Argghh! This has been an ongoing battle over several years. Note the complete ignoring of the minefield (8) of freshly baited traps (peanut butter + drop of scent/attractant): https://www.dropbox.com/s/qutld34c4i2ram5/2018-01-21_04-51-57_Atticsouth.mp4?dl=0
Do you live near an open field?
No, but for all intents and purposes I live in a slum, i.e. Allen, TX. The whole neighborhood has been infested for some time but HoA won’t take general action, e.g. paying to have professional service manage the problem, and individual houses are mostly rented to people who don’t give a rat’s ass (he he), so that’s no good, either.
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I feel your pain. We’ve had an ongoing issue in this neighborhood since the massive highway redo nearby. Even when we get kinda control of ours (intermittent), we’re still surrounded by the rest of the neighborhood. Kinda like an apartment building infested with roaches…one kept clear is hard to do when surrounded by ones that aren’t. Sigh.
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I bought a couple of cheap plastic tool boxes that latched. The cut holes about 1.5"-2.0" in diameter mid way up the box. Tossed in some poison and set them along the outside of my house next to wall. I was amazed at how many times I had to refill these - for about 4 weeks.
The latches make sure pets and kids can’t open them. The bottom of holes were up about 2" from ground so if it rained it didn’t get wet inside. By having them outside, it gets new “visitors” before they become “guests”. A friend that was an exterminator told me that poison (warfarin) causes heavy internal bleeding that makes them thirsty - so they leave the house looking for water and don’t make it back. Anyway, by having it outside I’ve not had a problem with rodents for several years now. Need checking very 6 months or so.
Squirrels don’t seem to like it, of course I have seven pecan trees for their dining pleasure.
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Thanks for the lead. Looks like they have on out on Thingiverse!:
I’m dealing with a devil in my attic I am sure it’s not vermin as it sounds like it’s about 80lbs and carrying a chain. I read that a strobe light works wonders.
I’m on it.
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Empty tool box is good ideas for this. I already have industrial size rat bait bucket of Wafarin. Thanks!
At this point, I am 90% sure they are coming in via my chimney, which I believe is uncapped (f’ing, f’ing home builders!). So I’ll probably focus on getting some wire mesh up there. If you don’t hear from me in a few days, it is because I have fallen and impaled my self on my neighbor’s fence. Who won’t care. Because they are renters.
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Stan and Photo - agree with you both from home and ranch experience.
That rat dunker is a really good device. Got one on Amazon or Ebay and it works and is auto reset.
Poison is indeed a good option and is underrated, I think. Best buy for poison is Tractor Supply. Get this one but with the pellets in the little white bags. Several reasons - easy to distribute, easy to monitor (either opened or not by the rats), you can pick them up later if no takers. And rats just love chewing into things like that.
Yes, put the bags outside in small containers with hole saw holes in the side. Throw a few around your garage. Put a few in the attic. I have fed tons of this stuff to rats and keeping a few bags around in the attic and garage seems to keep them at bay. Don’t think I’ve had them die in the house, which is what people fear. Could happen but I think it’s a chance to take. Rats are pretty smart and by keeping the poison around, they sometimes just get a whiff and it makes them sick and they are smart enough to stay away.
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The poison packets for attic rats! And, of course try and find places of entry - very difficult!!
I just spent three days burrowing through my insulation to locate “that smell”.
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The bigger fear for those of us who have dogs…
https://www.google.com/search?q=dog+poisoned+by+eating+rodent
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Poison works well, but I’ve had multiple examples of the rats not making it out of the house. I’m a fan of the electric traps, have 4 of them and found great use last summer. Kind of delightful hearing a rat scream when it steps in it.
If you are not getting them with traps, reach out to a exterminator. A good one will spot the points of entry and save you tons of head aches. All you can really do is close those up and setup traps and poison in high traffic areas.
Another option is to setup cameras to prove the rats are coming from neighbours property. Given footage you can file a complaint with the city. The city can force the property owner to higher an exterminator and will often also pay for your exterminator cost as well. Had a friend do this when his neighbor had rats going through their open trash cans. Forced them to get closing trashcans and added a house barrier of not rats.
A conscientious landowner will not require the city to get involved, either. Of course, conscientious landowners usually listen best to their conscientious tenants making a request for extermination services…
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Tomcat is what I use, they are about green 3/4" cubes.
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The cubes are good also and you can monitor their consumption.
I used bar bait in the past, The good stuff. The more modern stuff is more toxic to any secondary animals. The original, if there was secondary consumption, the vet could get the animal Vitamin K & they would be ok. However, you should set some water out for them. If you dont they will find water. They did that to my washing machine many years ago.
Rats are pretty damn smart. I laid prone one evening for a while, Shot that damn rat with my BB gun. It was enough that it spun him around. I thought that was the end of it, Well it wasn’t. The wife would see it, So I would sit there for hours waiting & it would not come around. It would go around the traps & live traps that we set. This included the fancy scmancy electronic trap.
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I am fighting the same battle. I have mice or rats in the attic of the house, between the brick and exterior sheathing in the air gap in the garage and in the floor between the shop and gameroom above. About to step up my attack on them and setup lots of new traps and bait stations. It does not help that our house backs up to a large wooded creek area that is within a few hundred feet of Lewisville lake. About to get a bunch of those dunk plank style traps and set out a bunch of bucket traps around the house and shop.
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Barn cats… fixed, with notched ears.
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