We have rats

[CaipirinhasAllRound]

and they stink! We spent yesterday taking down part of our kitchen ceiling and didn't find any but did find a ton of poo. Sealed the holes and then heard them in a different part of the ceiling
Anyone had rats and got rid if them?

get the council exterminators in if they are in the building (eek!)

Ring a pest control person! Google "pest control" and your town.

Had the council guy over twice already. As they're somewhere in the single storey extension (done pre-us) and not actually inside the house he can't really do anything as he couldn't get in the ceiling to.put down traps, hence us pulling down the plaster board. He couldn't see how they are getting in but could tell they're rats from the smell - gross

Bleh. Horrid. We had rats about seven years ago (under our floorboards and coming in through the cupboard under the stairs). We got a guy round who offered us a deal where we paid him the price of two visits and he would come back as many times as needed. It took him two visits to get rid of them. You need poison, not traps. They will take the poison back to their nest to feed on and die there or if you are lucky they will go outside to die (in search of water - the poison apparently makes them thirsty). One died under our floorboards. It was GRIM.

You do need someone to seal up entrances etc, though - our chap put metal things over any potential entrances into the house which made me feel better even if it didn't do any good.

Did he put any poison into the roof space? We had them in ours and the council chap put blocks of poison threaded onto wire into our roof space. That sorted them out straightaway. A couple of years later they returned and we discovered that they were going up the water butt piping into the roof so once that was moved all was fine. That said, I went to a farm supplier and bought some more poison. We keep some in the loft just in case but we havent had any of the buggers for years now.

I'll send round my little cat she is relentless till the problem is cleared. Never eats them just single fatal blow and can kill rats up to a third of her body weight.

We rented a house once that turned out to have rats. They were also in the ceiling and it turned out they'd chewed all the wiring there (which explained why our lightbulbs were blowing so often) and that the electrics were only luck away from setting fire to the whole house. The electrician was horrified and we had to be moved out within 24 hours. We never actually saw or heard a rat and it's possible the damage had been done before we moved in and that the rats were long gone. The whole house had to be rewired - I'd suggest getting an electrician to assess the safety of the wiring for rat chewing - though they probably won't do it until the rats and poo have been cleared. Get a smoke alarm if you don't have one.

You need to assess where they're getting in (remember they squash down their bodies and can wriggle into surprisingly small spaces) and obviously be extremely careful if you're using poison and have kids or animals in the house.

Yes you need to 'build them out'. Find out how they get in and block it. No other way. Everything else a sticking plaster. Once you've done that, to clear the ones currently in your house,use a glue book. Horrid but efficient.

do you or your neighbours have a rat-table bird table? Rats appreciate people who put rat food bird food out for them regularly. They will also feast on pet dishes and spillage, or petfood in sheds.

They also need constant access to water, so look out for dripping or leaking taps or pipes and gutters.

I have never had them in the house, but relentless poison, removing food sources, and blocking holes with concrete cleared some of out of DMs garden.

Sorry if this offends anyone but I'm a country girl.A decent rating dog.Smoke bomb from DIY shop and let loose the dog job done.

You need to check along the outside of your walls for any holes and plug them in when plugging in holes you need to fill them with wire wool as they cannot chew through that.

My parents had rats in the attic took 6 months to get rid of them and one died in the cavity wall because of poison and stank out a bedroom for weeks on end it was nasty!

I used glue boards - not very humane I know but my parents were desperate and caught two on them - you need to check them everyday so you can kill them quickly so they don't suffer, we just dropped them into a bucket of water. We used traps as well heard one go off but he managed to get free - didn't find traps useful glue boards more effective as we put them on the same path they ran along in the attic and they just got stuck.

Until you work out how they are getting in they will keep coming back.