There's a Rat (or 2) in my kitchen...

[BethReed91]

Hello everyone,

My family and I have been playing detective for the last couple of months and we are pretty sure that we have a family of rats living in our house.
We think they are coming in from next door's shed - which our dog has been going crazy at for about a year as it's right next to our garden fence. They are probably coming in through the poor workmanship of a bad build on our extension to our kitchen - lots of holes and unfinished jobs left by the cowboy builder.

This is our story...

Rat Saga 1: We think maybe we have some sort of creature in our house as we can hear something running around through the walls but mainly the downstairs ceiling (the extension roof). Noise gets worse. Maybe squirrels? We put poison within the roof of our extension and get the fascia board replaced and sealed in - re-enforced with chicken wire.

Rat Saga 2: My brother gets up to get ready for work and as he makes his way into the kitchen - past the larder, hears a rustling/banging sound from inside. Being him, picked up the axe normally used to cut wood for our fire and opens the door, ready to kill what ever is inside. There was nothing. . That night - Step-Dad thoroughly cleans the larder and found a bag of rice that had a small piercing in the packaging.

Rat Saga 3: Noises continue. I came down during the night to get a drink and before switching the light on felt something small run past my foot. Maybe this was me going crazy in my half asleep state - so I thought nothing of it.
My brother comes down stairs one morning whilst getting ready to go to work - he is usually the first one up. He had a shower, got dressed and whilst stood in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil for his morning cuppa - caught sight of this Rat like thing running from underneath the fridge to underneath the Larder on the other side of the kitchen. . That night - as a family, we pulled the fridge out to find nothing... but we normally store our carrier bags next to our fridge and as we pulled them out, found that they had been shredded into little bits. Interesting.

Rat Saga 4: We were getting worried as now we knew what it was - and we knew how fast rats breed, it was time to take drastic action. We started to lure the rats out each night with peanuts - every morning half of the plate was gone. We then put a wax poison block on the plate with the nuts. The next morning, half the plate and the wax block was gone. We also put the plate on a baking tray with flour on to see the footprints -

We then started to put down blue poison - looks a bit like blue sugar puffs, which was also being taken every night.

Rat Saga 5: My friend came over to stay for a couple of days and we were sitting at the breakfast bar in the kitchen eating lunch. My dog, was going crazy at the kick board underneath the cupboards on the wall next to the fridge. We were also sure that we could hear something rustling around... so I rang my Step-Dad and he was home within 20 minutes (he was on his way home from work anyway). We took the kick board off and sure enough - we found rat wee, droppings, the remains of peanuts and some of the blue poison. I said we had found their HQ! We thoroughly cleaned underneath the cupboards and put the kick-board back.

Rat Saga 6: WE GOT IT!
I should mention that alongside all the poison we had set up traps. Two smaller traps and one large one. We were using peanut butter for the bait but we were confused as to why they weren't going anywhere it them. A friend of the family mentioned that rats like tuna. So, we put some tune onto the traps and sure enough woke in the morning to this...

I'm sorry if some people think this is cruel but rats are vermin and can cause lots of damage to homes. It's not like we can kindly ask them to leave - they simply won't. I don't mind them living in the garden just not in our house.

For a couple of days after we found this rat - it has been very quiet. We've either killed the rest with poison and they are rotting within our house - soon to smell the evidence of this. Or have we scared them off.

Today we found a tiny rat dead in the cupboard under the stairs. My brother was sure it was a vole but after comparing it to picture on the net we are sure it was a baby rat.

Having a dog in the house is really helpful - she tends to let us know where the next place to look or bait is.... but it's really important we are careful where we put it down as we don't want the dog getting it. It's so funny watching her on rat patrol too.

Like I said... I'm sorry if this has caused offence to anybody but we really don't want them in our house and it seems the only way we can get rid of them. I wanted to share our story to see if anybody else is having the same problem and if you know of anything we can try?

Thanks for reading

[Kayleigh]

I agree you have to rid the house of them but if you use poison then you chance killing something else what if the dog got hold of the dead poisoned rat then got poisoned too how bad would you feel so keep using the traps and try to lay off the poison its really bad stuff and if the rat goes outside to die you risk poisoning wildlife and cats and all sorts of creatures and birds too..

Welcome to WAB...

[BethReed91]

I have to defend ourselves a little bit - We all know the risks of using poison, and make sure that we do it in the safest way possible in terms of our dogs. We only put the poison down where we know they can't get it and every morning sweep/hoover the kitchen before we let the dogs in. We would never try to harm any of the wildlife let alone our own dogs but the traps don't always work. The rats grow wise to it once they have seen another rat get trapped. We have only caught 1 rat in the space of 2 weeks. There's sure to be more.

[RobinP]

Get a professional rat catcher in, they will sort your problem out.

[werdnal]

Sorry to hear of your problem, to which I can sympathise as several years ago we had a rats in our house. Not nice I agree.

However, I would second the advice not to use poison. Not only is it a risk to your dog - please do not be offended, I know you are being careful - but poisoned rats do not die quickly and can wander off and be eaten by other animals - owls, foxes, cats, and even your dog. I appreciate you say you clean up every morning, but if the rats are getting into your house, they are probably getting out again aswell, so could be in the garden, already contaminated with poison, and fall prey to something which will eat them.

Traps can be effective, but you need to ensure several things. Rats will not take to well to anything which smells of human scent. Before you bait/set the trap, take it outside and rub in some soil, to remove your scent, then use gloves when you handle it. Bait with something that appeals to the rats - peanut butter and chocolate are favourites. Try as far as possible to remove any other sources of food, as the rats will avoid traps if there is an easier meal available. They also will not eat stale food (rats are quite fussy in fact), so if baited traps have not been touched after a few days, rebait with something fresh.

Also, poisoned rats do not die in convenient places, and having had one in our roofspace where we could not get to retrieve it, the smell was horrendous. Trapping means you can remove the carcasses, and not have the rotting smell or flies to put up with. You will also have a full idea of how many rats you have caught, rather than not knowing the full number who have wandered off to die somewhere out of sight.

Hope you get your problem under control soon.

[thunder]

Originally Posted by werdnal

Traps can be effective, but you need to ensure several things. Rats will not take to well to anything which smells of human scent.
Hope you get your problem under control soon.

People often say this, but if rats are so put off by human scent, how come BethReed has them in her kitchen?

henrya

[gazzer]

hi beth sorry to hear you have had rats in your house , not nice creatures when in close contact with humans, they can carry Leptospirosis (Wells disease ) in the urine and that can kill humans so be careful when touching the areas they have been , as for poisons the only ones you can buy is either Bromadiolone 0.005% or Difenacoum 0.005% which is a very small amount so to kill the target species you have to feed it its own body weight so when it dies and is eaten by some thing else odds on there wont be enough poison in its body to kill the predator . hope this has been of some use to you .

regards gazzer (pest controler).

[werdnal]

Originally Posted by thunder

People often say this, but if rats are so put off by human scent, how come BethReed has them in her kitchen?

henrya

As said above, rats are incontinent and pee almost everywhere they walk. They will enter a human inhabited areas to look for warmth and food, but once they have become established, everything in their usual areas smell of themselves (however much you clean) as they have scented it with their urine. It you put something "alien" in that area - ie a new trap, with your scent on it, chances are they will be wary of it and steer clear, atleast initially. If you cover the human smell, with something much more natural to them, you stand more chance of them accepting and therefore investigating the trap. Its not foolproof, but everything you can do to encourage a rat to accept the traps is a step in the right direction.

As for the comment that rats would only need to eat enough poison to kill them, and not enough to harm other animals that might eat them, it depends on what size the "eater" is. A small rat eaten by a 9 stone Rottie might not do the dog any harm, but if it was eaten by a Jack Russell or even a cat, with a lesser body mass, I would be concerned about the health implications to that animal. I still wouldn't chance poisons unless the rats were in a totally secure and enclosed area, and unable to stray outside to be predated.

[gazzer]

hi werdnal, not many rats that are bigger than a jack Russell or a cat, but in all the years i have been poisoning rodents i have only seen a couple dead out in the open most die in the wall cavity and in the harbourage. but yes in theory if there was a few outside and where eaten they could prove to be harmful.
regards gazzer