What else, Rats again

[Bad_azz]

Clean up after the rats. It's important that you decontaminate and deodorize the attic after you have removed the rats. Rats and rat feces can cause various health problems. Learn more about: Rat Diseases. Rats leave behind a strong pheromone scent which attracts new rats to the attic. This scent is in the urine and gland grease that rats leave behind. This scent encourages new rats to gnaw their way into your attic, so it's important to get rid of this scent. And other animals, such as snakes, track this scent too

We went one better & took the roof off & put in a new one. Apparently what came down with the roof was rather unsavoury.
Me? Well obviously I was nowhere near that kind of icky dirty work- I pulled the old sexist "I'm a girl & belong in the kitchen" trick.

 

[Nimbus]

I found a fascinating channel on youtube about various mouse and rat traps. Some of them are quite ingenious.

 

[waarmstrong]

Thanks for the trap link, Nimbus. Great stuff!

 

[Nimbus]

Thanks for the trap link, Nimbus. Great stuff!

You're welcome.

Here's a link to the entire channel.
https://www.youtube.com/user/historichunter

 

[nosox]

you just can't build a better mouse(rat)trap

 

[Nimbus]

I like the "walk the plank" rat trap. It works for multiple rats. In the kill version, you fill the bucket with water, so the critters would have drowned by the time you discover them.

 

[waarmstrong]

I like the walk the plank apparatus -- simple to make, extremely effective, and serial in design, meaning it's a repeat killer without having to reset it. Amazing how many simple, effective designs are on display at Youtube.

 

[Bad_azz]

One of my dogs got a huge rat this morning, I figure its the Rottie, she is the fastest of them all.

 

[Anglian]

I’ve seen the plank one, but do be aware, rats do take a while to drown, but some ingenious idea, worth a try

 

[waarmstrong]

They can take as long as they want, the more unpleasant, the better.

 

[jstar]

Caught 3 biggies again. But in fact these seem to be the huge mice. Someone forgot to put back the cover of the drain at an inside terrace. That XL trap will snap off a finger if you’re not careful...

 

[Anglian]

My rats are back, so out with the cage, failed miserably, the rats eat the bait as they did on the spring ones, so out goes the cage, the dog knows they are about, he has caught two so far, baby ones, It’s an everlasting battle which we are losing

 

[jstar]

I had to adjust the position of the hinge on the spring trap to the extreme end to make it much more sensitive. (Those animals are not so heavy and they only move their head in.) Also, the lizards and cockroaches eat the bait, so better use something which is rather stern like cheese or a cube of kneaded bread.

 

[Anglian]

I had to adjust the position of the hinge on the spring trap to the extreme end to make it much more sensitive. (Those animals are not so heavy and they only move their head in.) Also, the lizards and cockroaches eat the bait, so better use something which is rather stern like cheese or a cube of kneaded bread.

I think that’s what my problem is, they are mostly baby rats so not heavy enough to set I’m sure those cat sized rats would set the traps off

 

[Anglian]

Burger me, I’ve just put some rubbish in our plastic bin for collection, I hear a rustling sound, there’s a bloody rat, the little sods have chewed a hole into the bin, well it’s a dead rat now so I suppose I’m going to have to get a new rat proof bin

 

[Smallworld]

Nearly 1kg of rat poison is gone in my housing complex since last few months.

 

[macvert]

To try to cut a long story short, we had rats in the last dump we rented & finally figured out they were coming thru the ensuite bathroom floor waste which was conveniently hidden under & behind the bath tub with no cap on it.

When we moved into the new dump we are renting there were no caps on both the bathroom floor wastes or in the outside pembantu's squat toilet (not that we have or need a pembantu ). I'd noticed there was rat crap near the squat toilet so put ½ a brick over the waste but after it got moved & there was more rat crap evident I put a heavier river stone over the waste & problem solved.

On the other two internal bathroom wastes I put metal sink strainers because I couldn't find where to get the proper fitting caps which are not the standard screw & lock type,

Well, something kept moving the metal cap in the downstairs toilet but we found no rat crap & the rat poison we put out didn't get touched so we thought it may have just been the volume of water from the shower pushing the cap a little to the side or the kids inadvertently kicking it as they had a shower (yeah, blame the kids).

Silly me, remember I related how we had 2 baby cobras in the house & wasn't sure if they were one & the same,... & the lizard in the kitchen which in her fright my wife called a crocodile? As if that wasn't enough for her, last night at about 10pm she woke with a startle & said “a rat just ran over me”, she then jumped up & in a trembling voice(unable to scream) said “Ular”. I sat up thinking WTF, another baby cobra & said “turn the light on”, well this thing was at least a metre & a half long but not a cobra thank God, it was some kind of python I'd seen before which at first glance looks very much like the poisonous Australian brown snake.

With the lights on during Nyeppi it took me about 15 minutes to chase the thing out of the house while my wife stood on the coffee table in the lounge room, she then said “what about the rat”. I said “look for it willya” & when she found what was actually a very small mouse she was straight back to the coffee table leaving me to chase it out as well.

We then saw that the cap on the waste in the bathroom had been pushed completely off the hole so today I put a heavy river stone over it too & hopefully that will be the end of our little in house wildlife adventures.

Forgot to get a happy snap but here's a snap of one of the baby cobras

 

[Jaime C]

We just had a PLN subcontractor out to fix some wiring that seems it was chewed on by rats. Haven’t seen any rats in the new house. I guess it’s possible it was damaged before we bought the house.

 

[Bad_azz]

she then jumped up & in a trembling voice(unable to scream) said “Ular”.

I would NOT have been on any coffee table, I would have been outta that house & in the nearest hotel. & I doubt I would be going back- certainly never sleeping on the ground floor.

 

[macvert]

she then jumped up & in a trembling voice(unable to scream) said “Ular”.

I would NOT have been on any coffee table, I would have been outta that house & in the nearest hotel. & I doubt I would be going back- certainly never sleeping on the ground floor.

Moving upstairs probably would have been on the cards if we were not now sure how the snakes got in, there's nowhere else they could possibly get in unless they just slithered on thru an open door in broad daylight which was highly unlikely especially with the dog hanging around.

Aside from locking grates on waste water drains, it's another good reason for incorporating water traps in drain pipes when building.