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Sat 28 Sep, 2019 09:44 am
I have lived here for over 25 years. In that time, I have had the occasional rat tunneling behind the kitchen cabinet. I repair the holes and try to rat-proof it, but these 1982 models of trailer homes are not well constructed. In the past, the rats have been a smaller variety that are easily gotten rid of. Today I am dealing with some monsters.
My first clue that this big rat had moved in was when it chewed up my new vinyl flooring right at the pantry door. It got under the door and made holes in a bag of dog food. It also found some cracked corn that we have been giving to the ducks in the park. It ignored the Decon I had placed in strategic locations. I got rid of it rather easily by baiting a trap with the dog food and a bit of the corn. I could guess by the smell deep out of my reach that it left a litter to die. I killed the smell by flooding over the area with bleach. For a couple of weeks, I saw no new activity. But then it began all over.
This rat chews the flooring and seems to be seeking food, but it avoids dog food, rat poisons, corn, bread, cheese - everything I put down to attract it. I have some sticky traps down, but it avoids those. A website recommends putting down amonia, but then I would also be breathing it. The same site recommends other repellants, including dryer non static strips, which do not work.
Does anybody here have any experience that can help me?
@edgarblythe,
we had a mouse problem until we purchased a few ultrasonic pest repellers -- the kind you plug into an outlet.
not sure if it would work on rats, but might be worth a shot...
@Region Philbis,
I know they exist but did not know if they work. I need to research it.
https://www.nachi.org/ultrasonic-pest-repellers.htm
This is why I don't think I ought to invest in the electric devices.
@edgarblythe,
all i know is they worked like a charm for us, solved our mouse problem quickly...
@Region Philbis,
Could you supply me with a brand name, please?
@edgarblythe,
• Pest Offense
• Attack Wave Pestrepeller
not sure if one type is more effective than the other, but we currently have both...
@edgarblythe,
when qe were tearins off an old mud-room on the back of the house, the rats had set up a mtratolis. I was told that taking some jewelers steel wool and load it up with something that is a really good oxiizing agent (like peroxide salts or Chlorox), they dont like the steel wool and the salts set up a stinging current.
You should also have a deep ground rod set up on the frame of your railer. When my first wife and I moved to New Hven when I was in grd school. we lived along I 95 in a trailer home and I had some friends in the physics dept who had these giant copper ground rods. Boy did that make a ifference in lwctricity use and those annoying horts that can occur in a metal frame.
Hve a Heart traps rally work too. You catch the rat in the trap. Tise a line to the handle and send the rat to the bottom of a stream for about 10 minutes then dump it out .Its good food for the carp.
Steel wool keeps em out and have a harts catch em(I guess my traps werent actually "have A heart")
@farmerman,
More good info. Thanks, mucho.
@edgarblythe,
https://citypests.com/how-to-catch-a-smart-rat/
I like the idea of putting them at ease with the traps first.
@edgarblythe,
Get a Ferret or a Mink, those are great rat hunters. Or hire someone who uses them for exterminations.
@eurocelticyankee,
I caught one with a trap. I fed it grains and dry dog food all day, then baited the trigger. So far I haven't gotten any more that way.
@rosborne979,
My dog will not tolerate any animal he considers a varment.
I once have a neighbor with common walls to myself that was just overran with rats thanks to his birds an bird feeds but in decades I only saw one alive corner rat, thanks to my 7 cat roommates at the time.
The corner rat was very very large an the cats decided it would be best if they would just keep it corner so that I could killed it.
I can still see my cats pinning him while I went to find my high power BB gun to end the matter.
@BillRM,
My dog would have waded in and attempted to kill them all indiscriminately.
@edgarblythe,
edgarblythe wrote:
My dog would have waded in and attempted to kill them all indiscriminately.
I can remember when my 60 pound retriever have the same idea before my head cat hit him a few times with her claws.
He now tend to treat them with respect an of late even sometime sleep with them on top of him.
@BillRM,
I won't regale anybody with tales of what my hundred-pound shepherd/lab has done to a number of cats.
I think the rat may have taken a peanut in the shell last night. I don't see it lately. I put more out along the wall and in the vicinity of a new trap. I was in Home Depot today but didn't think about the rats. Hopefully tomorrow -
@edgarblythe,
you take warfarin? Put a 5mg pill in a lab of p-nut butter and he will go to ratty heaven.Warfarin is an anticoagulant and rats cant gag it up. So they hemorrhage
@farmerman,
Nope. The only pills we have are the wife's pain pills from knee surgery and her blood pressure meds.
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