My sister called this afternoon that they have seen rat droppings in their bedroom.
They have a three-year-old and a eight-week-old baby, who sleeps in their bedroom, so she's pretty anxious.
They will call the council (London) first thing in the morning for advice, and to see what the pest control department can do.
What if anything should she expect the council to be able to do? And any other advice on dealing with rats?
Thanks,
Daniele
I've had the problem in a previous house.
Rat poison under the floorboards sorted it out - there was a smell for a few weeks due to dead rats, but it was not too bad.
Now if lifting floorboards is difficult, or the rats are not there (and it seems they might just be running through above the floor) there are a couple of options:
1) Poison-in-a-box (the type used commercially - has a through-hole the rodents can access the poison. However, they are likely to die somewhere random - and the children must not be able to touch the box as they could get fingers inside and touch the poison, which is nasty.2) Perhaps a better option in this case - rat-trap. Not the Tom and Jerry classic mousetrap, but a box with a trippable or one way door. Insert bait (not cheese, more like a bit of chocolate). Check daily. Rat(s) will get caught live and can be released somewhere a long way from the house.
eg:
The two biggest advantages here are a) no poison; b) When you stop catching them, you've won.
But don't get caught releasing them as its illegal to do so.
Also you have to humanly kill them so don't get caught dumping the trap in the water butt.
Peanut butter is a good bait and it works on tree rats too.
So shoot them.
maybe asking the obvious is she sure its rats and not mice, how does she know?
Either way as per previous poster poison or live but something that traps them for disposal unless you have underfloor access.
I cant advise what the council may say or do or charge.
for rat traps these work
Turd size.
Ha, we had some ratty visitors when the kids where of similar age. SWMBO'd got *very* "maternal", worked out where they were appearing in the house, then sat, still, quiet and waited with a very firmly and heavy rolled up newspaper, she was definately in KILL mode. She had the nouse to wait until ratty was away from the access hole before striking but it was still a bit like "whack a mole". B-)
Mind you I was also in KILL mode, trapped one behind a square coffee jar and the back of a kitchen floor cupboard, just kept the pressure on until it stopped breathing.
The council will almost certainly put down poison but probably outside. I'd expect them to also work out the access route(s) into and suggest they are blocked up or the failed mortar around pipes or WHY is repaired. If using traps put them down and leave them well alone, ie don't get closer than a few feet or cross the run. Ratty is very suspicious of new things and doubly so of new things that smell of people. You still need to inspect daily but do it visually from a distance.
We put break back traps down (watch yer fingers!) but all we caught was the end inch of a tail, ratty chewed through its own tail to get away.
Nobody seems to have mentioned removing any sources of food! Bin bags left lying out, excess bird feed and thing like that.
Tim
Should my sister shoot them inside her flat, or out on the street?
Daniele
Unfortunately, she lives in a block of flats, where some residents - despite having been asked not to - apparently leave out chicken and other food for the local foxes and feral cats.
Daniele
If she shoots them in the flat its messy. If she shoots them in the street its illegal. Does she have a garden she can shoot them in?
Firstly, try to locate where their food source is. Then look for methods of entry into the home. I'd imagine then a few baited traps in the vicinity of where they are going might see what the scale of the problem is like. I'd suspect they have their nest outside, and this means a heap of rubbish or junk in a garage that is seldom touched is one sort of place to look. The method of ingress is most important to find. if there is an attached garage with badly fitting outside doors or holes in them and a holethat comes into the house it will need to be blocked.
That has been my experience, but honestly if you find a council who can actually do this with no cost it would be amazing in this cash strapped age. Brian
Block up any access points - a rat can get through quite a small hole, maybe less than 2cm, a mouse much smaller. They can gnaw through many things, but they really don't like scrunched up chicken wire and it's usually easy to conform that to a hole or gap.
Particularly look around where pipes enter a room. Don't leave food out.
Cheers
They're not too impressed by wirewool either, which is useful for smaller gaps. Have to say I favour snap traps myself. Even the B&Q ready-baited ones worked for me when I had a problem. They need to be cleaned up well for re-use though: both mice and rats seem to be able to smell that one of their mates has recently come a cropper. Poisoned bait can also be pretty effective, if you don't mind the possibility of a corpse winding up somewhere difficult to reach. It's a long-ish exercise though as they avoid new things to start with so it takes a few days before they take it and then it takes anything up to a week to have its effect. One of its advantages is that you can keep a track on their activity by monitoring whether the bait has been taken.
Not in my experience. The mouse traps here (which I must set up - the season approaches) have killed hundreds of mice (no exaggeration) and all I do is remove the corpse (scrape it off, sometimes) and reset the trap, re-baiting if necessary.
The council might want £25+. Check on their web site to see what the sit uation is, in these of council cutbacks.
After trying cheese and chocolate with no success, I found that peanut butter will get a squirrel in a trap almost immediately.
this rat trap worked
Yeah, same here, with mice, we've had 3 in one trap in a night before now, after just removing the deceased rodent and resetting them. I favour the snap traps too, just so I don't have decaying rodent corpses in a hidden place.
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