Getting rid of rats/mice (merged threads)

mrsr

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Have you tried ringing the council's pest dept?

yes we had them first when had prob with mums house,they only put bait down,which is the same as we use.the advie=se they gave us was to get chimley covered rentokill nearly died laughing.

nicka99

we used both the local council pest control and rentokil. I found them both next to useless except rentokil worse because they were so arrogant and rude and charged a fortune for a service that was no better than the council one ! only when I phoned around a few independents and ask them about their methods for treatment, locating entry points and rodent proofing did we start to make progress. the one we used even arrived with a terrier one day which he used for tracking rodents - thats the kind of lateral thinking you need to outsmart these beasts - not just a ton of poison.

Lotus-eater

I'd agree, if you don't want to have a go and sorting them out yourself, then ring a couple of independents and take it from there.

mrsr

Luckily my nieghbour is very good and is working with me on this and he's a builder so is going to do anouther search for anything we may have missed,he was convinced it was trapped ones to start with but i think hes seeing my point now .We have shared the cost of getting the drains checked etc,any repairs to the building he can do,i'm not hopefull he will find anything all this has been checked before.Thankyou for your thoughts and replys on this,it nice to get other opinions.

nicka99

check the gardens for anywhere where they may have burrowed a hole under the foundations under any one of the properties - this could be some way from the house. a terrier would make this job much easier !

mrsr

nicka99 wrote: »

check the gardens for anywhere where they may have burrowed a hole under the foundations under any one of the properties - this could be some way from the house. a terrier would make this job much easier !

Thankyou will look for that,don't think i will be able to manage terrier iv'e got two little Poodles one of them is smaller than a rat so would prob be no use at all:rotfl:

GoEnviro

Please note that if you leave any rats on the other side of a drain liner or patch repair they will easily eat thru it to get to the drain, so before you carry out lining and patch repairs you need to kill off the rats and their families. Dependent upon where you are in the country some rats have resistance to some of the available poisons so you are well advised to check with a pest control company to identify the best poisons.

mrsr

GoEnviro wrote: »

Please note that if you leave any rats on the other side of a drain liner or patch repair they will easily eat thru it to get to the drain, so before you carry out lining and patch repairs you need to kill off the rats and their families. Dependent upon where you are in the country some rats have resistance to some of the available poisons so you are well advised to check with a pest control company to identify the best poisons.

Thankyou
I don't know what was done to drain to repair it,when we were still hearing them the drains were rechecked again and found to be still ok .Thats when they suggested we could be hearing trapped ones living of one anouther,seems to have gone on to long for that.

mrsr

mrsr wrote: »

Hi
I'm hoping there maybe somebody out there who could help.
To cut a very long story short,next door had a problem with there drains which was causing rats in both are houses.The drain was repaired 6wks ago and i have also had mine checked,the problem is we are still hearing them the drain company came out again and rechecked.They have told us Rats can live off one anouther for sometime if they were trapped up there.My point is there would have had to have been a lot traped in the first place for them to still be surviving and when we had that really hot spell i didn't hear a thing and i cant see how they would have survived with out water.Also i am hearing them first this time which makes me think there now getting in through mine some where .Does any body have any knowledge on how long they could survive if they had been trapped ,i'm sure it wouldnt have been many,we hadn't got to the point of being over run.

.


Well maybe the Drain company was right there were a few trapped in loft and have been feeding off each other:eek ,I haven't heard a thing for the last few days .Fingers crossed

Eliza_2

Having been kept awake yet again by the sound of scrabbling in the walls and ceiling, I am going on the offensive to keep them out today.

This is a very old house with 2 ft thick walls but it sounds as though they are running up between the walls and plaster board, I'm sure soon enough I'm going to see a little hole appear by my bed and some teeth peeping through - GRRR!

The house is built partly into a hill and seems to rest on boulders, hence there are lots of gaps for them to get through into the walls as there is no clear angle between wall and outside. However I want to go round and block as many gaps between boulders and walls as I can.

So what would be the best product for this? I thought of sealing holes with a combination of stones and some sort of filler, but apparently they love nibbling pollyfilla or similar. Wire wool is a possibility too but I would need quite a lot to fill all the gaps, some are really pretty huge.

I can't use poison as I have cats - one of which goes up to the neighbours farm every day and brings home quite a few mice - how can I persuade her the takings are just as good nearer to home?! I can't face dealing with traps either.

So gap filling is the way forward - your thoughts please?