Rats in my loft!

Have you tried this :-

http://youtu.be/QTOajyzvIjE

A bit of bacon will do the trick.

Or Kevin.

Cooked bacon or raw?

Just having a google and peanut butter seems a good one. I'll do them a bacon and peanut butter cocktail.

Doesn't matter, and don't forget to tie the trap to something.

what a load of RAP.

If you know someone who keeps a Jack Russell and Ferrets ask them to come and sort it out,5 minutes and the problem will be sorted,will get noisy though

Recently cleared a house and Bait blocks seem to work. Couple of kilo (ish) bags in B&Q and the like for about twenty quid. You can chuck them about fairly liberally and they seemed to do the job quite quickly.

Bush Meat £22 per KG  gutted

You shoot chickens with an air rifle?

cant believe come across this subject on here as was about to start a thread on same subject only i think i got mice.  been up in attic this morning and found what i think are mice droppings.  what are the ramificatioins of this and shud i just poison them.  wont they smell if i poison them while they rot away??

I would trap them rather than poison them.  You want to be sure that you are rid of the dead body.

Decomposing poisoned rat(s) would stink the house out (and the juices might possibly drip through the ceiling).

when disposing of rats at this time of year its imperative you find their nest and destroy all
the eggs..dont want the problem coming back.

rats eggs taste nice poached

Well I've put down 5 lots of poison and set 2 traps (and screwed them to some chipboard) baited with peanut butter.

The smell of the dead rat is what's put me off of using poison in the past but I think the nest is in a hedge at the end of the house, so hopefully they'll go outside to die.

I've got a Jack Russell and a patterdale terrier but I've only ever seen them get one rat between them so they're not alot of use!

See what happens tonight.

I catch any rats and mice in humane traps. Then Mr Makybe drives some distance away and releases them.

I always do them a packed lunch so they have something to eat until they get their bearings.

what a load of balls.

Leave a note telling them about the new squatters rights law - as long as they don't eat the note they should be on their heels

when disposing of rats at this time of year its imperative you find their nest and destroy all
the eggs..dont want the problem coming back


Eggs? Since when did rats lay eggs?

That's right - it's dogs that lay eggs

Some great fishing on here..rats eggs i genuinely lol'd when i read that.

As for the guy releasing rats back out into the country

That's what I've always told him to do BV. Whether he actually does it or not is another matter.

I have taken mice up the fields myself to release them.

Anyone remember Warrack Hunt's classic 'Found A Rat's Nest In My Shed' thread on the horse racing forum? He removed the eggs, but they kept coming back. Loads of advice along the lines of 'Are you sure rat's lay eggs?'

I'd pay a proper ratcatcher not anyone from Yellow Pages that starts with AAAAAAAA . Hard to totally eradicate permanently if you don't know what you are doing.

You can make your own trap.

All you need is a piece of wood, a gob of chewing gum, and a razor blade.
You stick the razor blade onto the wood  (sharp side up,) with the chewing gum

Then do not put any cheese behind the razor blade.

The rat comes along – puts its head over the razor blade looking for the cheese, then moves his head from side to side looking for the cheese as he thinks ‘’where’s the f’kin’ cheese?’’

And cuts its own throat.

^^Works on mice as well.

The rat comes along – puts its head over the razor blade looking for the cheese, then moves his head from side to side looking for the cheese as he thinks ‘’where’s the f’kin’ cheese?’


And cuts its own throat



I dont know why but that really made me

my neighbour got an elderly moggie looks in need of feeding, might capture for a few nights and chuck up attic, that shud do the trick.

If it's a normal trap then chocolate is a winner, if it has a little prong to press the bait on, then a chunk of Twix pushed top side down onto it will deffo test their neck strength.

Other thing to do is to rest a board against a wall or say a paper cup if you don't have a flat vertical wall.
Flush the bgger out and it'll hide behind/under the board.
you then simply hoof/stamp on the board.
I have to mention that I've only ever done that with mice which are probably a little less splashy.

If you are using bait, put 3 little blocks of it a a tub and place a few tubs along the walls, rates are pretty blind and they generallly run parallel to structures. Once the bait is eaten it takes about 24 hours to die. They generally go outside to die as the bait makes them dehydrated and they go looking fo water. Make sure your water tank is covered if their is a tank in your loft. Check every day and relace bait as necessary. They should be gone within the week. You'll also need to check where they are getting in anb block their route. Best of luck as they are annoying bastads.

Sure they're not squirrels?

Might not be rats - seen "The Exorcist"?

Put on some silly clothes and buy a flute. It worked for that guy in Hamelin.

Surely there would be no harm in having a Mass?
1.01 Roman Ritual required

A mate of mine is a farmer. He has rat problems with his corn and wheat storage.

He swears by this.

Capture one of the rats alive, cover it in lighter fuel and set fire to it. The rat squeals will scare off just about every other rat in that area.

noted

Just had a look up in the loft, nothing on the traps but one sachet of the poison seems to have gone, although the other four are untouched.

Is this what they do? ie drag the whole sachet off or have I just not waylaid one? I did just throw them about randomly.

They were making a right racket last night. Going to try a different bait on the traps tomorrow if no joy tonight. I can't see how they are getting in either which is a bit of a worry.

How much would a pro rat man charge to sort it out roughly?
Cheers.

You have to careful about how you are going to do it if you set out to kill pests.
A bloke was fined £1500 for drowning a squirrel, after a vet concluded that it had suffered.

The do-gooders and hand wringers are everywhere.

Yet they don’t mind allowing certain groups to cut the throats of animals, and then let them bleed to death.

How much would a pro rat man charge to sort it out roughly?

I had the same problem earlier this year phoned think it was £25 a vist and they'd need to make at least 2.

But I got rid of it myself, rat trap, bournville dark chocolate and peanut butter, soon got him ! 

Years ago I think a pro rat man would turn up with a couple of Jack Russells.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG51Z_RLwT0

I think that, if you rang the 'pro rat man' and asked him how much he would charge, he would tell you. That way you would know. Much better than guessing.
Quite possibly different prices in different areas. You could also discuss which method you might prefer.

This advice any good for you :-

http://youtu.be/4u9a6l54idU

Well 4 out of the 5 sachets have gone and last night there was considerably less noise up there so I think I'm on a winner.

Had a good look for any dead ones but can't see any, going to give it until the end of the week then clear up all the droppings and disinfect it up there. Then try and work out how they got up there in the first place and block it.

Nothing on the traps though.

Thanks for all the replies, there has been some good tips.

Cheers.

Well done TPFKAH.
That’s the way to deal with rats - no quarter asked and no quarter given.

Dr C...no noise at at all last night, but opened the front door today when I got home from work and there is the smell of death, it's rancid.

I found one outside, but the smell is coming from my kitchen that is an extension (where there is no roof void)

under the floor/behind kitchen units?

http://youtu.be/4u9a6l54idU

see uncle dellman knew....

RIP rats. Poor little things.

if ur house is detached an u got rats in the loft ,the house may well be infested ,rats dont generally head up to peoples lofts

did you manage to destroy all the eggs?

Sit up in the loft, away from the bait, with a .22 air rifle and a torch strapped to the barrel.

Be patient.

Get them all.

As pointed out it is strange that the rats have headed straight up into the loft. It isn't normal for them to do this so your house could be infested. Alternatively we found rats in our loft and eventually discovered that because we live near an airbase, which we found out later had a massive infestation, the rats were apparently boarding aircraft then parachuting onto the roofs of houses in our area, then finding ways to enter the roof space.

SF,
They tell us that it’s not advisable to shoot a rifle in an enclosed space like a loft, because of the danger from ricochets.

Lead pellets don't ricochet, shirley

SF,
Yes you're probably right. but it's not that easy to shoot a rat with an air rifle.
The buggers won't keep still while you're taking aim.

They do whilst looking for Dr.Crippen's cheese!

?Where has Eboue been - that joke's at least 100 years old!

h

Don't know why you got involved really!

As far as I am aware the local council will deal with the rats for you.
Are you sure it is rats?

I just looked at the topic and indeed the councils will do it for you (some do it F.O.C) and you will know it is
properly sorted.

They know how to recognise where they are coming from, and also they use a poisoned seed that you can't buy yourself.

Also they will make certain that dead ones are removed.

Give them a call if it persists.

Well the poison did the trick, after 3 nights that was it. I only ever did find one dead one and the smell I was on about only lasted for a couple of days.

Apparently loft rats are a different breed to normal sewer rats and are smaller and darker. I think maybe there wasn't that many up there, just in the dead of night it sounded like there was loads up there (I'm a really light sleeper anyway)

I never worked out how they got in, I cut down a couple of trees at the back of the house so I could take a good look but couldn't find anywhere they could enter.

My only conclusion is they must've got into the wall cavity and climbed up. Hopefully they won't return but if they do I've since met a pest controller through a friend at work who said he'll come and sort it out for good if they do.

Squirrels can set up home get in your loft as well.

I had them in a house that I was doing up once.

I wasn't living there so I splashed some creosote about in the roof space.

That shifted them.

Maybe this is a brand new breed of rat, ie, laying eggs, chances are they cross bred with birds and simply flew into the loft.Chances are they will fly  back up there again, keep the traps handy.

I was a bookie manager 20+ years ago.  One day the cashier was sitting on the loo and suddenly noticed a rat behind the toilet seat.

The said rat clearly came in through the yard outside the back door.  Luckily for some reason there was something that resembled a big metal sheet that could cover the width of the door in the shop.  Over the course of the next 2-3 days the rats gnawed away at the back door before they finally gave up.  There was a hole at the base of the back door that must have been half the size of a football!!