I just stepped into the laundry room and saw a large black rodent scurrying behind the washer. Much too big for a mouse.
A motherfucking rat!
I want to wake the kids up, shoo them outside, grab my twelve gauge and go hunting. I suspect my landlord would not be happy with this.
My youngest son has been saying for a few weeks now that he’s been seeing “black things” moving in his room. Spooky, but I figured he was just trying to stay up later. Now I’m seriously freaking out. Have they been on his bed, on him?!?!. I have no idea what kind of rat it is, and I don’t care. Motherfuckers need to die, and do so quickly and completely.
Questions:
How the fuck do I make these little demonic nightmares permanently DEAD and GONE?! Traps? Glue boards? Poison? Nuclear weapons? Anyone who had experience with these bastards, please help a guy out. What works?
Why are they here?! I have absolutely never once seen a live rat in a house. I’ve never seen a dead rat in a house. I’ve seen rat traps at WalMart but never knew anyone used them. My house is cluttered but clean: no empty food cartons, no old pizza boxes or piles of beer cans. My clutter is books and kids toys. Food is kept sealed and in the cupboards. What do the little shitsuckers want?!?
Should I be worried about diseases? Do I need to make an appointment with my kids’ doctor to get blood work done to see if they’ve picked up any nasties? Do I need to wipe down every single surface with bleach and Lysol? Oh my f’ing Og, I’m starting to freak out here…
I’m sitting on a barstool in front of the washing machine, Mossberg in hand, awaiting some much-needed guidance.
The problem is that different rats are immune to different traps/poisons. There are some that will not go near a trap, but will happily run across a glue board. Others will jump over glue boards to get to the traps. And most of my visitors seem to be immune to the various poison baits, but putting them out lets me observe where they are hanging out (check the trays to see where it’s been eaten) so that I can target that area. (Of course, your pets and children are not immune to rat poison!!!)
The best bait for the traps is chocolate. Some exterminators swear by miniature snickers bars, but I (an amateur) find that miniature chocolate chips work just dandy. Rats will eat anything, of course, but they will go out of their way for chocolate. Cheese makes a poor bait, by the way. And don’t give up if the chocolate chips disappear without setting off the trap, just rebait and wait.
I put the snap traps out about a yard apart in the rooms where they have been seen. I put the glue boards, double row, across the doorways to rooms. (Yes, be careful where you step.) If they are running in a narrow space like between your washer and dryer, some glue traps in there might work.
If a rat or mouse gets stuck in a glue trap, you can’t be squeamish about killing it. Don’t put it live into the garbage or just let it suffer on the board, quickly and decisively kill it. You will know when one has been caught because you will hear a non-stop squeaking noise.
In all the years, I have caught exactly one mouse in the old-fashioned wooden spring traps. I have tried the various live-catch and humane traps. I have never, ever had one of them even disturbed.
You need a little patience. Offer them options for getting killed and double down on whatever they seem to be going for.
I think the poison I used was called rat sack. Anyway it dried out the rat so that when I found its body it was like a piece of stiff cardboard and had no smell.
D-Con poison got rid of rats I had in my backyard shed. But I don’t know how you feel about that stuff inside the house with children and possibly pets. I wouldn’t use glueboards because then you gotta do something with a live rat and although I don’t mind killing them I don’t want to be around when it happens.
And be sure to plug any entrances they might be using.
Not to freak you out or anything but a few years ago I found one swimming in my toilet. :eek: Bastard came up through the sewer pipes. I slammed the lid and flushed him away. Took about 6 flushes though.
Pretty much this, use glue and snap traps and put them all over the place. Rat traps can break fingers if you mess with them . Teach the kids how to avoid them. I find Jelly belly jelly beans work great because they have a powerful scent and can be mashed into the bait holder so they have to work at it to get the food.
Obviously, traps/poison are a good approach but the first thing you need to determine is how they are entering your home and seal the area. Otherwise, they will continue to breed and come and go as they please.
Start by thoroughly inspecting the outside of your home looking for any small opening in areas such as foundation vents, crawlspace doors, areas where utility lines/pipes penetrate the outside wall, etc. A small opening about a quarter size of your fist will give a rat entry to either a crawl space or the outside wall cavity.
From there, the rat needs entry into your home through another opening. This can be where plumbing lines enter the wall or behind furniture or appliances where a rat can gnaw through the interior wall but they usually try this where there’s a partial opening to begin with. Once these areas are sealed, set your traps and keep setting them until there are no more rats. If you have pets, they will be attracted to the traps and/or poison so use extreme care in locating the traps along with caution in using and placement of any poison. Most dogs love the commercially enhanced odor and flavor of rat poison.
Get a cat. You make your kids happy and also keep the rats in check. On the other hand a W88 warhead might work. Solve this problem. Create a dozen new ones, but will kill the rat ( and everything else in a five mile radius).
Or a dog. Rats – and mice – won’t go near a house where they know there’s a very large (to them) enemy lurking about.
My now-husband’s dog killed a rat in the basement in the first place he lived when he moved back here. Never saw another one after that. At the second place he lived we’d see the rats scurry outside behind the trash cans, but never, ever had one in the basement or in the house.
My spouse did actually shoot a rodent in the house once. With a crossbow and not a gun, admittedly, but it did cause a few minor problems. First, there was blood on both the wall and the carpet. Ew. Second, the bolt penetrated the wall and continued on into the next room, necessitating a treasure hunt for it. I’d advise caution and making sure no one is in the room behind the critter you’re aiming at lest a Tragic Accident ensue. And third, you still have to dispose of a dead carcass. Finally, you will need to clean up/repair the hole(s) in the wall.
Nowadays, we use poison bait. It’s what we find most effective.
Please put the gun down, it’s not a particularly efficient or safe way to deal with in-house vermin.
Nuking it from orbit, on the other hand…OK, it’s not safe.
The OP might consider borrowing a Jack Russell Terrier, rather than a cat. As much as I love cats, some of them simply aren’t big enough to take on a large rat. Or just hire an exterminator, who will do things like examine the house for ways the rat (or rats) are getting in and out, as well as terminating the rats.
We have two cats and mice in the basement and attic on a couple of occasions. The rodents’ fear of cats is balanced out by their fear of freezing to death in our New England winters.
Based solely on how awesome their mouse trap version was, I have to recommend the Victor Electronic Rat Trap. Put in batteries, bait the trap, set it; the critter enters, completes the circuit, and it’s dead.
I am a soft-hearted vegetarian but when a mouse trying to move in for the winter will not take the hint and get the fuck out of my house, sometimes you have to resort to more desperate measures. (Turns out a single mouse can create a surprising amount of mess - and that it’s not always the “for every mouse you see there are X more” situation.)
Here’s the jobbie! Now bait the trap with a fair sized lump of bread, don’t hang it on the sensor, ram it in the back of the trap, while ole ratty’s nibbling away he’ll trip the sensor and presto!
You’ve prepared your bucket full of water and you now put ratty to rest in there.
Pour vinegar on their trails to stop them using the route they have marked.
Chill out, guys. The gun thing was a joke. I don’t own a shotgun. I have a child’s pellet gun though, which I may have to deploy if the glue boards work. Rest assured I won’t do it in the house.
There is absolutely no way I can seal up my house. It was built in the 50’s, and the original owner built lots of neat built-in drawers, cabinets and cupboards in all the rooms. The backs of these open into the empty wall spaces behind them. Also, the house has been added on to at least twice, so there are gaps in the walls and openings in the crawlspace. There is no basement.
On the off chance what I saw was not a rat (not likely, it was a quick but decent look), I put out some mouse traps last night, just simple snap traps. I used peanut butter as the bait. One wasn’t touched, while the other was triggered but the bait left unmolested. I had to do something.
I have some big issues with poison. Not that I’m against poisoning the bastards, but I don’t want a pile of decomposing rats buried in some wall. I want to be able to remove their disease-ridden carcasses from my home. I like the idea of glue boards and big black plastic snap traps. Although, I’ve found for mice the simple wood snap traps work best. I’ve never had luck with those black alligator jaw type traps. I will try them with the rats though.
Do I need to worry about them leaving behind diseases? What kind of post-infestation cleanup routine do I need to adopt?
Get a cigarette lighter and a can of hair spray. When you see the rat use the ligher to ignite the hair spray as a make shift torch. Once you set the rat on fire it will scurry back into it’s hole, and set your whole house on fire. You’ll find his crispy little corpse among the charred remains of all your possessions. This is much safer than blindly firing a shotgun.
