Getting rid of rats/mice (merged threads)

scheming_gypsy

how about asking if he cleans up the corpses, seeing as that's where the problem lies.
He has fun shooting rats, you don't have to see the mess and nobody has a rat problem.

nicka99

Hi All,
Im looking for some advice from anyone who maybe has similar experience or works in the trade:

We moved into our house 2 years ago and within a few days realised we had some sitting tenants still in the house in the form of rats.
They are most active in the evening or before dawn or otherwise we are woken in the middle of the night (1m last night) with bangs, knocks, scratching and general scrabbling around.

They move around in the cavity walls, under the suspended floor downstairs, in the void between upstairs floor and downstairs ceiling and mostly in the attic. They can be heard in pretty much any part of the house. Thankfully to this day I have never seen one in the 'living space' i.e. the part we occupy.

The house had been unoccupied for a year before we moved in so think they very much took up residence and are reluctant to let go. We have had 3 pest control companies so far - the first from the local council who managed to eliminate the infestation with poison but made no effort to find how they got in. 6 months later they were back so we called out a more well known company hoping they would find the point of entry but didnt - however poison again got rid of them. A year later they are back again so we called an independent who claimed who was good an identifying the entry point as well as treating the problem, again with poison but also traps.

Almost 2 months into the 3rd treatment, some are still running around - they eat the poison but totally ignore the t-rex traps but somehow manage to eat the attractant (provoke) from them ?!
Some must have died since we have had the all too familar stench of death plus the damn flies but even worse this time maggots crawling over the carpets upstairs then hundreds of pupae to vacuum up daily - seem to come from underneath i.e. the void between the 2 floors. In previous treatments we have found dead ones but this time they seem to go to inaccessible or yet to be found places.

The exterior of the house and adjoining garage have been thoroughly checked for gaps, holes, broken air bricks, disused or badly fitting pipes etc but nothing is amiss. We have had the drains surveyed (twice) and redundant branch lines capped, suspect pipework relined and all inlets and outlets accounted for - all now has a clean bill of health.

Using UV tracking dust has proved inconclusive and tells us what we already know - they get into the attic via the cavity walls. Downstairs is difficult to assess without ripping up all the wooden floors. Indications are though that they get in downstairs and travel up rather than entering at the roofline. There is nothing else obvious externally to indicate where the get in - smears, scratch marks, runs in the garden etc - nothing.

Despite spending thousands on treatments, surveys, drainage repairs, cleaning, fixing damage, digging up outside, removing floors inside etc we are still blighted to this day.

Can they have dug right under the foundations from somewhere far away ? How could we know ? There is decking at the back of the house but we've had all that up and no entry points were found. Can they climb the inside of plastic drainpipes right to the roof ?

We are getting really desparate and dont know what to do next or where to turn - eveything costs money and nothing seems to work - they go (or die) and they come back. We're not willing to co-habit with these creatures and cant even have anyone to stay any more because we cant face the embarrasment of the noises and smell is (thankfully the smell goes after a while but you never know when or where another will die). I know this is a side effect of using poison but despite 10s of traps, we only ever caught 1 young rat so poison seems the only answer to wipe out a large scale infestation. We've considered moving house, despite the cost and upheaval, but cant sell it like it is.

Any advice/tips/suggestions welcome...
thanks,
Nick

vax2002

A good spaniel will find where they are getting in with seconds, it will need 3 of you to drag it away once it knows. Similarly a good ratter dog, they work better when hungry, jack Russell, patter dale, anyone have one you can borrow, preferably before its fed.
Is the house detached, they can tunnel from one to the next or even under a whole row.
They are easy to get rid of outside, you can mix some diesel with saw dust and as they pride themselves on keeping groomed, they soon get sick of the sticky sawdust and oil smell and leave, but that only really works with out buildings, as it stinks a bit.

nicka99

thanks vax - the current pest controller already brought his terrier round. it couldnt find anything outside but didnt go inside. Maybe Ill ask him come back and sniff around inside. Probably given the amount of poison down now this could be a risk to the dog however.
yes, its a detached house. neighbours dont seem to have/acknowledge (who would) a problem.

vax2002

The spaniels are much better at it, especially the big springers, the sense of smell is unbelievable and they will get in to undergrowth by hook or crook if they have a sniff. But any good ratting dog will find the entry point, sometimes you have to try a couple of different dogs, some are over fed pooches.

Mayflower10cat

Yes, they CAN climb up inside plastic drainpipes. We've had a few rats living under the shed for years - our neighbour said she actually watched them climbing out of the top of the downpipe on our conservatory, trotting along the guttering and then down into their logstore..... We kept hearing funny noises from the other side of the wall near the downpipe, but never guessed they were climbing up inside. And yes, they can make the most incredibly long tunnels, deep too. From under the shed base, they've tunnelled under a brick wall's foundations, under decking which has a layer of concrete underneath, then popped up 10' away under the roots of a climbing rose. In truth our rat family was never really a problem for us. However within a few months of our foundling rescue tabby cat being allowed out - he's wiped them all out. The previous owner, we discovered from our neighbours, had a rat living under the floorboards. She moved the draught excluder from the (stuck) old front door one day to find a pile of chewed up stuffing and a hole in her seagrass and floorboards! The farmer from over the back came and 'dealt with it' apparently.

Nearly forgot - I know you can get plug-in rat & mouse repellers, might it be worth a go? Loads on t'internet when I just googled, something like this?
http://www.primrose.co.uk/advanced-rat-and-mouse-repeller-whole-house-p-36.html

vax2002

Chicken wire + wire tie the bottom of the drain pipes just for good measure, as said above, they can...

andygb

A lot of good advice here so quickly. We had a problem a few years ago, and it was difficult to understand how they could get into the house. They can get through incredibly small gaps, and chew through floorboards.

Silk

Hi,
Saw this thread by accident and thought i'd post my experiance's

I'm glad to say I've never had this at home but have had it at 3 different work premises over the years, all industrial units.

First off having used both Council and private ones I've found that the council always seemed to get better results.

Secondly 2 out of the 3 were due to broken drains and both were solved by cameras down the drains and the drains being sleeved etc end of problems.
The other one was a pain but was found they were coming in through a tunnel in the foundations that led to some victorian building that had been flattened and never filled in properly.
They cured this by injecting some sort of sticky stuff to fill the tunnel ..might be something along the lines Vax describes ?

If it was me in your situation I'd be tempted to get a check done on the drain pipes etc

Silk

Mayflower10cat wrote: »

Nearly forgot - I know you can get plug-in rat & mouse repellers, might it be worth a go? Loads on t'internet when I just googled, something like this?
http://www.primrose.co.uk/advanced-rat-and-mouse-repeller-whole-house-p-36.html

Hi Mayflower,
These are a complete waste of money...can't say about rats but they certainly don't work with mice.
My Mother had a few and after trying all the usual I bought a couple for her didn't make any difference ..in fact when I went round to check a couple of days after plugging them in I noticed the mice had been having a party about a foot away from one of them with a load of droppings and chewed up veg :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Eventualy found where the mice were getting in was a bigger hole they had chewed where the supply pipe came in behind washing machine ..end of problems