[Closed] Rats! (or big mice)

My neighbour reckons the ultrasonic things work but I'd be worried about it affectinf the cat as cats have acute hearing for high-pitched sounds. Mice can make a lot of noise and last night I killed the first with a traditional trap, which felt good.

Everything in the attic of this poxy bungalow where we're staying stinks of mouse urine so now I'm worrying about going up and inhaling the dust as dried mouse crap is bad for you.

Has anybody ever heard of anyone getting sick from inhaling mouse dust or touching a dead mouse?

The ultrasonic things are rubbish, don't waste your money.

Get the council pest control service in (if yours provide it) as they will know the best places to lay the poison to ensure they quickly leave the house to die rather than decompose inside (dead rats give off terrible smells). Apparently the poison makes them thirsty so they go off to their normal water source after eating the poison then die there.

In the short term has anyone had any success with ultrasonic deterent thingys and are they safe around cats?

Tried one that had "cat safe" setting. Had zero impact. Had read up on the reviews before hand but gave it ago anyway whilst waiting for posion to work.

My advice is don't bother.

The story about mice and rats going outside to die is untrue, one died under the bedroom floor and it stank for two weeks.

yeah, my work colleague said same happened to him and it was weeks before the stink went. Not too keen on using poison

Yeah, and flies. Don't forget about the flies. Trust me, I know.

Sling the cat in the loft. When the clunk squeak stops, retrieve the cat.
Works for us.

I was being kept awake by the sods anyway (ended up sleeping downstairs as you couldn't hear 'em there) so went for poison as the last thing I wanted was to be woken up by the bang of a trap!

Ended up getting a private pest firm in, a little applecheeked chap in tweed who pointed out all the likely ingress points (which we swiftly took care of)(fix those holes! Take down the climbing plants!) and laid special pro poison.

I was happy to endure the corpse smell as to me it was the smell of having my own bloody house back! Felt a bit bad for the mice but if they'd left me alone in the first place...

PS our loft was mainly boarded so the meeeses could have hidden from a cat or terrier under the boards in among the insulation... How much weight can a ceiling take anyway? How likely would you to get a cat/border terrier (possibly accompanied by a rodent nest) falling onto your bed in a shower of plaster?

If there are trusses spreading the load, quite a lot of weight.

If you already have them running around then the sound deterrent things wont move them on, I think there is a chance that if you use those before there are any mice around you may persuade them to set up shop next door instead but they are not going to make mice that are already there leave. I have no idea about the cat safety of them.

As someone above says you want to get the professionals out and doing that via the council is usually cheaper than going direct. The pros will spot things that you wouldn't and will understand where is best to lay poison etc, also the poison they use is much stronger than is available to the public so instead of slowly killing them out over the course of a week or two and letting them have time to reproduce they can put stuff down that will kill them all within hours assuming its mice.

Upgrade the cat?

Fire your cats and replace them with a Bedlington Terrier - they aren't doing their jobs.

and letting them have time to reproduce they can put stuff down that will kill them all within hours assuming its mice.

Including killing or causing acute poisoning in your cats as well. Secondary poisoning is a thing - guns or dogs are the way to go - although I guess neither will work in a roof 😀

A weekend shooting party in the loft with beer and a few mates, sounds like a giggle. What could possibly go wrong.
You'll easily know whether it's rats or mice, rat droppings are pretty big compared to mouse ones. Chocolate raisin sort of size. They're a bloody pain to get rid of, better getting the experts in as suggested for a quick solution.

Call in an expert.
Noise devices are just a waste of money.
Shelf bought products just increase immunity over time.
Break back traps and plenty of them checked regularly or professional rodenticide.
Bear in mind rats are neophobic so will take a few days getting used to new objects before the traps work. This will bring down the current population, but finding the access point, proofing and digging out the burrow is the only way to eradicate completely.

And before anyone says they are living in the loft thats extremely unlikely. Black rats are very rare in the uk leaving it to be the Norway/Brown rat as the culprit.
Brown rats burrow for nests and will be gaining access via an airbrick or external pipe exit more than likely. They can fit through as little as a 12mm gap.

Edit: they do require a water source so the info they leave to die is correct. One block of Muskil can take down dozens and dozens of rats so getting the odd one die in the loft is gonna be hard to stop.

We had this, they seemed to be getting in via the drains through a redundant branch and up the cavity, only visible once we had a drain CCTV, fitted some https://ratblockers.com/, and haven't had any rats since we had those fitted. Touch wood.

I can highly recommend https://www.kestrelpestmanagement.co.uk/ if they come to your area.

Before we discovered the above I've tried poisoning, CCTV camera in the loft to work out where they are going, live catch traps, and kill traps. You might want something to control the population until you work it out. My thoughts were they can eat through your electrical wires and burn your house down so they have to die.

My thoughts/findings:
* poisoning has no guarantees about where they die, I only found one poisoned rat up there but could have quite easily missed it, but we have not had the dead rat smell. It's not a quick or pleasant death for them, I think they die from internal bleeding/haemorrhaging. Pest control people like poison because they don't have to check the traps every day (it's not feasible). Poison is also good because you can see when the rat has visited the poison because there is less of it, or they make a mess eating it, so it's good to discover if they are still there/where they go.

* Kill traps, are quick and effective, I'd look at Fenn Mk4 or the more expensive Black Cat traps. The snap style Victor traps are not effective on large brown/norway rats, they just shake them off, I've witnessed this on the camera. Oh have you ruled out squirrels? Fenn's are cheap but will mash your fingers, avoid if you're a clumsy bastard.

* live traps, also caught a few with live traps. But you then have to dispose of them, or set them free miles and miles away and hope you just haven't caused another problem where you release it. Drowning is not advised, and is illegal for squirrels (but you cant let a grey squirrel go, by law you gotta squish it!) I don't know about the legality of the CO2 method in the UK but seems the most humane way to do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3ZXWr0aDbQ.

* CCTV, a cheap £30 night vision camera from amazon will allow you to check traps daily without going into your loft, and also alert you when your new fury friends are in town.

Oh they carry diseases like Leptospirosis (Weil's disease), so avoid their blood and piss.

Hope that helps, I wish I didn't have to know all this stuff, but maybe it helps you.

Jaymoid, its illegal to release any live trapped pest. Unfortunately the only legal way to despatch is shooting or with a blunt instrument in a sack. Drowning any wildlife is an offence that carries a prison sentence under the FEPA legislation.

Jaymoid, its illegal to release any live trapped pest. Unfortunately the only legal way to despatch is shooting or with a blunt instrument in a sack. Drowning any wildlife is an offence that carries a prison sentence under the FEPA legislation.

Ah that makes sense, I knew it was for grey squirrels and a few other invasive non native species but couldn't find anything relating to rats, got any references/links? Annoyingly this stuff is not the easiest to find.

oh, clarification on my earlier post, we fitted https://ratwall.co.uk, not the ratblocker product.