Topic: I have a rat

[cowpie]

My allotment is in London. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised.

When I saw it, I pretended to be a monstrous predator, and it ran away. But to be honest, the rat didn’t seem to find my performance especially frightening, and I think it will come back.

It’s living somewhere on the plot next to ours. It has already enjoyed most of our lettuce. Later in the season, it will probably find our sweetcorn and goodness knows what else.

What should I do?

[Emagggie]

Is there anything you can do? Poisoning is no good because you can't guarantee nothing else will eat it. I feel sure there must be something they don't like the smell/sound of.
Best of luck Cowpie.

[Emagggie]

http://www.greenpestco.com/online-shop/erol.htm
Here's one to browse for you.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Poison under cover won't get anything but rodents. I put it in my shed, and under beehives.

[redimp]

But RB, what about the passing Kestrel that sees the slow rat crawling away to find somewhere to die and thinks 'lunch'.

[blisters]

ERADIRAT is supposed to be completely harmless to anything but rats.

[cowpie]

Eradirat sounds promising. Not a poison, but kills rats. I like that.

In the mean time, is there anything I can do to scare them?

[mc55]

borrow a cat !  my OH just returned from visiting his mum - one of her cats deposited a rat outside the backdoor .... wonder why we don't think of such thoughtful gifts ...

I had rats when I took over my allotment, but haven't seen evidence of them for ages - think they've gone to find an abandoned plot where they won't be disturbed as much.

[sweet-pea]

I too have a rat and tried putting poison down but not sure if it worked. I found a dead one during the winter but don't know if it was the poison or the cold.  And recently I've spotted another so back to square one.  We have cat's on the allotments but they seem to spend most of their time sleeping so don't think they're much use as rat catchers.

I'll be interested to hear of any ideas for deterring them, I'd rather do this than put more poison down.

[Robert_Brenchley]

They do come back since there are always more breeding out there; I believe there are now more rats than people in the UK. I just keep poison down in my shed right through the year, I don't like it but I don't see any other solution.

[Squashfan]

We had rats in our cellar, but since we started letting the cats down there, we had a few *gifts* and now no more sign of them, thank goodness! As for the allotment (we're in London too), I think the foxes keep the rat population down on ours. Tho I had a fox wee on my lettuce the other night... :P

[Robert_Brenchley]

You're probbly right; rats have always been a nuisance, but they've definitely got worse since mange wiped out the foxes.

[mc55]

we have foxes on our site, which apparently keep the rat numbers down