Rats climbing ivy

[theanimallover]

Hi we live in a rural location, but not isolated, in a row of terraces.
We have had rats in our garden before - but I've noticed one every day for the past couple of weeks. Whereas before I'd see one very occasional.

Today one ran up the ivy which is touching the roof. I'm worried as I don't want them getting in the house. Also, I think he may have eaten the baby birds :-(

My question - I never cut the ivy this time of year as we have lots of nests, but would it be ok to cut it back a bit, just away from the roof?

Any other suggestions welcome.

PS, there is no source of food for them in my garden. Bird food is round the other side of the house, compost on allotment.

Thanks.

[rossy]

Originally Posted by theanimallover

Hi we live in a rural location, but not isolated, in a row of terraces.
We have had rats in our garden before - but I've noticed one every day for the past couple of weeks. Whereas before I'd see one very occasional.

Today one ran up the ivy which is touching the roof. I'm worried as I don't want them getting in the house. Also, I think he may have eaten the baby birds :-(

My question - I never cut the ivy this time of year as we have lots of nests, but would it be ok to cut it back a bit, just away from the roof?

Any other suggestions welcome.

PS, there is no source of food for them in my garden. Bird food is round the other side of the house, compost on allotment.

Thanks.

get some poison put down, because if they get into your loft , if they havent done already, you will have big problems, apart from them eating the chicks, you can chop your ivy but check and make sure no nests are in . rossy.

[nightshade]

I have had Rats climbing walls with no ivy and crossing from building to building via catenery cables. I would certainly trim the ivy back, and check my loft perhaps even set humane traps

[Pipa]

personally i wouldnt use poison.. years ago one of our neighbours poisoned my cat and he died a horrible death.. if you do use poison i would place it somewhere well out the way of domestic pets and other animals

certainly cut down the ivy to stop the rat getting into your roof, just check inside the ivy to make sure the bits you cut have no active nests

[theanimallover]

Thanks. I have never used poison, my dog got poisoned too...

I have found an ultrasonic rat repeller on the internet - not bad reviews, I might take a chance with one and cut back the ivy - a trim.

[Brocakat]

Personally I'd chop the Ivy back to a point about 2 feet from where the roof eaves start at the top of the vertical. IF the face of the stone/brick is sound, that is. If it ain't sound, the Ivy will get between the one course of bricks/line of stone to attempt to draw moisture & nutrients from its roots. If the face of the brick-or-stone has been mortared / dashed , check this for soundness.
You will have to do this every season, for the Ivy will put-on about a foot every season. I do mine in the Autumn. ( If you do it now, there's a 4 month 'window' of a growing -season that it will utilise. ) You can also use the same ladder-period to pull it off from around any window-frames, features, etc.
If you let the Ivy get under the eaves, it willl not stop when it gets into your attic.
Leaving a 2 feet gap is wide enough to hopefully stop making the rats leap that last distance to get into your attic, and there should stilll be enough Ivy there to satisfy all the needs of the sparrows, etc.

[theanimallover]

Thanks. Yes, it really has got out of hand. We'll at least get it away from the roof tomorrow. I just had a 'Stephen King' moment - I was in the bathroom, heard a noise and looked up at the window, and there he was arghhhh! I could see him nibbling frantically at the glass!!!!!!!

I am considering cutting the ivy down and getting rid of it after this season as its no good to the sparrows if ratty is just going to eat all their babies.

The other day I said to my boyfriend that the baby birds had suddenly stopped tweeting...one day loads of noise the next nothing :-(

[Wrenna]

We've had fairly good success with ultrasonic rat repellers. I also live in a rural location, and we had issues with rats. My neighbour, a widow, was unable to clear out a lifetime of junk from her garage, the ratties loved it and kept coming back.
It didn't matter how many times we set traps... after a little while another rat would set up home.
Eventually we got repellers for her house, our house, and the garages. After a month or so we cleared her garage for her and not a rat in sight.

We still have the occasional tunnel at the far end of the garden, but the rats seem to stay away from the buildings.

[rossy]

Originally Posted by Pipa

personally i wouldnt use poison.. years ago one of our neighbours poisoned my cat and he died a horrible death.. if you do use poison i would place it somewhere well out the way of domestic pets and other animals

certainly cut down the ivy to stop the rat getting into your roof, just check inside the ivy to make sure the bits you cut have no active nests

if you ring the council , they will put down poison in containers that only rats go in, so you wont have to worry about cats, dogs being poisoned, rossy.

[Pipa]

Originally Posted by Wrenna

We've had fairly good success with ultrasonic rat repellers. I also live in a rural location, and we had issues with rats. My neighbour, a widow, was unable to clear out a lifetime of junk from her garage, the ratties loved it and kept coming back.
It didn't matter how many times we set traps... after a little while another rat would set up home.
Eventually we got repellers for her house, our house, and the garages. After a month or so we cleared her garage for her and not a rat in sight.

We still have the occasional tunnel at the far end of the garden, but the rats seem to stay away from the buildings.

we have those in our house, insect repellers. electronic ones, to keep out spiders/slugs and such (kinda live in the country here, lots of farmers fields,stables and such) they work really good for us.. only thing was we couldnt use them for rats/mice because our next door neighbour had guinea pigs in a run thats attatched to our garden and it says on the leaflet not to put it to Rat setting if there is other small animals in the area like guinea pigs (for this particular one we had anyway,)

i thumb up to the electronic repellers,