THe poison I have is slow-acting, blood-coagulant type. But I’d rather snap their necks, since I don’t especially want to find a nest of dead rats when I’m going through a box.
I do the same thing, but use Reese’s peanut butter cups. That seems to pull them in quickly.
Not to get all mushy on you guys and girls, but please stay away from the sticky traps. Regardless of how annoying your prey is, I don’t think any of us should take pleasure in causing a slow, torturous death.
Make it quick and painless!
-Greg
With all the rain and flooding we had yesterday, Dungeness infestation isn’t out of the question… 
I have plenty of butter.
I want to warn Johnny that travel trailers (the basis of his storage area) have many, many crevices and hiding (dying) places in the subfloor. I would not recommend poison to use when it involves an RV. You really don’t want to know how I became an expert on this.
pullin (who now knows waaay more about the subfloor and underfloor utility structure of his trailer than he would like; following an infestation/poison-use while in storage)
Warfarin. Just remember that it sounds like “warfare”. The same stuff, incidentally, is used as medicine for folks at risk for heart attacks or strokes (though for that application, it’s usually called Coumadin).
Getting rid of the rat is the easy part. Keeping rats out in the future is the hard part.
Do you know how they are getting in?
As there are several useful answers already, I suggest a Rat Writ, and failing that, a handgun:
*Rooster Cogburn: Mr. Rat, I have a writ here says you’re to stop eating Chin Lee’s cornmeal forthwith. Now it’s a rat writ, writ for a rat, and this is lawful service of the same. See, doesn’t pay any attention to me.
[shoots the rat]
Chen Lee: [Runs into the room] Outside is place for shooting!
Rooster Cogburn: I’m servin’ some papers! *
(From True Grit)
I have an H&R 999. I should pick up some .22 shot shells.
Or that the W-A-R-F is for Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which funded the project that discovered this, at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
I’ve had great luck trapping mice/rats with glue traps with a dab of peanut butter right in the middle of it. Its true that you’re likely to find the miserable creature still alive when you check them, suffering, but I can’t be arsed to care about that. I just pick up the trap, put it into an airtight baggie and throw the vermin away.
5 gallon bucket half filled with water. A large sheet of paper, newsprint will work. Using masking or duct tape to secure the paper make a cap for the bucket. Using a sharp knife or razor cut an “X” into the paper. Note, do not cut all the way to the bucket rim. Make a ramp to the top of the bucket with a piece of wood. Place some bait (grain or other food will work,) on the paper near the bucket rim. In the morning remove drowned rat. Repeat as necessary.
I find that a bit of flour tortilla, pinched around a tiny shmear of peanut butter or Nutella, is helpful. The tortilla dries out and gets kind of tough and leathery, and the vermin has to tug on it to get it free of the bait pan. Shnap!
I found my daughter out back shooting cans yesterday with her Red Ryder BB gun rifle with the cat’s laser pointer taped to the sights. You’re welcome to borrow it!
Not if you bash it on the head with a ball peen hammer.
I like the cut of your daughter’s jib! You’ve got to get a picture of her looking all serious with her ‘sniper rifle’.
I found my (20-something-year-old) ‘Mini-Mag’ .22 LR shotshells, and put them in the revolver in case I need to despatch a rat that was incautious enough to have stepped on a sticky trap.
We had a rat problem when we were kids and though my mother was a pacifist animal rights activist she eventually called the Health Department. An employee dutifully arrived, located the rats’ burrows, and shoved poison packets down them while explaining that the rats would have to chew through the poison to get out of their holes. He then told us kids “Never stick your hand down a rat hole.”
We didn’t need to be told. We’d already noticed he was missing several fingers.
I had this problem with a rat in the house. Eventually I taught my dog to hunt it and she got the sucker.