urgent rat/mouse advice needed... eeeeek!

Bowen4Horses

Bowen4Horses

Well-Known Member
Joined
23 March 2009
Messages
4,970
Location
South Lincs/North Cambs
www.poppywebber.co.uk
gah, we have a problem

a huge, enormous problem

we have RATS IN OUR HOUSE
we live in a thatched cottage and they seem to be living either in the thatch or between the thatch and the wall panelling (our bedrooms are in the roof). either place is completely in-accessible.

there was a RAT in my BEDROOM last night. it stole the baby's bottle. and then it stole a pen. i was in the room. even when i rang my husband to howl down the phone to him, it was there. it wasn't even scared by me talking. it just continued to steal my pen and squeeze it through the gap in the wall.

now, i knew we had a rat problem outside (live rurally, have horses, chickens etc) so rescued 3 feral (hard as nails) cats. Now the rats seem to have taken shelter in the house.

Options i have considered:
Get pest control out - but will they put poison down? we have dog, cats, small children... and the rats might die in the thatch where we can't reach them... so they'll stink.

set our own traps - can you imagine how freaked out i'll be when it gets set off when i'm in bed... with hubby at work

move house - best idea i can think of

HELP HELP HELP HELP
 
hen food contains vitamin k which is the antidote to rat poison so could be immune to that. we have those sonic plug in devices that help
 
Eeeek what a nightmare
shocked.gif


I personally would be moving out until the buggers had gone, I can't stand Rats
crazy.gif


Do you know anyone with a terrier?
 
trapping is all well and good but if you dont like the things then how are you meant to removed said rat from the trap and re set it again.

Im pritty sure homebase or similar places do rat bate, only way to get rid of things properly, although saying that you never no where they end up dropping dead and if you dont find them they will stink the house out, ok for hay barns etc.
 
Me and other half will come down lol - since we got back into shooting we dont have any rats anymore - they have even stopped pinching food off the bird table... we are now buying targets to have fun with.

Seriously - i know what you mean about the poision and becareful one of our dogs ate a "poisoned" rat - we lost her.

The sonic thing - will that not affect the dogs? Have you tried rent o kill and explanied about the babe.

That is what i would be most worried about is the baby - but fear not - you must be relativley clean as dont rats choose somewhere clean to live.

Good luck
 
Phone the council - they will have the number of the pest control and they will deal with them. Onc they have dealt with them go to one of the county stores CWG or the like and get rat poison and bait traps from there - the poison is more effective than anything you will get in B&Q etc as it is the stuff farmers use - also you can get it in quantity.
 
I'd offer to bring our terrier over to sort them out, but if they're hiding in the walls etc she'd just run up and down barking and not being able to get at them.
crazy.gif
tongue.gif
Could you send the dogs away to boarding kennels and the cats to a cattery for a night or two while you put down poison? Mind you, I suppose that's quite an expensive option...
 
We had mice in our loft space (very very old house) and I woke up one moring with mouse poo COVERING both me and the bed. We had some vermin people out, who put down traps, but werent poison, just little foam things that they ate, and they blew up inside them
tongue.gif
 
Could you get a big tough house cat? I have an ex-feral cat who is quite friendly now and loves the comforts of inside, she is quite small but will catch rats (and rabbits, pheasants etc). I think the smell of cats is often enough to deter rodents so even if you ended up with a wimpy house cat (like my other one) at least they would be less inclined to invade your living space.
 
I would get a professional in tbh. If you bait them and they die where you can't get at them they are going to absolutely honk. It's a horrible way to die too.

Have you looked in Yellow pages?

Alternatively if they are coming into your room, you could lay traps as they are so bold. Make it a really tasty lure and you may get them. Trouble is you don't know how many babies there are behind the walls
frown.gif
 
We have some of the baiting tubes left over at my yard from when we had a serious rat problem. Dogs and cats can't access the bait, just the pesky vermin. According to the pest control person we used, most dog and cat food has the anti poison in it anyway. The poison is most dangerous to horses.

The only thing that we found is when the rats gets sleepy from eating the poison, they tend to find a 'space' to lie down in to die i.e. in between walls. But you can also get special freshener stuff to mask/eliminate the smell.

I don't think you are that far away from me so if you want to borrow some of the baiting tubes, just let me know. Otherwise we used a chap called Ron Barford in Farcet near Peterboorugh as our pest control person.
 
We recently had someone call who will put sealed boxes down for £25 a month, he comes and re fills them every month for that. I would definitely do this if I saw evidence in the house, OMG, how awful! I think the council will come though won't they? Not much use on a weekend , there must be some sort of emergency number? Especially with a baby, poor you. I bet you never slept.
shocked.gif
 
thank you all for your replies. i just went and bought the mouse and rat trap section of BandQ and my husband is upstairs setting them all up... probably trapping a finger or two whilst he's up there...

my hubby is trying to get behind the walls at the moment.. and says whilst there are loads of mice poos he can't see many rat ones... which (i hope) means that last night was their first visit in the house... and therefore they're not too established/settled/multiplying...

can i just say YUCKYUCKYUCK

what horrible creatures... oh, and he just found my handcream... in their hideyhole... chewed and emptied... they have EATEN my handcream... i hope they choked on it..
 
not read everyones reply so not sure if its been mentioned but Eradibait is supposed to be safe with other animals around & is recommended for yards not sure bout houses tho but def worth a google search! gd luck, the thought of a rat in my bedroom makes me shudder!
smile.gif
 
I work for a pest control company and the way we do it is poison baiting. The baitboxes are designed to be tamperproof so kids and animals can't get into them and the poison is for licensed use only so its stronger. It definitely works but it would be really useful for you to try and see where abouts they are coming in from as well and block up any holes (I know its difficult!) so they are less likely to come back. I hope you're ok and you get it sorted! I only answer the phones part time but if you have any specific questions PM me and I will ask one of the technicians for you
smile.gif
 
Do you know anyone with a ferret that they could bring round for you to keep in the house for a day or too, the smell of them will quickly drive the rats away - it did with us.
 
How horrible, i really hate mice and rats. Weve used bait in sealed boxes for mice in the house in the past and blocked up any entry points. We have also got the sonic plug ins as well, touch wood haven't seen any evidence of mice since!
 
Errrrr brings back some not so happy memories of living in an old rented very damp farm house (landlord promised to sort it but never did but thats another story).
We used to get mice everywhere,( fortunatley the rats didnt make it any further than the small garden outside the kitchen window,) the blinking things used to die in walls inside the hose, have never smelt anything like it, horrible! We took to using live traps and letting the bilghters go well away from the house, had to be really careful not to get bitten though. Dont know about rats but mice loved chocolate in the traps.

You have my sympathies espesially with small children around.
 
i got a trap that zaps rats off ebay.seen the green light flashing a thought yes got one i looked inside to find a dead slug so went back to the nerosa gold put little wraped cling film parcels down there holes each night and should be gone in a week.they actually ran out to get them id sit there and watch the nasty little paws take the parcels i hade i crawl out show me him dyeing i did feel bad but thats life my stables and they wernt welcome
 
I believe that if you have mice, you don't have many rats. we have had a rat problem at the yard and had poison down and bait boxes. we have found a few dead and trapped a few live. we are starting to see more mice around so hopefully we have got rid of them.
If you put poison down, i have been told that the best place to put it is where they are getting their water.
Hope you get rid, bad enough having them at the yard, but i would freak if they were in my house. I would call the council, and see what environmental services suggest.
 
Get hold of an air rifle and shoot them. I can assure you it is immensely satisfying. You need to check round the walls of the house and find out where they are getting in. The rat runs are pretty easy to spot.
 

If you have a baby and the rats are actually getting in the room with the baby aren't the council duty bound to come out as an emergency? Pest controllers probably would but you would have to pay yourself.

I sympathise as I have always had the odd rat outside as I love feeding the birds. (Live in a very rural area) But Ratty lied when he told me he was a single, gay child-free rat and one day I realised that my garden was over-run with his family. Council came out, rapped me over the knuckles for feeding the birds and encouraging Ratty. Very reluctantly I stopped feeding the birds so Ratty promptly moved indoors!! We could hear him wondering about in the walls and chewing his way through the floorboards. One night my daughter could actually see his whiskers where he was intent on munching his way up through the kitchen floor. Like you I was reluctant to use poison as I didn't want to risk my dogs eating it and I didn't want them dying in the house. I bought several cans of expanding foam and filled every possible hole that there was the slightest chance he was coming in through. Then went back to feeding the birds on the grounds that I would rather Ratty was outside eating where I could see where he was. Then I had a brainwave and remembered about rats not liking the smell of ferrets so I moved the ferret cage and run to underneath the bird table (birds don't mind at all) and (fingers crossed) no more rats anywhere for over a year now!!!

Perhaps I could market ferret poo as a natural rat deterrant?
 
You need to get Eradimouse or Eradirat poison, perfectly safe for kids and pets - somewhere like Scats or Countrywide will stock it I'd imagine. This is safe for cats dogs etc, it's a modified corn I think, that only the rat/mouse gut is affected.
 
I know exactly what you're going through. We had rats running along the eaves in the house. We put out loads of traps and tried every sort of food but couldnt catch anything. They were a real pain and really loud. They would wake me up every morning when taking their daily exercise.
grin.gif

We had a new kitchen fitted by a lovely guy who works for rent-a-kill and he put out poison for them. They have eaten loads of it and touch wood, I havent heard them for a week. I would definately get someone in to take a look rather than setting traps.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top