How Do You Exterminate Rats?! No mercy - my excellent tenant wants to leave!

A

annie lumen

One of my IPs has a problem with rats. The house is near an estuary and, in winter, rats/mice come into the house seeking warmth and food.

The tenant, pest controllers and I have tried everything. Nothing is off-limits as there are no pets or wildlife around the house. A cat is not a possibility as the tenant has an allergy to cats. We want them exterminated. The tenant is a fastidiously clean person and leaves no rubbish around. She's upset and wants to leave:

We've tried many things:

- Pellet & wax based bait are totally ineffective as the rats refuse to eat them. The wax pellets actually attract roaches who happily devour them as fast as they can be replaced.

- mechanical traps have proven to be too gory for the tenant.

- "save and release" rat traps are self defeating. The pests return.

- multiple ultrasonic devices worked for a few days then failed to be effective

Last week, the mice ate through the wiring of the tenant's car and she was unable to go to work. When I arrived to placate her, we sat down for a coffee and, as we were watching TV, a mouse boldly walked across the room as if it owned the house. The are everywhere, including the roof and wall cavities. They tend to leave in summer, perhaps they go away for holidays.

If you have successfully dealt with a persistent and serious rat problems, please share some ideas as to how to get rid of them.
 
Get a snake :D
Are you sure they are rats and not mice?
I'd start by installing fly screens to doors and windows
 
Someone recently posted these 'Rat Zapper'

http://www.derwenttraders.com.au/contents/en-us/d103.html?gclid=COTVz9z9pqgCFQH1bwodSy-6Hg

I think they indicated they were very effective and they are without the standard bloody mess of standard traps. Although they may have a cooked smell:D

We recently had a mouse plague and used baits to finally knock them over. It did take a while but their all gone now.

Use a little bit of peanut butter as an enticement as they can't resist the stuff.

Seems like there is a general plague of all things including cockroaches. It could be that the mice and rats are there because of roaches as they may be a food supply for them.

I would concentrate on getting rid of all three.


Cheers
 
Hi,

Check the neighbourhood, there may be an attractant garbage dump or place keeping food for them.

Check house for doors that close tightly, put weather strips on the bottom of doors, leave baits in yard quiet corners, borrow a fox terrier dog and when you use

- "save and release" rat traps are self defeating. The pests return.

Kill the b****y things
 
pity they're allergic to cats - i would've leant you mine.

with 6 months in our ppor he's up to 19 field mice dead and 2 bush rats. block next door is extensively overgrown and then a park is on the other side.

fortunately he's not interested in birds

i'd go for the peanut butter and slaughter treatment. mice/rats also love pumpkin slices, so try mixing some of those in perhaps.
 
- mechanical traps have proven to be too gory for the tenant.
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That's a pity. Every rural pantry has a couple of the old fashioned traps baited and ready 24/7, 365 days of the year. That's because they work.

You don't just trot them out when you finally hear the noises of an entire brood in your walls - you want them always there to trap the curious scouts.

Pest controllers cannot solve the problem permanently - and it's not in their interest to do so. They will nab a few beasties and trot their prizes out the gate knowing that another vermin generation is only a few months away.

Your tenant will need to get on the "no mercy" bandwagon with you.
 
The cats don't need to live inside. I'm sure she could survive them just living around the property? She won't have to feed them much !!
 
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lizzie said:
pity they're allergic to cats - i would've leant you mine.
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or one of mine, who generously left us the head and tail of a rat on the kitchen floor this morning. The remainder is presumed eaten.
(neighbours have chickens, providing an apparently endless source of mice and rats)
 
I have two fabulous cats, who catch more then their fair share of mice and rats (and rabits and snakes) but we still have a mouse problem. We also catch lots in our old fashions mouse traps. Unfortunately the only really effective method is baiting them (and that is a huge issue with our pets and kids). If the bait isn't working, I would suggest that it is being put in the wrong places, or maybe you need to switch baits. You then need to seal up any entries you can find that they may be using to get into the house - steel wool is very effective for plugging gaps and still nice and cheap. It is probably also worth your while to get an electrician to come out and check your wiring.

Good luck with it. If you do manage to figure out another solution, please let me know. I would sell my firstborn to get rid of this problem.
 
We had a rat problem for about 18 months in one of our IP's. Cost us a fortune in the Pest Control guys, rats dying in the roof, stinking the place and then maggots falling through downlights - yuck!

We got so frustrated so I turned to google and found the TOMCAT BAIT STATION, available at Bunnings. We had an idea of where their nest was and placed it on a fence, away from pets and children. We used 2 different Tomcat baits. It works no more rats partying in the roof and cavities and it has now been well over 12 months.

The fix was under $100. The tenants didn't see a dead rat.

Sunshine
 
I have used the tomcat one aswell. Worked very well but one crawled into my girlfriends draws to die. a quite funny surprise (for me) when she found it. she squealled like a school girl
 
softmonkey said:
That's a pity. Every rural pantry has a couple of the old fashioned traps baited and ready 24/7, 365 days of the year. That's because they work.

You don't just trot them out when you finally hear the noises of an entire brood in your walls - you want them always there to trap the curious scouts.

Pest controllers cannot solve the problem permanently - and it's not in their interest to do so. They will nab a few beasties and trot their prizes out the gate knowing that another vermin generation is only a few months away.

Your tenant will need to get on the "no mercy" bandwagon with you.
Click to expand...

But "we" 'could' better than a pest controller ?
 
But "we" 'could' better than a pest controller ?
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In many cases, yes, because the resident/landlord are always available to check/reset traps. Pest Controllers charge for every visit so a sustained eradication gets very expensive.

If you mean 'we' as in the forums, lots of great ideas in this thread already!
 
There are rats because there are holes in the house. Probably find a way to get rid of that first... failing that tom cats are pretty powerful. There are also traps where you don't see the body.
 
I may have mentioned this before but I have a degree in pharmacy. Rat pellets contain something called warfarin - a drug that makes blood very "thin", uncoagulative and prone to leakage through blood vessels - which pretty much makes the animal bleed to death internally and die without knowing what is going on, quite painlessly.

So. Most rat pellets probably taste how they look. How about you make something delicious to rats, something greasy and fantastic - like fried bacon - with a lovely layer of rat pellet sauce. The amount of warfarin you need in order to die is minimal. Bit of water, few rat pellets, bit of fried bacon...seeya later.
 
Anytime. Warfarin works quite well on ex husbands too. Just saying.

(no one take me to court. this post is entirely in jest. kind of. by the way, I'm in the market for a Food Taster. Good hours, good rates, but you may die without feeling it thanks to Coles brand warfarin. PM me for details)
 
Ocean Architect said:
Anytime. Warfarin works quite well on ex husbands too. Just saying.

(no one take me to court. this post is entirely in jest. kind of. by the way, I'm in the market for a Food Taster. Good hours, good rates, but you may die without feeling it thanks to Coles brand warfarin. PM me for details)
Click to expand...

But you need to be an ex-husband to apply ;)
 
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