Rats....maybe

B0bbyEwing

"In my home" is a suitable forum name for this one.

Any of you ever had bother with rats in your home?

To be totally honest, i'm not 100% on what it is that's in here. Mice, rats, squirrels. I don't know. I'm going to hazard a guess at rats or at least 'a' rat. 

We have a void under our living room floor (& water - another story, no can't get rid of it unless you want to give me about 15k to solid floor it) which is where we hear the noise most of the time. It's like it's scratting on the underside of the floorboards but then it'll sound like it's in the skirting board area. For a while we thought it perhaps next doors cat scratting at their skirting but as time went on it was obvious that it wasn't that.

One that I don't understand is it'll also be heard in the extension which IS a solid floor and also not joined to next door. I've been under the floor in the living room & not too sure how it gets in there. This is where it sounds super loud, it's as though it is literally on the other side of the skirting board, like it's about to pop out of the top any time soon.

Less frequent, it's travelled throughout the house even getting in the loft above the bedroom. When I was up there I saw crap all over the chipboard flooring there but when I Google mice & rat crap, I wasn't totally sure as in my view it was like between the sizes. 

Getting fed up of it I laid 2 traps down that I had the other week in the only under floor access points I have - under the boiler & under the bath. A beefy strong snapper under the boiler & a bit of a flimsy plastic one under the bath. 

Checked yesterday to find the beefy one was untouched but the plastic one was missing. Looks like it'd dragged it further down the channel & got it wedged where it wouldn't fit through. Then I saw a black jelly bean in & amongst the rubble under the flooring which made me suspect rat so I've switched traps for now.

Looking at access points, I can only really see air bricks as access points to the under floor but who knows with these things. I suppose they can get in a whole host of ways. 

For those of you who've had them, did you have much luck getting rid & what worked?

pmartin86

If it is a rat, they are very sensetive to change (apparantly) I had one in my previous house and I thought I'd never get rid of it, took me about a month all in to catch the !!!!!!! The advice I researched and found at the time is summarised as follows.

- Try and find their "runs" - common areas you know they frequent
- Clean up and seal ALL food items in the house, and any water sources (Good time to scub your kitchen cupboards out) if you ahve pets, feed them when your are there and clean up the bowls afterwards
- Clean the traps well, and leave out in the sun (not so easy at this time of year) and then wearing gloves, get some "material" from the runs (or under the floor in your case) and rub it all over the traps.
- Bait the traps with something very "strong" - in the end with me it was some burger - and leave a few smaller pieces around the area

In my case, it took about 4 days for the rat to re-visit the area after i had distrubed it, it ate some the bit id left around, then 2 days later it returned, seeminly "bold" to the free food that was safe, and i got it.

FreeBear

B0bbyEwing said: Looking at access points, I can only really see air bricks as access points to the under floor but who knows with these things. I suppose they can get in a whole host of ways.

Sis has rats frequenting her greenhouse - The little burgers have dug multiple tunnels to get in. Depending on the depth of your foundations, it may not be airbricks they are using.

B0bbyEwing

FreeBear said:

B0bbyEwing said: Looking at access points, I can only really see air bricks as access points to the under floor but who knows with these things. I suppose they can get in a whole host of ways.

Sis has rats frequenting her greenhouse - The little burgers have dug multiple tunnels to get in. Depending on the depth of your foundations, it may not be airbricks they are using.

Void under the living room is a 1mtr drop.

I'm not saying that in the sense that they can't get in other ways. They're sly beggars & I'm sure they get in a way that doesn't involve an air brick (considering they wouldn't fit through the tiny holes anyway), it's just that I can't think how it is. 

A house a few doors down & across the street has a cat. Since the summer it's taken to coming to ours. It was very interested in the skirting boards the other day! lol. 

dealyboy

Hi B0bby ... yes I had a rat (deceased) come in to my park home kitchen every night for a couple of weeks a couple of months ago. It is no more, it is an ex rat.

It came in to the cupboard under my sink from outside and by some means, presumably squeezing through tiny gaps, had no difficulty getting to my other cupboard shelves where I have wild bird food. It bit or scratched through plastic packaging of peanuts and sultanas and helped itself. I sealed all the bird food in glass jars or secure spaces such as washing machine, oven and bedroom wardrobe.

Basil came back every night, getting earlier and earlier, initially at about 02:00am but eventually as soon as it got dark. Although it was not getting any food I could hear the large glass jars being moved and knocked over, curiously the cat food saucers were left untouched and the cat couldn't be bothered.

The poo and wee were obvious signs of a rat rather than mice or anything else, the poo drops being about half an inch long.

It wasn't going away and although I didn't want to take drastic action, after a couple of confrontations I'd had enough. I bought a Rentokil 'Quick Set Rat Trap' from Wilko at about £5 and set it up at about 3:30pm one afternoon. At 4:50pm I suddenly heard a lot of thumping and thrashing about coming from my kitchen and shower room for a couple of minutes. I didn't hear anything more and plucked up the courage to look in my kitchen cupboard under the sink the following morning, and found that the trap had activated and dealt with Basil with a clean blow.

Things to note:
- It first appeared one night about midnight when it was raining hard and I could hear the sound of something scratching at what I thought was my vent from the outside. I thought it could have been branches/twigs from my roses and trees but it wasn't windy. I think it came through a gap in an external panel and gnawed through wood at the back of the cupboards.
- It was a black rat but sounded as if it was as big as a cat or squirrel when it jumped down. It was about 10" tip to tip.
- One cupboard under the sink was clearly its main point to sit and that was where I left the trap.
- I baited the trap with smooth peanut butter, not overdoing it, but leaving a little in the bottom of the receptacle. I turned it so that the step/bait end was against a vertical surface and in a corner so that the rat would have to access it from the side (this is advised).
- There are youtube videos of this and other traps.
- I have been lucky not to have any others to date.

B0bbyEwing

Glad you got your issue sorted dealyboy.

I know what you mean about how big it sounds. I've not seen it yet but whatever it is sounds BIG. That could just be the way the noise is travelling and it may well be the smallest mouse ever but there you go.

I don't know whether it makes any difference whatsoever but we live in the city, not country. Not main city centre but outskirts. 

I have seen a mouse in the garden and funny enough this morning, over the backs cat went for a mouse in our garden but it's an old cat and didn't have the pace to get it. Had it been across the roads cat that mouse would've stood no chance as that thing is like lightning.

My wife wants me to use humane baits. She's a huge animal lover. The phrase - wouldn't kill a fly is literally made for her. She wont kill a thing. I'm sorry but when I've got something like that in my walls and under my floor then I don't care how it goes but it needs to be gone. I'm sure she wont be using words like "cute" once it's gnawed through the electrics or whatever else & things start costing.

Have myself some of that big cheese bait which I've broken up & scattered about. A few years ago it took one complete block. We shall see how we get on. 

SergeantBaker

B0bbyEwing said:

Glad you got your issue sorted dealyboy.

I know what you mean about how big it sounds. I've not seen it yet but whatever it is sounds BIG. That could just be the way the noise is travelling and it may well be the smallest mouse ever but there you go.

I don't know whether it makes any difference whatsoever but we live in the city, not country. Not main city centre but outskirts. 

I have seen a mouse in the garden and funny enough this morning, over the backs cat went for a mouse in our garden but it's an old cat and didn't have the pace to get it. Had it been across the roads cat that mouse would've stood no chance as that thing is like lightning.

My wife wants me to use humane baits. She's a huge animal lover. The phrase - wouldn't kill a fly is literally made for her. She wont kill a thing. I'm sorry but when I've got something like that in my walls and under my floor then I don't care how it goes but it needs to be gone. I'm sure she wont be using words like "cute" once it's gnawed through the electrics or whatever else & things start costing.

Have myself some of that big cheese bait which I've broken up & scattered about. A few years ago it took one complete block. We shall see how we get on. 

How long has this been going on?

B0bbyEwing

SergeantBaker said:
How long has this been going on?

Depends. 

All in all, a few years. At a guess maybe 2 or 3.

We had them for a while a few years ago where they'd be a nuisance for a good few week, maybe a month or more. I put out the poison as mentioned. Possibly not long after that they disappeared for a LONG time. Many many many months. I say "they", it may be just 1 mouse/rat.
Then on one of the super rare occasions our neighbours and I spoke, they asked about us having mice as they were suddenly having trouble. I knew this because I could hear him smacking the hell out of the wall & skirting in the living room & suspected as much. We had no bother still. 

Then they seemed to stop complaining about it, or perhaps they were but we don't really talk. They stopped banging the walls anyway. Our issue didn't come back.

Then for the past 3-6 week say, we've had the noise again.

I'm reasonably, though not 100% sure that it was around this time of year last time too, though I'm fairly sure it was summer time or at least light nights ish when they spoke to me about it.

SusieT

If you think it is a mouse I can highly recommend the electric killers. I had a problem with mice in the shed and garage so bought 2 and they are very good. Mouse goes in to get the bait that they can smell, touch the electtric pads and bye bye mousie. No need to clean a snap trap, just (turn it off) lift the lid and turn it upside down and the mouse falls out. Just make sure you keep the batteries up to date and check them regularly. 

plumb1_2

B0bbyEwing said:

We had them for a while a few years ago where they'd be a nuisance for a good few week, maybe a month or more. I put out the poison as mentioned. Possibly not long after that they disappeared for a LONG time. 

Maybe they were in quarantine due to covid.

Merry Christmas 

dealyboy

B0bbyEwing said:

I'm reasonably, though not 100% sure that it was around this time of year last time too, though I'm fairly sure it was summer time or at least light nights ish when they spoke to me about it.

Hey B0bby ... Are you sure it wasn't all a dream ... Happy Christmas!