RATS - Big ones, in the bl***y house!

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moneypit1

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We live in a 300 year old cob cottage. Lately we have been hearing scurrying in the loft at night and realised we must have mice. It is worse than that. We have RATS! We opened the loft hatch last night, put out a ladder and let our 5 cats have the run of it. My god, they are useless! Up and down all bloody night, caught nothing. UNTIL...... this afternoon. The tiniest little cat of ours was making a racket up there and we went and had a look. She had the most massive rat in her mouth, too heavy to lift up. I shrieked and called my husband and when he went to have a look the silly kitty dropped the rat to meow a hello and the rat made a run for it and got away. We must be infested. What an awful thought. Whats the best course of action, I guess to put out loads of bait (keeping the useless cats away of course). Has anyone else had this problem, I mean, its not something you drop into conversation with the neighbours is it?
 
Id be terrified :eek:
Just a thought though, I work for the local council and they provide a free service to get rid of rats, I think they use bait in boxes. Maybe your local council offers a similar service???
 
I think your local council will help with an infestation of rats. Probably worth a call first thing in the morning.

Yuk!!!
 
was speaking to the local pest man on wednesday as we have an infestation luckily at the yard not my house but still not good.

He said he is getting a lot of calls but only now, after the hard winter we had he was expecting to be busy as he would have expected the delightfuls to seek out warmth however not the case, however now it is, he thinks they were wiped out in the cold and only now are they getting their numbers back to cause and invasion.

If its any consolation the rat man works quick foud a dieing rat in our feed shed today :)

good luck
 
i feel sorry for you with this problem. i would be my worst nightmare. we thought we had a rat after getting new windows installed and called rentokil. they put down bait (you can buy in homebase) and we never heard anymore from it/them. failing this do you anyone with a couple of ferrets or terriers? they would fix the problem. good luck!!
 
You need a terrier, or several!! For my little dog being let loose in there would be her idea of a fab game :D Do you know anyone with one you can borrow?
 
i know its embarrasing but speak to your neighbours unless your house is detached - we had mice in our loft and so did our next door neighbours as our house is a semi. put down some traps and it seemed to sort the problem - found a dead one in the airing cupboard yuk yuk yuk! cue washing all the sheets and towels! makes you feel like you must be a really dirty person but to be honest they are just after the same things we are -- food, warmth and a comfy place to sleep. we had rats in the garden as well, started with mice but the rats came along and got rid of them and installed themselves instead. when we knocked down our 1930's garage to build another one we dug up the concrete base and the whole thing was a massive rat warren but it idnt look recently used. again traps down, as we have dogs had to put them somewhere the dogs couldnt reach. I dont think we will have a problem with mice in the house again tho, I have a ragdoll cat and a pampered housecat she may be but she can hunt when she puts her mind to it!! good luck getting rid of the rats.
 
a couple of jack russells or border terriers would adore your loft. At our old house I opened the foot pedal operated silver tall round bin which stored the dog food, and a rat looked back at me from inside the bin. Taggie Border got clasped around the waist, foot stamped on pedal, Taggie dangled upside down in bin, a quick squeak and a shake and no more Mr ratty!

I dont like the poison because its a horrible way for anything to die and also they tend to crawl off and die in inaccessible places and the smell is unbelieveable. I use stable cats, the terrier and also in places the terrier cant get I use the cheap instant kill snap traps, the basic ones, with choc raisins in them, they cannot resist those and I have never not killed them first night.
 
blueneonrainbow said:
i know its embarrasing but speak to your neighbours unless your house is detached - we had mice in our loft and so did our next door neighbours as our house is a semi. put down some traps and it seemed to sort the problem - found a dead one in the airing cupboard yuk yuk yuk! cue washing all the sheets and towels! makes you feel like you must be a really dirty person but to be honest they are just after the same things we are -- food, warmth and a comfy place to sleep. we had rats in the garden as well, started with mice but the rats came along and got rid of them and installed themselves instead. when we knocked down our 1930's garage to build another one we dug up the concrete base and the whole thing was a massive rat warren but it idnt look recently used. again traps down, as we have dogs had to put them somewhere the dogs couldnt reach. I dont think we will have a problem with mice in the house again tho, I have a ragdoll cat and a pampered housecat she may be but she can hunt when she puts her mind to it!! good luck getting rid of the rats.
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We are detached. The trouble is, the 5 cats are pets really so they do not take the sitution seriously at all! We have bats too! OMG, we are the clampets obviously! What a nightmare, my mother will go MAD if she finds out! x
 
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I would imagine that your ceilings are lath and plaster and therefore would probably not hold a couple of terrier racing around in your loft. They will come through the ceiling if you are not careful. They are good ratters though I agree. Bait is probably your best thing.
 
I wouldn't use poison myself as (a) it's a horrid way for an animal to die and (b) as said if they crawl off and die somewhere you can't get to then the smell of rotting rat is horrid. If possible i would get some terriers in or you can try humane traps (from the council) and then they can take them away and do what they will (large brick or shovel!!).

Rats are horrendous, we've had or do have an infestation at the more at our stables. Our stables cat, who sadly was PTS last week - RIP Brutus) was useless and the rats nicked his food. Today we have done a clear out and our two dogs got 7 rats! All babies sadly so we know the adults are still about. As we actually were finding loads in the tack room we got one of those high pitch radio wave sound thingys to deter the rats form there and it does seem to have kept that room clear as no fresh poo and as last week the rats were running down the walls every time we went in, nothing this week so it may be worth getting some of them to drive them from the walls in the house. I don't believe the noise is audible for cats.
 
We had rats at our yard. Cheeky great big ones that started strutting about quite the thing when a field next door was getting built on and their shelter had obviously been disturbed. At the end of the day the only thing that could get them was poison - supplied by the council pest control person.

Our yard has 4 Snap Russells but they've all been bred to be friendly and did not appear to be remotely bothered by the rats. Actually seem to accept them as part of the yard!!! It was a grim time and I was not at all comfortable - before entering the feed or tack room you had to stamp your feet and could hear the little claws scampering off - that was before they just became blatent!!!
 
The most effective way of keeping rats away was rescue/feral cats because they were AMAZING ratters and caught all the babies and then there were a few terriers who would catch any that managed to make it to adulthood. But it was the cats that made the most difference, before the rats were literally all over the yard and you would seem them running(dawdling? strolling?) across the yard in broad daylight. One even ran over someones foot!! In the garden though we did just get the council out (and the faithful terrier ;) )
 
Sorry to hear of your problem but just a word of WARNING!

My Brother in law had rats in his house and used bait to get rid of them. They all went.

One day while preparing the dinner in the kitchen, maggots started falling out of one of the lights recessed into the ceiling, they had to make a big hole in the ceiling to get rid of the dead body of the rat, it was disgusting.

Fortunatly they only had one or two.

Its horrible but I would use traps.
 
We had a rat explosion last year indoors. Your local feed store will carry rat traps, like giant mouse traps. We got the steel ones with teeth, just wear thick leather gloves when setting them. Try various bait - found peanut butter, kit kat, and banana / sultanas work well. The rat cannot easily remove any of them without tripping the trap. Set several traps at once. We got 6 in two days and continued almost daily and have not seen any more till just this week oddly. Out come the traps again. Outside the dogs take care of them.
 
I think any method other than poison for an infestation will not garentee sucess and if it was my house I would not take the chance. I hate poison too, but I hate rats more!

And I think the risk of the rats bodies not being accesable is also infinatly preferable to live rats running around.
 
My vote is for ferrets, I am told that the rats they don't manage to kill vacate the premises because of the smell. We had an infestation outside when we had poultry and the ferret man, who also brought his terrier, got shut of a few and then the rest seemed to pack up their spotty hankies and leave. :) We did have one rat in the kitchen, it lived under the dresser, we used a poison block as it avoided the cats entirely. We think the chief ratter cat thought it was an invited guest, as he ignored it, but would kill those outside! We removed it the day it died and fortunately had no more inside. I too hate the things, and could easily have left home when I realised we had one in the house!
 
Here is some advice I got on getting rid humanely from an Animal friendly organisation when I had a HUGE rat living in my stables when I moved in. Unfortunately I think a fox or a cat got him and I found him (or her) stiff as a board with puncture wounds in one of the stables. :-( Poor fella.

The usual reason rats set up home and breed is because of the availability of food. Bird feeders, rabbits and chickens - because of the likelihood of food being found on the ground - all invite rats in! So, I would suggest taking down bird feeders, making sure all rabbit/guinea food goes in a bowl where rats can't easily get to and that no excess is left lying around. As bunnies are grazers, this can be difficult but it really is the only way to deter them. The other option is humane traps but most rats are smart enough to outwit these. I've never caught a wild rat in one yet (although I almost caught a blackbird who went in after the bait!)
Once rats set up home, it can be difficult to deter them but for their sake you will have to try, and quickly before they start to mate again. Clearing up every scrap of food will help. For me the outcome was not a happy one. A neighbour took offence at the little feller and we found him poisoned several months later.


We also have some advice from a humane wildlife controlled John Bryant, who gave us this advice:

The first task is to ensure that the rats have no access to the food source, (bid food, rabbits food etc). The next stage is to clean up the whole area, exposing runs and trails by strimming down cover. You can safely disturb the entrances of any tunnels with a trowel, and then squirt a cat repellent such as 'Get Off My Garden' around the area. The rats should disperse over the next few days, but if they don't, then you need to take advantage of their 'neo-phobia' by placing new objects near their burrows, if you can every day! So you place a garden gnome or something one day, then the next remove it and replace it with a couple of bottles, then replace them with a flapping plastic bag on a stick, and so on and so on. This overall tactic, i.e removing the food source followed by exposure and disturbance has never failed (and has even been proven by DEFRA in a scientific study).


He is happy to provide more information by telephone, if you would like to email him and say that we recommended him. His website is http://www.jbryant.co.uk/ and you can email him on enquiries@jbryant.co.uk."
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our mastiff x is a fantastic ratter (but massive so would come through your ceiling!) BUT the rats all went into the walls when they realised he was around and it was an absolute bu**er to get them out again. If there is any chance of this happening I would recommend poison rather than cats or terriers (our JRT hides her eyes from the nasty rats when she sees them anyway!) because your options really do become limited and they will emerge elswhere in the house if they can. We bought a baitbox and poison from farmway but I actually found it worked best left in open trays for them, I naturally made sure that nothing else could get to them.
 
I'd go with poison or traps too, the only rat we got in the house was a baby one that the cat brought in alive - we never had problems with mice until we got a cat :rolleyes:

I've also kept ferrets and they did nothing to stop the rats either!

I keep chickens and currently rats are hanging around because of the food, so there are bait stations set up. It cost about £20 for a big box of cubes from Farmway.
 
I sympathise :( We had lots last year, they came in through any gap and ran all round the house :( Even upstairs in daughter's room through a tiny hole by radiator, it was disgusting and made us feel really 'dirty'.

We are detached, only linked by garage, and next door have a fully fitted kitchen in their garage :mad: even though it's not converted, so rats had a hey day coming through, as they do all their cooking there :( (neighbours, not the rats)

We baited and had traps (most horrible feeling going to buy a trap, felt like we were being laughed at) The buggers would just amble across the patio! Caught two or three in the trap and had to kill them :(

Bait, well they took it, but as someone said, they go off and die in stupid places and the stench is just putrid and sick and hard to find them :(

They also chewed their way through the timing element for the heating/water (replaced at a cost of £250) the cable for tv etc (replaced at cost) Oh and not mention blocked drains as the dirty things don't care where they wander...A bloomin expense! Could hear them all the time scurrying around.
Thankfully we rid ourselves after months of catching them and we invested in a plug in thing that is supposed to deter rodents, it''s always on and seems to work.
Not looking forward to summer again, as they are bound to return. But have contacted council re garage/kitchen, as I feel it's against H&S as it isn't a true kitchen.

Now I feel very unclean. Good luck ridding yourself of them.
 
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