Anyone had to pleasure of rats in the wall cavity? Weve got one making a bloody racket in ours the last few nights. The pest control guy has been and laid poison in the loft, where he can access, but he cant access the wall cavities, so it begs the question, how do we get rid of the little critter before he chews the wall to oblivion? Anyone had the pleasure of this?

The worst part is when it/they die in the cavity.

I can confirm that the smell is horrendous.
Actually, mine died on the cellar floor so was easy to get rid of. You don’t want dead stuff in the cavaties.

HTH.

We used to get birds in our old house in the cavities. Eventually we cut a hole in the wall to let it out… an option for mr rat ?

Where is it getting in? Do you have any air bricks you can chop out to get a trap in there? Cut the cement out around it with an angle grinder then replace when the rat/s are caught. Go from the outside obviously so they don’t come into your house.

Can’t you get poison that makes them thirsty so they head off to find water (outside) and die away from the house?

We had them in the wall cavity. In our case they got in via a disused soil pipe in the extension, got underneath the house, up into the wall cavity and then into the upstairs floor where they made a nest.

A delightful welcome to our new house eh.

We blocked the soil pipe off trapping them in so it/they died somewhere. Luckily we didn’t get any smell from it.

The worst part is when it/they die in the cavity.
I can confirm that the smell is horrendous.

We had a rat in the floor cavity of our bathroom.

Council pest control guy put down poison and assured us that it wouldn’t smell because the poison “dessicated the body”.

He was very very wrong.

In the end we had to lift floorboards to deal with the stench.

Can you fit a jack russell in the cavity?

Where is it getting in? Buggered if I can tell. Both me and the pest control guy have spent ages trying to figure it out, and there’s nowhere even slightly obvious. Not sure if it’s a good or bad thing that we’re moving out next week….

Council pest control guy put down poison and assured us that it wouldn’t smell because the poison “dessicated the body”.

Total lies from the Council guy, most Rat poisons are anticoagulants(or they were when I was a Pest Controller) pretty much cause them to haemorage and bleed to death internally.
And yes they generally do stink once dead unless they happen to dry out very quickly in extreme heat which is pretty unlikely at the mo.
You can get a concentrated deoderiser to mask the smell but its pretty awful as well.

I’m a bit concerned that richyb78 could be my dad from that story!

[video]https://youtu.be/bS0fXQN6zrI[/video]

This time every year, load the loft with poison and off they go to drink and die, in a barn with a small beck running through garden so prevention is a thankless task,mate had them dead under the floor and the smell is absolutely awful!! Best of luck!!

The one I had was dead on the cellar floor, stunk the whole house out. Thankfully it was obvious! I sprayed it liberally with neat Jeyes fluid before shovelling it over the fence into the field next door. (I’m talking 30 yrs ago, but I bet they still stink as much when they die)

esselgruntfuttock, it is a smell you will never forget!

Had them in side shed where washing machine is,wife couldn’t smell the dead ones,i could and she was convinced i was obsessed with em ,till i found 4 under a set of tool drawers .

mountainman does the wife`s nose actually work?

We have regular mice in the walls, I’ve found the/a hole where they enter and a trap just outside usually deals with them in a couple of nights. However I’m a bit nervous of sealing up the hole in case there’s another one I don’t know about! When we first moved in they occasionally came into the house but they don’t now I’ve sealed up the internal holes.

Incidentally we’ve had dead (pet) mice in a house before, they dessicated out with no noticeable smell but then again we had plenty of live mice and rats to hide it 🙂

If you think rats are noisy in the wall cavities, you want to hear what otters are like.

Sounds like poltergeists. 🙂

We’ve just come back from a holiday in a house bang on the seashore in Harris. One of its features is plenty otters basking in the sea outside so we didn’t mid sharing the house. (It’s been like that for over 100 years)