Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Property/DIY

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

Rat Catcher

12 replies

RatFans26 · 05/05/2026 21:51

How long after the rat catcher has put bait boxes in the roof space do you stop hearing the little buggers and they all die?

OP posts:
Wot23 · 07/05/2026 09:24

get in the loft yourself and see if any bait has actually been eaten.
If it has, pray to the gods they go an die outside your house or you can expect hoards of flies hatching from the maggots and an awful smell for 2 - 3 days

RatFans26 · 07/05/2026 10:14

Wot23 · 07/05/2026 09:24

get in the loft yourself and see if any bait has actually been eaten.
If it has, pray to the gods they go an die outside your house or you can expect hoards of flies hatching from the maggots and an awful smell for 2 - 3 days

Very helpful - not.
If I could get in the loft I would have put the bait down myself.
My question was how long does it take.
Have a lovely day!

OP posts:
Threesloths · 07/05/2026 10:18

RatFans26 · 07/05/2026 10:14

Very helpful - not.
If I could get in the loft I would have put the bait down myself.
My question was how long does it take.
Have a lovely day!

Blokes put the bait in the loft. The noises seemed to stop after a few days. Blokes came back after two weeks and gave us the all clear. The bait they used means the rats go elsewhere to die. That was over a year ago and no problems since. There certainly aren’t decaying bodies in the loft so don’t worry x

DogsandFlowers · 07/05/2026 10:23

RatFans26 · 07/05/2026 10:14

Very helpful - not.
If I could get in the loft I would have put the bait down myself.
My question was how long does it take.
Have a lovely day!

Bloody hell love 😳😳
calm down

RatFans26 · 07/05/2026 10:24

Threesloths · 07/05/2026 10:18

Blokes put the bait in the loft. The noises seemed to stop after a few days. Blokes came back after two weeks and gave us the all clear. The bait they used means the rats go elsewhere to die. That was over a year ago and no problems since. There certainly aren’t decaying bodies in the loft so don’t worry x

Thank you 3 sloths. Very helpful. They came Tuesday and I’ve not heard anything over the east side since Tuesday first thing and only some slight “walking about” noise over the west side of the house.🤞

OP posts:
Threesloths · 07/05/2026 10:30

@RatFans26 They’ll go. Don’t worry. Ours never came back. Next door to us had to have bait put down too so I think the rats are wary now. Good luck x

user7463246787 · 07/05/2026 10:40

Rats will take the bait back to their nest. It’ll take a week or so to be sure you’ve got them all. How long it takes to kill them depends on the product.
You need to remove what ever food source attracted them there in the first place. They can get through tiny holes, so you need to block any access holes that they’ve made.

Wot23 · 07/05/2026 11:17

RatFans26 · 07/05/2026 10:14

Very helpful - not.
If I could get in the loft I would have put the bait down myself.
My question was how long does it take.
Have a lovely day!

oh didums, ask your (hopefully male) partner to explain it to you then since it appears you never thought to ask the pest controller.

Without evidence of bait "take", asking "how long" is a null question.

Licensed rat poison (second-generation anticoagulants which you cannot purchase as you are licensed to do so) takes "several days" to kill a rat.

Where the death occurs is the key issue, discovering the nest is central to ensuring you have blocked off re-entry of any offsrping.

sittingonabeach · 07/05/2026 11:21

We had significant movement for a couple of days after the bait put down in the loft. Then mainly quiet.

Unfortunately one of the buggers died in our cavity wall. The smell lingered for quite some time 🤢

sittingonabeach · 07/05/2026 11:25

And the bait our rat man put down was much more potent than the poison we had been putting down. Rats seemed to turn their nose up at ours (or knew what we were doing!). But couldn’t resist what he put down. Noise in loft was significant after they discovered it, I couldn’t carry on with my misguided belief/hope that there was only 1 rat 😂

RatFans26 · 07/05/2026 21:25

Wot23 · 07/05/2026 11:17

oh didums, ask your (hopefully male) partner to explain it to you then since it appears you never thought to ask the pest controller.

Without evidence of bait "take", asking "how long" is a null question.

Licensed rat poison (second-generation anticoagulants which you cannot purchase as you are licensed to do so) takes "several days" to kill a rat.

Where the death occurs is the key issue, discovering the nest is central to ensuring you have blocked off re-entry of any offsrping.

Edited

What (hopefully) male partner are you referring to?
I wasn’t home when rat catcher came.

OP posts:
TheChiffchaff · 07/05/2026 21:33

Usually there's a lot of excitement in the loft the first night, much less the second and then it'll all go quiet.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page