pest control.

themoon66 · 11/03/2006 09:28

Don't cause any damage???? Your animal loving friend obviously has never had rat problem then. They literally ate 6 inches off the bottom of my outhouse door and then ate through the metal bottom of my old chest freezer. They got in my neighbour's car and ate through her fuel lines and brake pipes. So, no, I cannot agree that that they don't cause damage!! And in the case of the brake pipes - bloody dangerous damage!

Original poster
moonshine · 11/03/2006 10:31

Mirage -[ shock] at your friend. I would be happy to leave them alone if they left me alone! Especially hate they way they have been trying to hoard my pan scourers and ds's ball under the cooker. I dread looking under there to see what else they have procured. Don't they eat through cables as well?

If the choc doesn't work in the next few days I shall try some banana then. Will let you know if our fussy rat takes to that. Thanks!

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