Rats..

[Comrade 86]

2 hours ago, Alty_Ram said:

Yeah, the noise seems to be in the kitchen floor but is very infrequent, so maybe it is a visitor ?  I can't for the life of me work out how it gets from there to the garden and back though (or even if it is the same one). There is no obvious hole and the rat I saw was a big unit so it's not going to be a tiny crack. I can't see anything damaged in the kitchen cupboards and bins so it could be behind the board at the bottom of the kitchen units. I'll try and pull them out. It's so difficult to know what's going on 😡

Rats can get into pretty much anything. Our apartments have a communal refuse area with the huge industrial type bins and the feckers chewed their way through the corners of them. The hard plastic materials used are about a centimetre thick, but presented no problem at all as rats can chew their way through concrete after all. When they walled the area off, the buggers were literally scaling the trees nearby to get over the walls, just like a squirrel can. Felt sorry for them really, as ours were river rats and just trying to feed their own kind but the residents were so freaked out at the size of the feckers that they got pest control in and wiped them out completely.

My advice is simple; remove any reason for them to 'visit'. No food, no rats. Once they've found some other food source, you can go back to feeding the birds again.

[Alty_Ram]

In response to comments about where they are coming from, I can certainly stop the bird feeder from our side but today I surprised it/one of them and it ran back along the fenceline and darted through a small gap that frankly looked too small for it. That side is a building site and I wonder if builders are leaving food scraps and attracting them too. I saw it again later and same again, it went through to the building site when chased.

[AndyinLiverpool]

2 hours ago, richinspain said:

We were chatting with our daughter in our bedroom one night when she saw a mouse run across the room and into her bedroom. They locked me in her room with a broom, whilst I thought "what the hell am I going to do with this?". Anyway, suddenly the mouse ran in front of me and quick as a flash I swung the broom like an axe hitting the mouse squarely in the back. I knew that binge watching Vikings would come in useful.

Unfortunately, the mouse had been binge watching Tom and Jerry and smacked you in the face with a frying pan before polishing off the contents of the fridge.

[Normanton Lad]

Stop feeding them and they will leave. That applies to all unwelcome guests.

Put all your food in containers and give the bird feeder a holiday. Keep your house and garden spotless.

[maxjam]

14 minutes ago, Normanton Lad said:

Stop feeding them and they will leave. That applies to all unwelcome guests.

Doesn't apply to my mother-in-law and we moved 4hrs away but she still turns up!

[Mihangel]

On 28/05/2024 at 19:59, Gritstone Ram said:

I think first of all you need to find where they are coming from. Do you live by a brook or river? If not then you may need to look at your drains for defects. Chambers with uncapped inlets are easy to spot also you may spot evidence in the chambers like droppings. If you suspect the drains I don’t think the council are much help, you may have to find a local pest control company. 
One way is to cut off their route into the property either sealing up holes etc. It could be trial and error but some pest control contractor might be best placed to advise.

Other methods are buy an air gun probably depending on the size of your garden and where your neighbours are positioned or use poison but again it might be better leaving that to an expert.

I use an air rifle to get rid of squirrels, similar size, pretty easy shot and, obviously, very effective!