Living next to a river

[Spottyhousecoat]

We are looking at a property that backs onto woodland and a river. Behind the boundary fence is a 5/6 foot drop then a pathway and 30 foot of woodland then it drops around 80 feet to the river. I'm not worried about flooding as it's a big drop what I am worried about is rats, I'm terrified of rats this would put me right off. Do you live near a river and do you have rats around the garden?

Check house insurance cost. My nephew bought a house and due to being within 2 miles of a river his premiums were very high

My house is next to a canal. I've lived here for 17 years and never seen a rat.

I live next to a river in a rural area. I’ve never seen a rat, but there are tons of mice. Sometimes it’s like a Disney cartoon in my kitchen/living room - next door’s cat snoring on the sofa while a mouse dances a jig on the washing machine.

I have humane mouse traps, but haven’t managed to stop the little blighters getting in in the first place.

I would be more concerned about having children living in such close proximity to water than rats.

If you really hate rats get a border terrier

We have bats too. Love sitting in the garden in the evening and watching them dart about.

I'm kidding myself that I'm a country person!

You are apparently never more than 10ft from a rat.
We live between 2 rivers, our neighbours have chickens ,we have a large compost heap and we live in a village. Periodically see rats running between the greenhouse and the pond. Put down some poison. They take it back to the nest and poison the rest.

You will have lots more flies if you live near a river

On one of my first dates with my now husband, we went out for dinner in my local city and then he walked me back to my car ( Riverside carpark). As we were chatting he said ' I didn't realise hedgehogs had such long tails'. Those aren't hedgehogs they're very big rats. They were all over the carpark.

My friend lives near a canal and has rats.

Don't have bird feeders.

Our neighbours keep a few chickens, that attracts rats so I suppose bird feeders do too. However we have a weasel living in the wall near our bird feeder so don't get rats in our garden. 😉

I live alongside a canal and the neighbours put out bird feeders. I've never seen a rat but we have loads of squirrels. We get midges and mosquitos in summer but not flies as such. Nobody has ever fallen in because there are railings.

We chose the house because of the beautiful location and haven't regretted it. There is some terrible scaremongering on this thread.

Rats are part of the ecosystem so you just have to learn how to not attract them onto your property.

I lived next to a canal and with two rivers in close proximity, and we had one rat in the garden once, and one in the compost heap but that was after I chucked a load of fermented wine solids into it in one go.

So just don't chuck cooked food into your compost bin, and don't leave food for them around [like birdseed or bread] and you should be fine.

Maybe not rats if you don't also anything to attract them, but in the countryside you will see voles, shrews and mice of various types. I saw a mouse run across our lane yesterday morning.
For me the biggest joy of living in the countryside is the sunrises and sunsets and then the wildlife.

It’s actually illegal to release rats.

We don’t have a river that close by, but we do have woodlands.
A rat has been in my shed over the winter and eaten my grass seed. You will get rats anywhere.

I live closish to a river 100m and open fields. Rats can be a problem if there is food (bird feeders, chickens, compost heap.) No food and they live in the fields / riverbanks and don’t bother us ) I have a cat / dog though. Absolutely loads of shrews where we are. You often see them darting across the field and the owls scream when hunting them.

Loads of houses are within 2 miles of a river. I’m about half a mile away. As are hundreds of houses in my town. It doesn’t make any difference to your premiums unless the river floods.

They’ll be rats that live outside,unlikely to come up to the house unless you feed the birds or leave rubbish out. The only time we’ve seen rats in garden was bird feeding. Same for friend who has river in garden.

My Mum had loads of rats but she fed the birds. A house near me got infested but the woman near them was throwing food out for urban foxes on to the ground and they had a nice big shed that was easy for the rats to nest under the floor.

I most often see a rat crossing the rd in a nearby town about 1/2 mile from the nearest stream. I also live away from rivers but my cat managed to kill a rat last year.
They will be near you where ever you live - just discourage them by not leaving readily accessible food around.

I tried to get Environmental Health to come out but they haven’t visited. Our council’s pest control department has shut so I think the rat problem is only going to get worse :(

We back onto woods and a river (well, more a large beck) but it's a much bigger drop (about 9 metres). Nonetheless we've had rats in our garden.