Rodental invasion: advice sought

I doubt your cats would agree to the terms.

(are they legal minded as well, your felines?)

pest guys gotta eat too...

Seems to me that you c0uld get a VECTOR CONTROL specialist from your city or state Health agency to give you free consulting , and, Armed with this information, you could develop an actual work statement to present to a "Verminator".(Too much ambiguity always yields outta sight bids)

The biggest problems in getting rid of rats is to get rid of the trash and areas that they like to dwell. Then, keeping foodstuffs away from them while the poisoning events occur is another step that requires coordination and cooperation from the residents. If just one guy doesnt do his or her part, all the rats will take refuge in that guys place and just tred water till the verminators gone.

The best poisons have been banned for several decades now so were left with stuff like Warfarin (which is relatively safe around pets because the pets will puke it up if they eat it) Rats cant puke so thats why these anticoagulant poisons work well and they dont develop any immunities to pass down to their ratty heirs. However, they do have some problems .

The reason Im sounding like I know what Im talking about is because I opened an office in Santa Fe about 20 years ago and it was rat infested. We also got a couple of "sticker shock" estimates so I called in the State guys and even a tribal vector control guy because we were working with the NAtions. We saved boucoup bucks by essentially taking responsibility on ourselves. The biggest thing was the cleanup and removal of ratty cover.
Is the bid that you mentioned inclusive of all site cleanup as well? If its just poisoning, the rats will soon be back no matter how much follow up is done. Rats will press their burgeoning population from elsewhere and the bastards will take over what appears to be a freshly de ratted niche.

What does the 270K get ya? if I may be bold to ask

OY ----270 $ not 270K$. Big difference. So, with a 270 $ bid, there is probably NO cleanup involved, and its just poisoning. Id be even more disposed to get some city vector control agent in there to give you advice about how poisoning is only the initial step of becoming rat free.

Here's an article on different do-it-yourself methods. When I lived in the city, I did a cleaner, safer elimination of rodents than any of the companies my landlady hired. I used the electric box that rates the highest here:

http://www.grit.com/Farm/Rodent-Pest-Control-on-the-Farm.aspx

Oops! wrong article, let me look around and see if I can find the one I really want...

Try this one:

http://www.grit.com/Animals/A-Better-Mousetrap-for-Your-Farmhouse.aspx

I'll lend you my pied piper if you'll wink at me, Joe

I somehow read this as "residential invasion". Expected either a serious discussion of legal issues, or a parody of David.

In areas where there is sufficient food and shelter, rodents breed faster than they can be killed by normal (non-environmentally damaging) methods. So in many cases infestations like this are considered zero sum systems in which there will be little change in the population density until the root conditions of the environment are altered.

So at the very least, you should remove the food sources and as much of the shelter for them as possible. Then killing them will begin to have an effect.

As far as I know, we have mice, not rats. The city of Chicago will send someone out to inspect residential properties and give advice regarding rat eradication. I don't know if it offers the same service in connection with mice. I have, however, let our association president know about this service.

Thanks, we'll look into these options.

Ideally, everyone in the building should be doing these sorts of things already. But then that's the problem: they're not. I'm not sure what first attracted the little critters to the building -- whether someone was leaving food out or whatever -- but they're here now. I'm not sure we can depend on some of the knuckleheads we have in the building to clean up after themselves.

We've had a mouse problem for several years now. We kill, literally, dozens each year (we use sticky traps). I heard a piece on CBC late last year to the effect that Ontario and the northern tier of the United States are suffering a mouse population explosion. In part, it is thought that this is caused by the collapse of almost every species which formerly preyed upon small rodents, such as foxes, hawks, falcons, eagles and so forth. It is also in part thought to be a product of climate change, but i don't know that i subscribe to that--those "Chicken Little" boys start hollering climate change at the drop of a hat, or of a rodent. It is entirely possible that your rodent infestation is a result of this alleged rodent population explosion.

Just tell them they're rats, anyway. By the time they find out, you'v already got what you need from them.

We need more of these guys around here.

Diabolical. I like that.

Coyotes could do the trick. After Dubya-Dubya Two, when Farley Mowat got out of the army, he got a degree, and then the Canadian government sent him above the arctic circle to study wolves. The theory was that the wolves were killing off the caribou. He demonstrated, in some cases with photographic evidence, that hunters were circling the herds in small planes, shooting dozens of animals, and then landing to take away one or two heads. He denied that the wolves were following the caribou herds, stating that they (the wolves) were territorial, and only hunted caribou when they passed through their territory.

So the government boys (sarcastically) asked him what the wolves lived on when there were no caribou around. So he reported back that they ate voles and mice, as well as insects and the occasional fish. They basically (and not even politely) laughed at him.

So Farley sent them an order for 300 mouse traps, and told them not to send him any more food.

I'll bet a coyote could eat a hell of a lot of mice in a day.

Shame, on you! Mice have to live too!