RATS! Help how do we get rid of them (ongoing problem - London)

[threefeethighandrising]

Help! We have rats in the floorboards between my flat (which I rent to a friend) and the flat above. It's a converted Victorian house in London. We've had the council in to kill them several times and a private company too but they keep coming back.

They're causing loads of damage and costing a fortunes - probably approaching £2k between me and my neighbour so far ...

They've chewed through the wiring for example, which we've had to redo twice (and it's gone again now) which involves making - and repairing - a hole in the ceiling. Also it's costing £300 a time to get them taken away.

Can anyone give me any words of advice?

If anyone could recommend a company which will help us find out how they're coming in that would be great. The council and the company we've used just lay poison and take the dead bodies away (which stink!) but they don't help find the entry point.

Help! They seem to be spreading / getting worse. The top flat is complaining they can smellthem now.

Sorry I should have said it's costing £300 a time for poison to be laid and for the bodies to be taken away.

Are you the ground floor flat? Might they be coming up from the sewers?

We're in the basement and you're right, I reckon they're definitely coming up from the sewers. I read something recently that said the amount of rats in London sewers had been overestimated - it's only 23 million (not 60 million as they thought before.

Only 23 million?!

The question is how they're getting in.

I've been reading scary things about how when extensions are built, if old drains aren't properly capped off before being build over then they can become highways to the sewers.

Cowboy builders often just chuck down a bag of cement to block the old drain, but rats can chew through those over time apparently.

Really we need a rat company who will help us work out where they're getting in, not just keep killing them and taking them away - this could go on forever!

I wonder if anyone else has had rats and won?!

You need to get everyone in all the flats together and preferably the neighbours to and agree a long term plan for dealing with them.

Rats will scent and return every year to locations so disinfecting round all areas. Rubbish kept really tidy. We have metal bins here since they chewed through the plastic ones [yuck face]. No card board boxes, clutter lying around for them to hide behind.

Get some bait boxes and a big tub of blue poison food and leave them down permantly, topping up every now and again.

Dead rats, pick up in a double plastic bag and bin, the first one is the worst, after that it gets easier and spend the money saved on shoes/handbags/whatever floats your boat.

Go over every inch of your property plugging smal/medium/large gaps where there are any gaps in the walls, use wire kitchen scourers in gaps with cement.

Horrid situation, I steam clean and never let the kids eat blue sweets.

We're winning battles here but the war continues.

Get a terrier. Or a ferret.

The only way to get rid it to find out how they are getting in and out. All holes etc will need to be blocked up. I used stopmice. Expensive but worth it. Work is guaranteed for a year and they will come back any number of times during the year. Bate and traps can encourage them and not solve the problem.

These two companies are excellent.

I had the council out and they recommended these companies

Bate, traps and poison do not solve the problem.

www.stop-mice.com

superproof.co.uk/how-to-get-rid-of-mice/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIv-b-tL2m2gIVrL_tCh1joA6jEAAYASAAEgLBpPD_BwE

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