RATS!
- Thread starter Woody girl
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i have eaten local rodent species who made the mistake of invading my cabin -- meat tasted like rabbit (before anyone tries at home: rodents can carry diseases, so only try with healthy (looking) ones and cook well!)
I think it's way beyond time your neighbours got together and contacted the HA and complained en masse, because this is a plague and it's a real health hazard.
It shouldn't be incumbent on one lady to clean up their mess.
I am truly sorry you are having to deal with this; rats are just bad news.
M
It shouldn't be incumbent on one lady to clean up their mess.
I am truly sorry you are having to deal with this; rats are just bad news.
M
I've spoken to several of my h/a neighbours, (the ones who talk to me anyway) they all reckon there is no rat problem.
But literaly moments ago, I got a txt from a neighbour who lives behind me in private housing, who told me rats got into his shed and ate the rubber seals on my new, second hand washing machine that was stored there untill I got time to get it fitted. It will have to be dumped. They put a huge hole in his shed, and also damaged other stuff in it.
He's too squeamish to trap, and won't use poison bait because of his pup.
It's just madness!
We are going to get more traps tomorrow from the farm shop, and I'll have to deal with his too. No wonder I stay single!!!!!!! I spent a good proportion of my working life doing a man's job, and I'm still doing it . No chaps to my rescue! So be it. I may just say to heck with it and get the pop pop out one night. Though I can think of much better ways to spend a night.
Now, back to that blood spattered trap that needs cleaning before I use it again tonight in my nightly assault on bloody rats...and I'm not swearing with that remark, I have a much nasier word for them.
It does sound like you have more of a people problem than a rat problem. At least you can deal with the rats.
I take care of any here by shooting and big snap traps. Ours seem to be used to the country so will eat snails and other things they find growing such as beetroots and carrots, so cutting out their food supply isn't possible. Thankfully no neighbours means few rats!
I take care of any here by shooting and big snap traps. Ours seem to be used to the country so will eat snails and other things they find growing such as beetroots and carrots, so cutting out their food supply isn't possible. Thankfully no neighbours means few rats!
Yep, the blighters had all my courgette and sweetcorn seeds that I'd just planted and were in my mini greenhouse.
There is no food waste for them to live on in my garden, I spent nearly 50 quid getting someone in to clear the area completely between the house and retaining garden wall. (The sloping garden is raised up from the house.) So there was nowhere for them to hide or nest. The woodpile and coalstore has been dismantled and restocked in its alcove, all nice and tight so nowhere there for them to nest. They are definatly coming from next door. I've found their runs through holes in the fence. Untill we get the storm damaged fence repaired... (sometime in June apparently,) I can't stop them coming in. I've seen them climb the fence before now.
I've had the odd rat, it's to be expected, living in the country, but never this many at once.
The warm weather seemed to make numbers explode.
Last night's rat was a biggun!
Only got its nose trapped, trap was moved about 8 feet away from its site, and there was blood everywhere. Its nose stayed in the trap when I released it. I almost threw up! I'm going to get a lift and go buy more traps tomorrow. This one at a time is too slow, and giving the younger ones time to mature and breed.
There is no food waste for them to live on in my garden, I spent nearly 50 quid getting someone in to clear the area completely between the house and retaining garden wall. (The sloping garden is raised up from the house.) So there was nowhere for them to hide or nest. The woodpile and coalstore has been dismantled and restocked in its alcove, all nice and tight so nowhere there for them to nest. They are definatly coming from next door. I've found their runs through holes in the fence. Untill we get the storm damaged fence repaired... (sometime in June apparently,) I can't stop them coming in. I've seen them climb the fence before now.
I've had the odd rat, it's to be expected, living in the country, but never this many at once.
The warm weather seemed to make numbers explode.
Last night's rat was a biggun!
Only got its nose trapped, trap was moved about 8 feet away from its site, and there was blood everywhere. Its nose stayed in the trap when I released it. I almost threw up! I'm going to get a lift and go buy more traps tomorrow. This one at a time is too slow, and giving the younger ones time to mature and breed.
I've been asked to lay a paving slab floor in my ex's greenhouse to stop the rats getting in. I think they'll just burrow and nest underneath until the slabs collapse the holes/tunnels. These are the brown hampster sized ones and make big holes.
They love to tunnel against something like a wall or under flagstones/slabs.
What you can do is put down pea gravel under the slabs rather than just sand. Doesn't need to be posh stuff, the dark unattractive stuff that get used to mix into concrete works fine.
The slabs been very stable.
I sit the compost bins down on pea gravel too. I just put a cut off bit of the semi-permeable membrane on top to catch the compost
They don't seem to be able to tunnel in gravel
They are babies!
No rats are hamster size when full grown. Big holes are the giveaway.
You have mummy's and daddies somewhere.
Get trapping boy, or the babies will be mating inside a month or so, and with an average 8 per litter.............!
Excellent advice, thank you. That I can do, what sort gravel depth do I need?They love to tunnel against something like a wall or under flagstones/slabs.
What you can do it put down pea gravel under the slabs rather than just sand. Doesn't need to be posh stuff, the dark unattractive stuff that get used to mix into concrete works fine.
The slabs been very stable.
I sit the compost bins down on pea gravel too. I just put a cut off bit of the semi-permeable membrane on top to catch the compost
They don't seem to be able to tunnel in gravel
I tried rat traps in the past, got blood once but generally it doesn't kill them they just (I guess) wriggle free or shrug them off. They seem to like the rat poison, eat boxes of the stuff but no bodies anywhere.
No chance of stopping them, they live in the woods at the back, and use our side to burrow into the neighbours chicken coop. They also come down to steal all my hazelnuts, used to blame the squirrels who do get some, but then found a huge heap of them in one of the rats hidey holes.
One of the other neighbours gave up on chickens because of the rats., chewed holes in the timber planks of the coop.
@Falstaff
My soil is heavy clay, and they can dig into that, so I dug out about a foot deep...but I had a wonderful resource readily available to use under the gravel layer; we live next to a nature walk that used to be the mineral railway line for the Victorian/Edwardian gasworks in the next village. They used the exhausted burnt out clinker, and the ash from the locomotives fireboxes, to pad the railway line and just kept piling it up along side it. So I just dug into one of the spoil heaps and used that. I topped it with a couple of inches of gravel to let the slabs level off properly, and they haven't moved in twenty years, so it seems to work, and I've never had any trace of rats in the greenhouse.
No idea what you have around you that might work.
I know the local builders merchant will deliver one of those metre square bags of 'aggregate' for about fifty quid. That's a lot of gravel type stuff that the rats won't be able to burrow into.
Might be worth a few phone calls ?
M
My soil is heavy clay, and they can dig into that, so I dug out about a foot deep...but I had a wonderful resource readily available to use under the gravel layer; we live next to a nature walk that used to be the mineral railway line for the Victorian/Edwardian gasworks in the next village. They used the exhausted burnt out clinker, and the ash from the locomotives fireboxes, to pad the railway line and just kept piling it up along side it. So I just dug into one of the spoil heaps and used that. I topped it with a couple of inches of gravel to let the slabs level off properly, and they haven't moved in twenty years, so it seems to work, and I've never had any trace of rats in the greenhouse.
No idea what you have around you that might work.
I know the local builders merchant will deliver one of those metre square bags of 'aggregate' for about fifty quid. That's a lot of gravel type stuff that the rats won't be able to burrow into.
Might be worth a few phone calls ?
M
If use of the "pop pop" is prohibited by HA rules, what about a "wooooof wooooof"?
A dog is for life, not just rats. Besides, I wouldn't want to leave the poor thing outside all night when they are most active invading my garden.
Didn't catch anything last night. Could be because I had to wash the very bloody trap, and disinfect the bloodied concrete. Still, if that keeps them away, I'm happy.
"wooooof wooooof" is the sound that a flamethrower makes...
I'll check my local army surplus for one.
Actualy some progress from the h/a...of sorts.
Long phone call yesterday from h/a
They have forced my neighbour to take down the ramshackle shed in the corner, that is up against the party fence and next to the bungalow, which he put up without permission and a rats nest was found.
They are sending a rat man to check my loft on Friday, as I've seen them on the shed roof, climbing into the gutter and disappear into the gutters, so loft is being checked for entry points. I have heard them up there on occasion.
Apparently, he finaly admitted to the h/a that he has a rat problem too, after telling everyone in the street I was lying to try and get him into trouble!
The fact that my friend who's property backs onto his complained about the rats coming under the fence from his property and destryed my stored washing machine and other contents of his shed, to the ha, backed me up, so now he cannot deny that he is the problem.
Funny, how when a private property owner gets on to them, things start to move!
I was told that I couldn't have a shed in a similar place on my property months ago, so I argued about him having one, and they told me they'd speak to him about removing it...never happened.
Ray rings up with a complaint, and within days it's sorted.
Still, it's progress.
Have no idea whats happened to the rats nest under the shed they found, but hopefuly they have gone elsewhere or been destryed somehow.
I guess we will find out soon enough.
Glad to hear there's been some progress. It's in the h/a's interests to get this resolved after all, so hopefully they persist in doing so.
