Finally reduced rats by bait alone until there were none in the garage/feed room/tack room - no signs for a fortnight now. Got rid of them in the kitchen - no sign for nearly a week.
One has been coming up the bathroom drainpipe & has made a hole in the bathroom/my bedroom wall. I had it plugged up & was hoping to have it fixed later when the weather has improved/time etc.
Anyway, last night I vacuumed & discovered that the carpet in my bedroom by the hole is soaking wet. Water is obviously getting in behind the bath & has seeped through.
I vacated the bedroom, shut the door firmly & headed for the lounge for the night. Woke numerous times to the sound of rat gnawing. I belted the walls with wooden spoon which eventually broke, but to no avail. When I checke this morning it had got through the hole, eaten a huge amount of my bait (yay!!!) and had been chewing on the base of my bedroom door, trying to get through.
Help is on the way but has the flu at the moment. I'm heading for the spare room tonight which should be more comfortable than the lounge.
Hopefully the rat(s) has eaten enough bait that I won't be disturbed again.
They are so gross and it is so horrible having broken sleep to say nothing of listening to the gnawing etc.
Hopefully this is the end of it all!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]Toast is the best food in the world
Whisky is the best drink in the world
- Piggery
- Garage
- Hen House
- Under our cottage
- Inside the roof cavity
All rats are now exterminated, but we caught a wee mouse in a trap today. No secondary poisoning effects at all and we have had bait out for at least 6 months (inside secure bait stations). Storm Secure bait has worked a treat for us
Toast;328841 wrote: Finally reduced rats by bait alone until there were none in the garage/feed room/tack room - no signs for a fortnight now. Got rid of them in the kitchen - no sign for nearly a week.
One has been coming up the bathroom drainpipe & has made a hole in the bathroom/my bedroom wall. I had it plugged up & was hoping to have it fixed later when the weather has improved/time etc.
Anyway, last night I vacuumed & discovered that the carpet in my bedroom by the hole is soaking wet. Water is obviously getting in behind the bath & has seeped through.
I vacated the bedroom, shut the door firmly & headed for the lounge for the night. Woke numerous times to the sound of rat gnawing. I belted the walls with wooden spoon which eventually broke, but to no avail. When I checke this morning it had got through the hole, eaten a huge amount of my bait (yay!!!) and had been chewing on the base of my bedroom door, trying to get through.
Help is on the way but has the flu at the moment. I'm heading for the spare room tonight which should be more comfortable than the lounge.
Hopefully the rat(s) has eaten enough bait that I won't be disturbed again.
They are so gross and it is so horrible having broken sleep to say nothing of listening to the gnawing etc.
Hopefully this is the end of it all!
This has all the elements for a good Alfred Hitchcock movie[}]
Did you know, that what you thought I said, was not what I meant :S
Why are there so many rats this year? I'm gobsmacked at the amount of people I've hear tell about their rat invasions. Not just people nearby either, they seem to be everywhere
kats
Live your life in such a way that it will be easy for people to say nice things at your funeral []
I've given up on other baits, traps etc and realise that mine is working, it just takes time, particularaly with the numbers about this year. Also, I had got complacent over the summer and didn't have bait out.
Apparently there are so many rats because of the mild autumn/early winter. They had another breeding season. I heard on the radio that each female can have up to 1100 offspring in a year! Not sure of the accuracy of that, but I'm not bothering to check up on it. Message received! I heard that there was a rat invasion in either Nelson or Blenheim - it made national news. I heard Richard Loe (ex All Black - Farming & Footy Hour 11am Radio Sport) talking to his Australian correspondent who said there were mice plagues in certain areas of Oz this year. Richard said he had never heard of mice plagues - he obviously leads a sheltered life.
Slept in the spare room last night. It/they obviously came back in the night (I slept right through, thank goodness) as the bait had been knocked over. Can't tell if they had eaten any.
I noticed when they got into the kitchen cupboards they didn't touch the flour but went for the pearl barley. I'm going to buy a packet today & put a few grains in each bait in an effort to attract them and hopefully hasten the process. The remaining barley will be put in a rat proof container!
I think one needs to be diligent & bait every possible place, as GrantK says. I'm going to ask if I can put some over at the farm office/smoko room which is only 25m away, as well as the sheds near the skip bin and also the shed at the house next door. That way I can get rid of some of them before they move to my place.
Big lesson this year - never get complacent! They are very risky. I worry terribly that they will chew on electrical wiring and cause a fire. I read somebody's story on here re the electric cable to their fridge and them chewing through the dishwasher pipes and causing a flood - all in one night!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]Toast is the best food in the world
Whisky is the best drink in the world
Our rats seldom enter the house because there is usually more food in the grain store. I once found half a rat under the dining room table at our previous house though. The cat had been on the job but he couldn't eat the whole thing.
We put poison around our present property many months ago and I'm still finding dried up rats under and behind things in the sheds. Haven't seen a live rat for a very long time now and no problems with secondary poisoning of non-target species.
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