[Closed] Recommend me a rat trap....

I had rats last year and none of them went anywhere near a trap I set. Ate plenty of poison though, you can get the little bait boxes that ensure no other species gets it

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this one,it's catchy[/url]

you can get the little bait boxes that ensure no other species gets it

They might keep a cat out, but a hedgehog will get in...

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I used one of those humane rat trap cages, and it worked, albeit on a guinea pig.
Can't say I've tried it on rats though.

I just shoot the buggers

Don't put down poison in any areas where other wildlife can get to it. It's really ****ing irresponsible.

Are the rats actually causing a problem? They will only come near your house, if there's food available. Make sure you wrap all refuse properly, and put it in proper bins so they can't get to it. Rats are simply part of the natural environment; it's human behaviour that causes the problems. Unless they're actually biting your children's faces/weeing in your drinks, then leave them be. You don't seem to have an issue with the hedgehogs, which could be carrying all sorts of infections, parasites, fleas etc. Plus your cats are far more destructive to wildlife than any rats.

Take time to learn about and understand rats better, and you won't ever have such an issue with them.

"I just shoot the buggers"

Playing the Big Game Hunter, yeah? How terribly brave. 🙄

Can you not get the hedgehogs to roll up into a ball then 'bowl' them at the rats?
They love a bit of ten-pin, hedgehogs do 🙂

Rats are scared of new things, it can take a while for them to investigate traps.
Place traps on their walking route, usually along walls, use peanut butter.

They will only come near your house, if there's food available

We had a rat/some rats making themselves a very nice home in the roof space of our kitchen extension. they've 'soiled' (bleurgh) the insulation, chewed cables (only for little things like the electric oven) down to bare copper, chewed joists, eaten their way through the extractor fan hose. (BTW, anyone know a builder who'll come and fix it all, oddly enough the ones I've spoken to don't seem too keen on spending a couple of days elbow deep in rat sh*t)

They were never in the kitchen itself, so weren't after food, just a safe, warm space to live.

Tried to trap them but they didn't take the bait. Ended up using Tomcat poison. Put it down, heard some scurrying that night, then nothing else.

Also,

Property owners have a legal obligation under the Prevention of Damage by Pests Act 1949 to keep premises rodent free, or, if rodents pose a threat to health or property, to report infestations to the local authority

Nice "edit" there clodhopper 🙄

Yes - I'll happily remove every one of them from any property.
I understand them very well thank you and have no compunction in making sure they don't proliferate.
Something at which they are [b]VERY[/b] adept.
A brick, custard in the frog over a few nights then night night Mrs Rat.
Always the female first as if you take out the first male the youngsters will mature rapidly and then mate with the female (their own mother usually) and all of a sudden you have a load more.
If you see one - you have more than one - they are not a solitary animal.

As above - they won't necessarily come in after food - generally they will nest. Be it your loft, under the shed, a woodpile (how very STW....)
They will go elsewhere to feed so as to protect the nest.

"I just shoot the buggers"

Obviously not, if you think shooting them is an effective means of population control. 😆 We won't get into the Firearms act.

"Sorry, not true."

It's absolutely true. Rats simply won't bother unless there's a food supply, be it human food waste, insects, worms, etc. They'll only take up residence somewhere there's a ready food supply. Rats within the fabric of a building means there are other things living in it too. Or the rats wouldn't be there.

"Property owners have a legal obligation under the Prevention of Damage by Pests Act 1949 to keep premises rodent free, or, if rodents pose a threat to health or property, to report infestations to the local authority"

That's only if they're inside a property. Of course, if they are, then it's perfectly valid to take reasonable steps to remove them and prevent repopulation. Otherwise, live and let live.

Rats within the fabric of a building means there are other things living in it too. Or the rats wouldn't be there

Genuine question, but "other things" like what? Just general creepy crawlies that you'd expect to find in a wall cavity? Or something more noteworthy.

Next door's house is a bit of a mess, he's told me that he had rats inside his kitchen, it possible that they were eating in his house and sleeping it off inside our (ground floor) roof space, isn't it? The extension isn't joined to next door, but the rest of the house is as it's a terrace.

"Genuine question, but "other things" like what? Just general creepy crawlies that you'd expect to find in a wall cavity? Or something more noteworthy."

Quite often, cockroaches. Which are far more common than most people would like to think...

But yes, general creepy crawlies. Of which there are loads in the average house. From microscopic dust mites which feed off shed human skin, and all the way up the food chain, carpet beetles, ants, silverfish, woodlice, centipedes/millipedes, slugs, snails, spiders, moths, various assorted larvae, flies and maggots, worms etc. The wooden fabric of older houses is a perfect environment for many different species to thrive in. Human habitation provides warm, relatively dry and safe shelter for many creatures. And where there's damp, moulds and fungi provide further nutrition. Making this environment inhospitable to just one or two species within an ecosystem,can have a massive impact. We have no rats or mice in our house, which surprises me, but plenty of spiders, so there must be a reason why it's not a suitable environment for our little furry friends.

Our house backs onto woodland and a river, so it's no surprise that there are rodents about, I'd just rather they weren't doing ££££ of damage.

We get quite a few spiders, but not seen any other bugs in the house apart from the occasional daddy long legs. The house is built on a massive concrete slab, so we've not got stuff crawling about under the floorboards either.

I think part of it is (bad) luck. There was a gap in the wall big enough for me to fit my hand in, between the 'old' house, our (badly built) extension and next door's extension. I'm certain that's where they were getting in. If that gap wasn't there then they probably wouldn't have got in and done all the damage. And if the entrance they'd found wasn't so hard to reach (in the middle of the 10cm wide gap between extensions, an arms length down from next door's flat roof) I'd have found it and filled it sooner. As it was, I scratched my arms to bits putting handfuls of broken-glass and nail filled concrete into the hole in the wall. (F****n' cowby builders!)

My problem rat was getting in through an old ventbrick. I believe the rule of thumb is that if you can put. A pencil in the hole then a rodent can squeeze through.[u]

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Spotted a rat on our patio this morning. As we have two cats...

You need to remind them of their purpose in life...

A brick, custard in the frog over a few nights then night night Mrs Rat

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I used one of those humane metal cage traps off ebay but you do need to check it every day. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/381564294326?lpid=122&chn=ps&googleloc=1007017&poi=&campaignid=659272460&device=c&adgroupid=37167790761&rlsatarget=pla-258198442983&adtype=pla&crdt=0 Caught a bird and a squirrel first which I released, apparently none the worse but made me glad I hadn't put down poison.Place it where the rats run,usually along walls.They ignore it to begin with but get used to it after a while.Got a rat after two days..Dropped it off outside clodhoppers for some much needed TLC.Rats aren't solitary animals and will breed and expand like crazy.Get the council ratman round before it gets into a bigger problem like they had in Glasgow when I lived up there-[url= https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/766714/invasion-of-the-giant-2ft-long-rats/ ]obligatory sensationalist tabloid tale[/url] TBH the rat I caught had a big daddy that was as big as a Jack Russell but with an alligator's tale and sh*t me up when I saw it and I was on the first floor!

Rats in your roofspace are usually taking insulation material to line their burrows (so I was told by council ratperson)

We had a rat and couldn't use poison due to chickens and a dog. The live traps did not manage to hold the rat so in the end I lured him out with some quiche and shot him with an air rifle.

I'm quite sure the way its done is covered under the firearms act clodhopper 😉

Obviously not, if you think shooting them is an effective means of population control. We won't get into the Firearms act.

Why not? To both questions.

Obviously shooting them isn't as effective as removing their reason for being there but it's a good start.

As for the Firearms Act, could you explain why that would be relevant?