Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Property/DIY

Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

Original poster

There is a rat (or rats) in my mum's garden. Neighbours are scruffs and keep leaving food out for them. What to do?

37 replies

RatinGarden · 20/02/2023 13:30

Hi all. My mum has spotted a rat running across her back garden twice in the last three days. She is unsettled by its presence and is understandably very concerned about the possibility of it finding its way into the house. It's a small terrace house. There is a neighbour on one side who throws bread in their back garden every day, and the neighbour on the other side occasionally does the same thing. Can their numbers be controlled by putting rat poison and/or traps down yourself or does it typically need a pest control firm? The local council will only put one trap down and there is a waiting list of 6 weeks for them to even come out. Also, while she has only seen one rat, I realise that there will almost certainly be more of them. It might have been the same rat twice or a different rat both times.

OP posts:
cocksstrideintheevening · 20/02/2023 13:51

We had big issues with rats under our decking. The only think that has made Roland and co disappear is my next door neighbours getting a cat...

ZeldaWillTellYourFortune · 20/02/2023 13:59

Poison is terribly painful to them. They are as smart & feeling as dogs.

They hate peppermint oil. Buy a big bottle of 100 percent oil on Amazon and spray it on the fences etc.

Rats need a great deal of water each day. Empty bird baths, standing water. Pick up dog waste.

My cousin who feeds the birds tried rat contraception ContraPest with success.

pestpurge.co.uk/modern-solution-rat-problems/

C4tastrophe · 20/02/2023 14:39

Poison is very dangerous, not only for the rats.
Rats are everywhere, I’d try and calm her down. They are not going to get in the house.

rbe78 · 20/02/2023 14:41

Would she be so upset about squirrels? It's just a couple of rats living outside, in nature, where they belong.

(If they come in her house though - fire and brimstone time!!)

WiIson · 20/02/2023 14:42

Won't the council do anything about the neighbours behaviour?

Pureradio · 20/02/2023 14:44

You're never more than 10ft from a rat

Picklypickles · 20/02/2023 14:46

There's a river and fields behind our row of houses, for years there were always rats but none ever got into our house. The council came out several times over the years but the rats always came back fairly soon. The only thing that's stopped them is us getting cats.

Poison is awful, it will poison everything else that comes into contact with it too.

Greentree1 · 20/02/2023 14:46

People feed the birds and don't realise they're feeding the rats too. Tell the neighbours about the problem? Get a cat is a good idea although ours would bring them in dead or alive sometimes!

OhNoNotThatAgain · 20/02/2023 14:50

Ring the local council environmental health department for advice.

ZeldaWillTellYourFortune · 20/02/2023 15:52

Poisoning rats means the food chain is poisoned; if a domestic cat or wild bird/animal eats the dead rat, it will die too.

Also, think about the service rats have done for humankind, in biomedical and other research. They are meek, intelligent little creatures. Did you hear about the one that actually received a medal for its life-saving service in sniffing out landmines? www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59951255

SilentHedges · 20/02/2023 16:06

Everything everyone above has said about poison, don't do it, it's cruel and a horrendous way to die, even if you don't care about the rat, you should care that the poison can be ingested by dogs, cats, other wildlife, and will go into the food chain. Rats are highly intelligent and sentient, on a par with dogs.

Personally, I think this is a total over reaction. It's one rat. It's outside doing what rats do. It's not in the house. If the neighbours are putting out food for the birds etc, then it has no need to come into the house. Rats are everywhere all the time regardless.

If you must do something use humane traps.

C4tastrophe · 20/02/2023 16:16

Unless she calls and says ‘There’s a rat in me kitchen, what ama gonna do’ don’t do anything. The cats and foxes will get them.

LadyOfTheCanyon · 20/02/2023 16:24

Can you speak to your neighbour and explain the situation?

Rats don't like their environment changed as they use the same runs all the time. So moving garden furniture, plant pots etc around and disrupting their runs ( which will be along fences, walls, sheds etc) might be enough to get them to move along.

Fairysilver · 20/02/2023 16:37

Poisoning rats means the food chain is poisoned; if a domestic cat or wild bird/animal eats the dead rat, it will die too.

We had a rat in the roof. Paid a private pest controller to deal with it. There are pesticide they use now that do not cause secondary poisoning but you can't buy them OTC only for professional use.

JessicaBrassica · 20/02/2023 16:49

We had a rat problem. They were living behind our chicken run. We confined the chickens for a couple of days and took the run down. The local dat population dealt with them very effectively!

ZeldaWillTellYourFortune · 20/02/2023 17:02

Fairysilver · 20/02/2023 16:37

Poisoning rats means the food chain is poisoned; if a domestic cat or wild bird/animal eats the dead rat, it will die too.

We had a rat in the roof. Paid a private pest controller to deal with it. There are pesticide they use now that do not cause secondary poisoning but you can't buy them OTC only for professional use.

It's still painful and cruel. Believe me, I have searched in vain for a humane lethal method.

TheOtherHotstepper · 20/02/2023 17:11

Build an extension! As soon as the work started, we didn't see another rat!

Also, don't be so sure that they won't come inside. My friend left her patio doors open and Roland came in for a look round, while the resident cat slept on.

TooSmallForTheMembrane · 20/02/2023 17:14

Where there are people, there are rats. It’s no different to having badgers, squirrels etc. in your garden. Get her a cat if it bothers her.

IloveRickyGervaisAndHisTeeth · 20/02/2023 17:17

ZeldaWillTellYourFortune · 20/02/2023 15:52

Poisoning rats means the food chain is poisoned; if a domestic cat or wild bird/animal eats the dead rat, it will die too.

Also, think about the service rats have done for humankind, in biomedical and other research. They are meek, intelligent little creatures. Did you hear about the one that actually received a medal for its life-saving service in sniffing out landmines? www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59951255

this

SirVixofVixHall · 20/02/2023 17:18

Picklypickles · 20/02/2023 14:46

There's a river and fields behind our row of houses, for years there were always rats but none ever got into our house. The council came out several times over the years but the rats always came back fairly soon. The only thing that's stopped them is us getting cats.

Poison is awful, it will poison everything else that comes into contact with it too.

Agree with this. I always have rats in my garden, I do feed he birds which doesn’t help, but there were already rats here when I moved in. There is a stream close by, and lots of gardens close together. I have never had one come into the house .

jmh740 · 20/02/2023 17:21

WiIson · 20/02/2023 14:42

Won't the council do anything about the neighbours behaviour?

Like what? Do you really want people to stop feeding birds/wildlife?

ZeldaWillTellYourFortune · 20/02/2023 17:23

Rats need to ingest something like the equivalent of 10 percent of their body mass every day in water. Water attracts them, so if you want to discourage them, empty dog / cat bowls that are in the garden, and anything else they can drink from.

When I had rats I also regretfully emptied the bird baths each night and refilled in the morning, which made me sad for the other life but it did discourage the rats. Eventually, I was able to resume providing water for other wildlife.

Peppermint oil does discourage them, sprayed around the base of sheds, walls, fences. Humanely.

CheeseDreamsTonight · 20/02/2023 17:27

Chocolate mint is great at discouraging them. I discovered this by accident. Also, birds have no chilli receptors in their taste buds so chuck a load of dried chilli in with any bird seed and the rats won't like it.

I also live in a terrace with neighbours ground feeding birds, I hang a feeder out front, and have a table. We have a stream nearby too. They're just doing their thing and we're not overrun. The neighbours cat has picked a few off recently too.

CheeseDreamsTonight · 20/02/2023 17:27

Good tip about the water

TodayInahurry · 20/02/2023 17:33

My friend has a neighbour who feeds foxes, a lot of food every pm. The friend got rats in her house, her husband had to do a great deal of work to block everything off. The council won’t do anything about the fox feeding