Rats in the roofspace

[difflock]

Jackdaws now excluded, by repairing the holes in the soffait,

but I cannot establish where the rats are getting in to the cavity, & presumably somewhere below ground level.

So

Anyone any experience of the electronic rodent deterrance devices

Are they any good

Do they work

cheers

mth

[billpierce]

You mean the high frequency sound things? My parents have experimented with them slot and found them more than useless.

Terrier? Decent farm cat?

[Glencairn]

A Fenn Mk.4. + peanut butter.

 

If you need to have any traps covered I also had success with the genuine Kness Snap-E trap. Be choosy though, I was done by an ebay seller selling cheaper Chinese ones with weaker springs and poor build quality.

 

The benefit of these traps is they fit into an AF bait station.

 

I did use poison in the attic, but having to crawl into the eaves when the smell became overpowering in the warmer weather convinced me this was not the best option.

[gary112]

Another for the mk4 fenn trap with peanut butter it works well i,ve caught 7 in 3 wks round my goose pen

[Baldbloke]

+ 1 for the Fenn traps but make sure you keep skin contact with the trap to a minimum. Crafty bastards appear to be able to sense that traps are not conducive to a long life. My Fenns are kept outside and I only set them using gloves I use for handling wood. Avoid poison in the house as they find the most awkward and inaccessible places to snuff it. Almost had to move out of a house following that mistake.

 

Place your trap in a tunnel/pipe for best results (ensuring trap can spring freely within that tunnel) and place tunnel up against a wall. Make sure trap doesn't rock or stick up too much above ground. They tend to follow walls and generally avoid crossing open spaces.

[gobbypunk]

Hi I help to look after a large converted farm and out buildings and we had rats I n the loft we used Roban poison it’s what they call a coagulant which means as they die they get thirsty and bugger off looking for a drink but obviously it don’t work every time , also it’s absolutely imperative that you find where they are getting in or more than likely even if you deal with the ones you have now more will arrive as rodents follow scent trails Good luck with dealing with them , even though I think even rats need to have somewhere to live , Not in peoples homes 

Cheers Mark 

[Glencairn]

39 minutes ago, gobbypunk said:

I n the loft we used Roban poison it’s what they call a coagulant which means as they die they get thirsty and bugger off looking for a drink but obviously it don’t work every time

That's not how Second Generation Anti Coagulants work. The rats don't get thirsty and go for a drink, they find somewhere warm to go to sleep (usually inaccessible in a loft or attic) and they expire from a bleed from the vital organs.

[Baldbloke]

And the law has changed on buying rat poison[emoji1304]
You can only buy it in smaller quantities and at half the strength.

[Sheepy]

Personally I’d pick some humane traps up, bait them with chocolate or peanut butter and despatch them in the cage, got two dogs so poison wasn’t a option for me, little .22 air pistols ideal for knobling them in the cage. The fuckers hate wire wool if you suspect any nooks stuff it chock full and It will dissuade them.

[Robbo90]

Are you sure they are "rattus norvegicus" (common brown rat) and not the tree rat "Sciurus carolinensis" (Grey squirrel) They can both make a mess in the roof space, and if your lying in bed and you hear a scratching noise in the ceiling it could be either. Have you found faeces anywhere or seen the rodent in question?

My neighbour had a problem with a noise in the roof it turned out to be tree rats. It was unbelievable watching them just walk up the brick wall without a care in then world. It wasn't difficult for them at all. I know you can get semi tame ones and these seemed to have performed this trick for quite a while. A little .177 pellet soon put a stop to their antics