Just How Clever Are Rats?

Couldn't think of a better place to ask this..............

Anyway, the house I'm in has a rat problem. Rural as can be with neighbours having horses, chickens, ducks etc and all the associated feed stuff. The added on extensions are a bit rough where they join the original walls. I  suspect that the extension joints with the original house footings are breached somewhere in that and will get there eventually. Ditto where the steel water pipe comes in. I'm doing each room at a time, floors up, ceilings down replacing the old fluffy insulation with Celotex and running the wiring in galv conduit. But at the moment still putting down the poison, in this case "Neororexa Gold". Seems to work - the scratching stops then you get an real grim smell for a week!

But the reason for my post - I lifted the carpet tonight and a particular floorboard on the ground floor to initially think that the little white plastic poison tray had been carried off. This sits on the dirt below the ground floor. Closer inspection reveals that they have BURIED the tray under a mound of stones, lumps of dirt etc. Is this a nesting instinct or a deliberate covering up to "warn" the others?

Changing makes is fine, but most have the same active ingredient!

I suspect it is just rooting behaviour once the bowl empty. Put lots of poison down, make sure they can take as much as they want. Small feeds of poison promote the development of resistance.

I have done a bit of work in a cupboard under the stairs on a job I have been doing. I kept thinking there is something dead under hear. Anyway I finally cleared it out to find a dead mouse. Not very nice, I feel sorry for you ONOFF having to get rid of dead rats. That really can't be nice.

batty said:

I have done a bit of work in a cupboard under the stairs on a job I have been doing. I kept thinking there is something dead under hear. Anyway I finally cleared it out to find a dead mouse. Not very nice, I feel sorry for you ONOFF having to get rid of dead rats. That really can't be nice.

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Yes, it's hilarious! Dangerous, expensive a health hazard the list goes on:

Onoff said:

Yes, it's hilarious! Dangerous, expensive a health hazard the list goes on:

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few years ago got sent to a job of RCD tripping. discovered a cable just like that, except this cable still had the mouse attached...

Andy™ said:

few years ago got sent to a job of RCD tripping. discovered a cable just like that, except this cable still had the mouse attached...

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I looked at a ring tripping local to me and traced to a 2.5mm chewed along it's length. At first, viewed from a couple of feet, I thought they had chewed through just the sheath at one point and it was a blue neutral I could see..........it was actually old colours, the red with the insulation gone and the copper had turned a perfect "neutral" blue colour rather than the usual green. Must be a special property of rat's pi$$. :lol:

I used those little plastic sandwich bags filled wth some dosed up feed, tie the top of the bag to make a golf ball size of the bag/feed, p****** the bag with a needle & sling the bags into those hard to reach places.

You then have the added advantage that they sometimes carry the bags off to the nest & when the bags are un-chewed you know the pests are curled up hemorrhaging & stinking somewhere.

Yep, I've filled up the little freezer/sandwich bags with the poison - they take the WHOLE LOT as you say, bag and all, not even a crumb left which is pretty impressive. Trouble having a big house is it's a money pit. Looking to ditch the flat roofs on the dormer extension this year in favour of a pitched, tiled roof. It'll let me get to the "space" up there and vermin proof it. Also be able to then fit a decent sized CWS tank, upgrade the insulation & get to the hidden wiring etc. Should make life so much easier for fitting down lights, co-ax runs etc to the bedrooms too.

 On the ground floor (a mix of solid concrete and suspended timber floors) I was even considering one of those remote control tank type things with a camera so I could explore under the floor spaces here and look at the footings / find the nests. Tried once strapping an eBay wireless camera to one of the kids "Bob The Builder" r/c toys.........that didn't work out too well! Most of the ones I've seen are iPad operated / viewed.

Must get some shed snake skin next time I go to the zoo, the pest control guy at work reckons it works a treat!

what about a well trained ferret?

steptoe said:

what about a well trained ferret?

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That's a good shout...................my brother used to keep them years back for rabbits. I'd worry that they might pick up some of the poison though? Or find a rat chewed cable............

.Maybe I should just go and grab a grass snake or adder from the garden (can't see a slow worm cutting it).The only one we don't have is the smooth snake here  :lol:

Those chewed cables are lethal probably said before working in a converted hotel and put my hands under the downstairs floors and got the nastiest belt ever. Rats hat chewed along the cooker cable most of the length and as I was on my knees it wasn't nice. That job was doomed I blew my SDS drill up as the walls were so hard.