Topic: Rats...

[mat]

Yes, Rats... I have a rat (I believe) in my house... Well, in my pipework between the walls and under the bath... I worked out last Thursday whether the bu**er is, went and bought some Eradirat last Saturday from Scats... unscrewed the bath side and put loads under the bath... I hope this stuff does eradicate it, as it kept me awake last night playing and eating the stuff (I could hear it tossing the "nuts" around under the bath last night, seeming to be playing with them as well as chewing them)

Anyone used Eradirat?  Says they generally dies within 3-4 days... today is day 2... how many more nights do I have to endure, or should I "bite the bullet" and buy a spring trap?

Not sure how it got in there, where it comes from/goes to - as it is not there all the time... But at the moment the d**n thing is playing musical instruments under the bath... (I don't dare unscrew the bath side and see if I can watch it - I am too much of a coward...

I know people keep rats as pets, but this one gives me the creeps, esp as I live on me own...  :-[

mat

[Robert_Brenchley]

Keep putting down the poison. It could take a while, as you could have a family of them. As long as they're takling it, you'll get them eventually.

[lorna]

Mat. OMG. I live on my own and believe you me if I had a rat in the bungalow the dog would be in kennels and I would be sleeping on the floor in one of the kid's  home until it was got rid of. :o
When we kept pigs we had the occasional rat in the buildings (we always had a vermin chap once a month) and often when we moved feeders we would have several mice, funnily enough that never worried me, they would scuttle away. If they were in my bungalow I would be the one scuttling away.
Really hope you get rid of the da*n thing soon.
Lorna

[Heldi]

I've used eradirat recently ...and my pair of rats have gone.  I put it down in small parcels wrapped in clingfilm. Keep putting it down until it doesn't get taken anymore..then you've probably got your rat. The main thing is you HAVE to make sure there is no other food source. The rat wont take the bait if there are other things on offer.  I had to clear out my bird feeder and table. I then saw one on top of a garden statue pinching peanuts....in broad daylight!

I felt rotten killing my rats...I want wildlife and I shouldn't expect to pick and choose,having said that,you can't have rats running around your house and garden for all the well known reasons.

[mat]

Yes, Lorna, mice don't bother me either, but this sounds far too big for a mouse, I think it is/was a large rat  ::) in fact the thought of rats in the garden don't bother me either (I have never seen one in the garden or shed) but I draw the line in the house/walls/loft!  I wish I could work out how it got in to where it did...

Anyway, I had a rat free evening, and I think rat free night too, so I think I may be rat free now...  ;D (though I am unsure where it has gone to/died...)

Heldi, I was relieved to hear of someone who has used this food (and I too felt rotten) to successfully kills rats - as it is food... and I was silently wondering whether I was just making my rat even bigger!!!  For people who don't know, eradirat is not bait/poison, but a food source - it is entirely natural and chemical free and is endorsed by the barn owl trust.  All it contains is 94% ground maize, 1% ground wheat, 5% mollasses... so how does it work?  I really don't know, but internet searches says it does and all I can relate is that it seems to dry out the rat as it cannot get rid of it once eaten (I wonder whether it is like sugar beet cubes which swell up in horses) and the rat goes into a coma as the blood system is clogged up, and it dies.  It is supposed to be more humane, unable to gain resistence (which some rats in this area now have) entirely safe to anything else which eats the "food" or the dead rat...  we now have Red Kites flying overhead (and barn owls nearby) and a lovely cat who inhabits my garden, so I don't really want them getting hold of my dead rat with poison inside it (if it hasn't died "inside the walls" - hopefully a bad smell will not appear soon...)

Anyway, if I hear nothing again soon, I'll check the feeders... Last night I was hearing all sorts of noises and telling myself, no it's a neighbour, no its outside, no it's the floor boards contracting... even at one stage, no that was my stomach rumbling!  Amazing how many small sounds are heard which I normally "don't hear" as I consider it normally to be silent where I live (literally)!

mat

[Heldi]

Mat. we tried rat traps...only caught mice. We had a rat box with poison in it. Didn't work. I was very nervous about it,didn't like the idea at all. Have two kids,a dog and a cat. Was really unhappy with the poison. Read about eradirat and decided to go for that for all the reasons you've explained.  It seems to have worked so I would/will use it again if and when the rats reappear. They will reappear as I am inbetween a harbour and a farm!

[mat]

Thanks Heldi...  If I get another rat free night tonight, I will assume (for now!) the eradirat has worked and my rat has demised... certainly quiet so far this evening...  I think I will buy a replacement container in case of future cases!  I need to go into the loft at the weekend (when it is light!) to see if it has taken any of the "food" up there...  I hope not, as until now, the loft has been vermin free and I thought it would be a good winter food store for potatoes/squash, etc as it is cold but frost free...

I was amused though, when the other night it was playing musical instrumnets with the nuts and the bath  ;D made me feel quite sad that it had to be killed...

mat

[mc55]

Mat, good luck with your ratty problem.  I sympathise as I have rats at the allotment, I know its not the same, but I daren't go into the shed and will destroy it in the summer. 

I also had a mouse at home - managed to catch it one day under a mixing bowl, but OH wanted to photograph it before releasing it and of course, he managed to let it escape ... grrr ... now can't find it again.  As you say, any noise in the night and I attribute it to the mouse, even though he may not be there anymore.  I replaced the skirting boards in my bedroom a few weeks after he escaped, and lay night after night listening to terrible and haunting scratching noises coming from behind them.  Couldn't bear it and so removed them ... now I dream that he runs across my pillow in the night and wake up screaming ...

Also tried a humane trap, but he wasn't tempted, probably because when I unrolled the rug I was storing under the bed, I discovered his personal stash of Polo Mints !

[mat]

NOT dead yet...  >:( I heard it about 30 mins ago back under the bath...  >:( though it wasn't there long this time and sounded very half hearted in its eating/chucking nuts around, so hopefully its demise will be imminent... they say 3-4 days generally for death... tonight is day 4...

I cannot have a bath at the moment as the thought of lying there with all my smellies in the water (radox, etc, not me!) and then hearing the rat beneath me is a bit unnerving... As you say, the noises are haunting  :-[

I laughed at the polo mints!  For a tip for people with the spring mouse traps; place a sunflower seed (in its shell) on the spike, mice LOVE them, and they cannot "grab and go" and place the traps along a wall edge (mice use edges to run along) we caught literally thousands this way down at my parents land/sheds.  We then placed the dead 'uns on the top of the shed, where the owl would come down at night and eat them!

mat

[lorna]

When I had a mouse in the greenhouse last year a lady said put some mars bar on it. They love it and have to chew at it. End of mouse!!

[pakaba]

hi
Can you get this eradirat from the usual DIY places?

I had great 'fun'  on Saturday watching a rat try to get to the fat  balls hanging off the shed...... when i first saw him i wasn't sure if it was a squirrel or rat  then felt guilty about trying to kill it because if was a squirrel we'd have been excited.   

I went out and removed all the fat ball holders and i haven't seen him since.  BUT i know he's still out there so thought would be an ideal way to kill him.  We live next to a railway line so we will always have them, but when they are so brasen about it and in the middle of the day the something has to be done, especially ith a 21 months old running round the garden.


The only reason i had so many fat balls out was to try to get the woodpecker i saw a few weeks ago to come back and pay us another visit.

P.

[moonbells]

I'm having to join in this one... cleared out lottie shed yesterday after having re-covered it with roofing felt, and found about a bucket of soil inside where it had been excavated... tunnel big enough for my narrow trowel. Way too big for a mouse!

Muttergrumble.

So should I go and find some eradirat or traps or... ?  Course now, the shed's even more of a des. res. now it's waterproofed again...

moonbells

[keef]

We had a really bad problem with rats a few years ago.

Our house is next to a big farm - and the rats there are immune to most rat posions. When they were doing a load of building work on the farm, all the rats moved into our cellar. They whould just eat the poison all the time, now and then you'd see a sick looking one about - which my landlord dispatched with a spade. I told him about one once near the bins - all i heard was "Wack", "sqweak", "Oh f**k", "Wack", "Wack", "Wack". ;D

We had to get a rat man with a stunt terrier - to catch them all in the end.

[Heldi]

Sorry I haven't caught up with you pakaba.

I had same problem ...my two rats were out in broad daylight...standing on top of an ornament reaching up for the peanut hanger.  Then they sat in a plantpot looking at me!

www.eradi-products.com

I had to send away for eradirat but I have since seen it in a farm produce shop.

Moonbells I tried traps and a rat box with poison and nothing doing. Was told for those things to be effective they can't smell new. I have two traps buried in my compost getting the newness off them...they were put there before I got the eradirat and still haven't been taken out!  Don't know if i would bother using them now.

[lorna]

Mat. Have you managed to have a bath yet??? ;D ;D Hope you are rid of the little/big blighter.

[Emagggie]

Oh dear, this is not good news.........we had a rat under our bungalow 4 years ago,I sent for the vermin control person, and as we were having lots of work done at the time, when THE SMELL appeared a short while later. I got Peter the painter to lift some floor boards for me.We were very inventive in our investigation methods,even resorting to a mirror on a stick to find the whiffy carcase.
We never did ! We just didn't invite anyone round for 3 months.(husband & I-not P the P).
Do hope the stuff you use doesn't cause the Roland to pong------it's unbelievably bad. :(

[mat]

Sorry not to have replied for so long Lorna - a mix of "flu" for ages, a weekend break, then trying to catch up... I am now trawling through hundreds of postings!

I think the blighter has finally demised...

I havn't smelt anything yet... but I haven't heard it for 4 evenings/nights now... and the last two nights I have even been brave enough to sleep without earplugs   :-[ ::)  I need to pluck up the courage now to go into the loft and see if I can smell/find it...

I had my first leisurely bath tonight, and my; did I enjoy it  ;D (I will add, I have had baths over the last few weeks, but they were very quick!!!)

I also have to admit, I don't know whether it was the eradirat or other poison which ended it in the end... when I had flu, I couldn't drive into Newbury for a restock, so had to resort to buying poison from the local Wilkos 1 mile away...  I am also trying to persuade myself that it was a mouse, as apparently mice take twice as long as rats to die... (I am not scared of mice)

Anyway, I hope this will be a one off, as I have been rodent free for the past 13 years, and I was hoping to use my frost free/same temp all year round loft for storage of some of my future harvest...

mat

[lorna]

Mat Glad to hear that. Not a very nice experience.