Do all sewers have rats?
Do all sewers with rats have rats exploring outside the sewer?
Or do some just mind their own business and not come out?
Because I live next to a fairly large stream, it's also where they built a fairly main sewer. 35 years ago, there was a rat in the front yard. I threw a shoe at it. I missed by a foot or two but it didn't budge. Most animals would run away, I think, if something that big was thrown anywhere near them, but rats (and raccoons) seem to be different.
About that time the HOA hired an exterminator to place bait stations and maintain them regularly.
I think it was only a year or two after that time that a rat ate its way though my basement window screen, must have fallen down to the floor, and then died half way up the stairs to the 1st floor. I presume because it had eaten some of the poison, though maybe it had Early-Covid.
So now there has been no rat activity afaik in 30 years but we continue to pay the exterminator.
Is there any chance the rats have left our part of the sewer, or, maybe more likely, they just stay there and don't come out?????
Any suggestions on how to tell if the bait box has been moved????
I wanted to put a tell on the bait box nearest my house, and I do but then I can't remember what I did and I can't tell if the box has been moved (when the exterminator checks it). And I'm not positive he's even coming, even though he charges us. Someone else was suspicious about this too and set a rule that he'd leave his invoice at the treasurer's house. This doesn't prove he did anything but at least it means he was here. But at sometime he stopped doing this and now mails the invoice. Suspicious again.