Topic: Rats - can we cohab or is veils a likely problem?

[grepmonkey]

Hi, I recently found rats in the compost heap at home. In the past I would not have had an issue with this, live and let live I say. I now have a 1 year old who is all Ray Mears in the garden. Am I exposing the boy to a large health risk to allow the rats to remain?   Assuming the rats do have to go, what can I do to stop them?

Im assuming I need to remove all the compost and rinse down the bins and stack them up in the garage for a few weeks the rats will relocate. Is this the case? If so how long do I need to wait before I can put the compost bins back?

When they are in situ, I havent put anything in there that would encourage them - that goes into the wormery, which is sealed on the other side of the garden.

Does anyone have any other tips for deterring the rats?

[Tulipa]

I would suggest you contact your local council and get them to come and deal with it.  They will take your 1 year old into account when deciding the best way to get rid of them.  I would definitely think they were a health risk.  Good luck. T.

[OllieC]

I've only ever known one person contract veils disease - a guy in our canoe club who (we assumed) caught it whilst paddling at Holme pierpoint.

Anyone who's ever worked in a warehouse knows how many rats run around over drinks bottles yet it's pretty rare to catch it (lots of people drink out of bottles in pubs etc). I wonder how contagious it is after it's dried up.

[KittyKatt]

First, getting rid of the rats - I would ring the Council, who should send the rat man round to deal with them. Where we live, it's free of charge for a domestic property. I used to be quite casual about rats until a friend's Dad nearly died from Weil's - he'd been working in a cellar where rats had been. Nearly 2 years on, he's still not fully recovered and the drs don't think his kidneys will ever be 100% again. Have a discreet look round your neighbours - do they all have dustbins, or do they put their rubbish in plastic sacks? Plastic sacks are like a fast food paradise to rats. We had a rat problem a couple of years ago, and a major factor was that our neighbours left heir rubbish in bags. Now they have a bin with a tightly fitting lid, no more rats!! Also, if neighbours feed the birds, this may be a problem if they put too much food down, so the birds can't eat it all, and it's left lying around.
Since then, we've had the odd rat in the compost bin from tine to time, mostly in the depths of winter. The easiest way I've found to deter them is to buy a compost aerator and regularly aerate the compost - they don't like being disturbed! Another trick a friend used was to scatter some used cat litter over the compost in the bins, though I'm not sure I would want to recommend this!!On the safe side it's probably best to wear gloves when you're dealing with the compost bins and to wash your hands thoroughly afterwards.
On a lighter note, are you quite sure it's a rat? Recently my other neighbour disturbed something that she thought was a rat, but on closer inspection and consulting a wildlife book, turned out to be a field vole.

[carolinej]

I had rats in the garden, so I called the council rat man. He said that there had been a 30% rise in rat numbers, and most peoples gardens now havew them, but they dont see them.

Apparently, you must inform the council by law if you have rats.

He put down some poison, which worked. Then, a few months later, they were back again. This time the poison was slower working. Something to do with the vitamin K in the potato peelings in the compost bin being the antidote!

I never compost cooked veg or meat, but still had rats.

They always seem to appear after heavy rain, which I think could be to do with them being driven out of the sewers because of rising water levels down there.

I know they carry diseases, but the ones I have seen in my garden have all looked clean and sleek.

cj :)

[Robert_Brenchley]

Weil's disease is pretty rare, which really has to mean that either it's extremely difficult to catch, or very few rats actually carry it. But the threat's always there. If you've got rats, they really need dealing with. Trouble is, since the water companies were privatised, nobody's really been taking responsibility for rodent control, hence the increasing problem.

[davyw1]

Rats are vermin and should be got rid of in any way possible. I will kill them in any way i can and then burn the corpse. I don,t go for this " I can live with them " cos you can,t.
As gardeners you put in a lot of work to get your veg and its hard enough to get good produce just fighting the weather without vermin nibbling at your crops.
A rat does not stay in one place and eat, It will gnaw at a Swede, Turnip, Beetroot and move onto the next one, gnaw a bit more and move on, so if you are not up to cutting out the RAT damage you have lost that veg.  It will be at your Sweetcorn before you know its ripe and ruin your whole crop over night
Now here is the facts that most gardeners don,t think about. The Rat will climb  up your Sprouts, Sweetcorn, Tomato,s and French Beans to eat and it does not climb back down to urinate so any fruit below where it has chewed has been urinated on by the rat The next time you walk into your garden and pick a Sprout, Strawberry,  Peapod or Tomato to eat witout washing it think about that.
The only difference between the Rat and the Rabbit is one gets burnt the other gets stewed.