I have laid down 4 traps, the cat/hedgehog friendly tunnel type ones with a snap trap in middle laced with commercial rat/mouse bait. I have just watched it visit said traps – bold as brass in daytime, yet not enter. Clever blighter. Got any suggestions? Just wait?

Had this last year – just wait.

But also, clear any food or water sources in your garden – that’s what brings them in.

Also, have a blunt instrument ready to whack it. The poison leaves them in a pretty poor and docile state for a while and the screams aren’t nice. They need a head shot at that point to finish off.

I have just watched it visit said traps – bold as brass in daytime, yet not enter.

They don’t like “new” things. They’ll be wary of it for a while. Took two weeks or more ’til we saw results.

Kill it with fire!

Just leave the thing be.

It’s not in your house.
It’s not dangerous.

Use of poison inside where dead and dying things are fairly unlikely to be eaten by other stuff is a last resort, outside its thoroughly reprehensible.

There will be way more than one rat in your garden! 🙂

Just leave the thing be.

It’s not in your house.
It’s not dangerous.

Use of poison inside where dead and dying things are fairly unlikely to be eaten by other stuff is a last resort, outside its thoroughly reprehensible

That.

But also, clear any food or water sources in your garden – that’s what brings them in.

And also that if you really want rid. Trapping and not getting rid of food source will just drawn new rats into this newly unclaimed rat-territory full of food…

Just leave it alone? Rats are quite nice wee blighters

Terrier?

We had a big problem with the little blighters last year.

We think it was the raw food waste that we put in our compost that was the initial attraction. Then they found a way in through the air bricks. These being 115 years old metal type that have rusted out.

I started with ‘humane’ catch traps that turned out to be useless.

Moved on to kill traps. The best bait I found was blackcurrent Strepsils!! Caught 3 like that.

Once I had found / chased one in the bathroom, upstairs that has got in through the water pipe runs, we got a man in.

All gone now.

Just leave the thing be.

It’s not in your house.
It’s not dangerous.

Use of poison inside where dead and dying things are fairly unlikely to be eaten by other stuff is a last resort, outside its thoroughly reprehensible.

This. One of our family cats when I was younger nearly died and was left with epilepsy as a result of eating either poison that someone had left out, or a rat that had died from eating it, and it was heartbreaking.

Quick, clean kill like a headshot or nine iron, or else leave them alone. Theyre only trying to live, its not their fault they were born vermin. All of this applies only if they are entering your house or if you have a standing water source like a pond in your garden (Weils disease).
I have rats in my garden this time of year ,after the windfall apples, but I also have squirrels and birds and whatever else, so I take the rough with the smooth . Yin and yang, innit?

Agree best to leave them if possible, and it’ll sound “1st world problem” but is a short space of time they did a good job of trashing a section of the garden – tunnelling under plants and killing them, shifting A LOT of soil onto the neighbour’s patio in the process. I tried a passive approach at first but to no avail and was under pressure to get rid of them. Tis a shame, because there’s a big field behind the house where they’ve come from and will blatantly be loads of them in there. Prevention is the best means of attack (no food & water source).

I read that they dont like peppermint, so Im trying to find some to plant, and hoping that it wont put hedgehogs off

I read that they dont like peppermint, so Im trying to find some to plant, and hoping that it wont put hedgehogs off

It’s anything strong smelling, they rely hugely on smell to navigate, determine what’s safe to eat etc.

Also if you plant any sort of mint in your garden you may well prefer the rats back in a few years.

I’ve seen a rat or two in our garden, but they’ve never been a problem. I’d leave it unless there’s an actual problem. It’s just wildlife.

No poison is being used in any shape or form. Please read first post, bait used and not poison. No food or water source is in garden.

“I’ve seen some wildlife in my garden; what is the best way to kill it?”

Us humans are weird.

The best bait I found was blackcurrent Strepsils!!

I am curious as to the process that led to that discovery, like, what else was tried first?

They do make a lot of noise walking around the loft, maybe Jef thought they were horse?

They can make a bit of a mess (alive I mean, I imagine they make a bit of a mess dead too). We have one or two visit our garden – I don’t think they live here because I don’t see them very often… and I work at home so I spend a lot of time staring out of the window 😆.

You’ve got to be pretty careful about leaving food around as above. I’d squirrel-proofed one of our bird feeders after the local squirrel polished the lot off sharpish by putting a cage round it and dangling it clear of the branches of the tree it’s in. Later spotted the rat casually sitting in said cage munching its way through the contents of the feeder.

We also have loads of windfall apples at the moment, but they’ll be gone soon, rotted or eaten by the birds, so thought that’s why I’d seen them around again. But then I found they’d got into the storage container where I keep the bird food and eaten their way through a bag of seed. They obviously liked the nice sheltered place with lots of food so had started building a nest with all the chewing of stuff that comes with it. Droppings, and presumably urine, everywhere so disinfected everything.

So not giving them places to live is a good idea too. When I built a new shed/deck I put chicken wire round the base to stop them getting under it. Don’t know whether it’ll be enough since when I lifted the paving slabs that were under the old shed, there was a network of tunnels with chewed plastic “bedding” in them underneath.

The best bait I found was blackcurrent Strepsils!!

I thought they only worked on Ponys

We have a semi-feral cat and a visiting fox who kill and eat the rats which helps keep them away from the building. The ‘wild’ rats in the garden are no bother, (only in my head) I sort of got used to them after a while.