How do I kill rats?!?
 

Late last week I discovered some rat damage in our house. It looks like they're getting in through our laundry room into our attic, and from there they chewed their way through a wall and into our pantry where we keep the pet food. I've gotten some rat poison which I've placed in the pantry where they get inside the house, in the laundry room where they entered the house in the first place, and in the attic which is where they live (I assume). I've also placed sticky traps in the pantry and managed to catch one rat with one of 'em, but I just looked again and found hair and blood covering the other, so I guess we've got some pretty hardcore rats.

Basically I'm wondering if any of y'all have had experience getting rid of rats and if so what worked for you? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Jason

well since you said you have pet food... i would assume you have pets... if your pets ever catch the rats or would pick up and chew on the bodies DONT USE THE RAT POISON it WILL poison your pets if they get ahold of the poisoned rats...

just get some of the big rat traps... the kind with the spring loaded bar that snaps down and crushes their back... just load those up with some peanut butter and put em near the places youve seen the rat damage... and check em every couple days...

Cut the poison and get some hardcore hungry alley cats and let em loose in the attic.

Then when the cats have vanquished the rat population, and established a colony of their own, you can get a whole flock of angry junkyard dogs to...

nevermind. I just wanted to use the word vanquished in a post.

JStrider has good advice, I've used peanut butter with good results.
This is going to sound strange, but in the absence of a better theory - Put the 'business end of the trap (where you put the bait) next to a beam or wall (so that the trap sticks out at 90 degrees), the rat can't jump back away from the spring bar.
I know, sounds weird, but it seemed to work well. We nailed two of them and then wired over some vents so that they couldn't get back in. If this works for you, I'll thank the father-in-law, again.

Good Luck!

Use traps in the house. The problem with poison inside is when the rat dies in your house,and you are left with an stink inside.
For outside get some dry plaster mix and some bran and mix the two together. place it in pieces of pipe where it will be dry.
The rat will eat the bran+plaster mix and get thirsty,drink some water and the plaster will set. Swells them up real good.
We wse that method alot and it works really good.

So far I've caught 2 with the sticky traps. I'm going to go out today and see if I can track down some of the old-fashioned traps, but so far I haven't seen them sold anywhere, only the smaller variant for mice. Any ideas where (in the States, specifically Austin, TX) I could purchase them?

Thanks y'all,
Jason

Any harware store should have big-ol' rat traps. I've had a lot of luck with a combination of sticky traps where they eat and spring traps near their holes.

Kil 'em! Kill 'em all!

I used to have a mouse problem, not inside, but rather outside under the patio where they decided to make a next next to the warm hottub pipes and such.... started off using mouse traps which was generally effective, but then found out a secret weapon... my cat
I would just let it out in the morning, then by the evening it would have caught about 4 mice and brought them up to the patio door as an offering =/ kinda gross, but effective!

Glue boards are pretty good, if that's what you mean by the sticky traps. An exterminator even showed me a GIANT one that he says will catch NYC-style rats! Maybe try to find different brands until you find one that seems to work since some use different kinds of glue.

By the way, does anyone know of any sort of substance (like moth balls) that will repel rats? Hopefully something that's not too nasty, and not a poison either. It seems to me there should be something out there that rodents will want to stay clear of...

Ferret pee, anyone who keeps ferrets will not have rats, well so said my grandfather who kept them.

Flour and mortar mixed 1:1 with a dish of water next to it, by morning their mousey bowels will have turned to concrete. Sadistic eh? Wonder how the lye feels on their stomaches?

Re: How do I kill rats?!?
 

Yeah, I've found that the bottom of my shoe works quite nicely on the little bastards.:crazy:

I've had waaaaay too much experience w/ rats. And I'm not talking the shoe stomping type. Fat norwiegian rats. 6-8 inches long sans tail.

First you must find where they are coming in. My rats had eaten though our cememnt basement floor. We filled in their hole. To spite me the rats made a new hole right next to it. This time I sledge hammered a 6 foot line, bought some hardcore chicken wire type stuff, rolled it up and stuffed it into the opening I created. mixed new cement, busted many bottles and scattered it in the hole. Laid new cement. no rats have made it <i>IN</i> my house since.

I do however have a colony outside in our compost pile.
Mind you, I have three kids and I don't like them playing out near the pile.

Last year we had a nice snowy evening, the kind where it's really bright out at night. I was on the back porch smokin and then I saw em. 15 fat mother fuckers running around my yard. Their grey bodies in direct contrast w/ that white snow. I stared at em for over and hour. Watched em move from yard to yard. hitting their holes. running the fences.
I waited for the ground to thaw and I prepped for a slaughter. dumped poison in anything that looked like a burrow. Next day I went out with a pitch fork and a shovel.

I killed 40+ rats that afternoon. My dog and I were on a rampage. I wish I had a .22 or even a pellet gun.

However the rats are still there. My compost pile butts up to 3 others though fences. I could only get what was in my yard.

The scary thing. I used to have a hole in my backyard.... didn't know what the fuck it was. The mouth of the hole was the size of a basketball. I filled it in twice with 4, 5-gallon buckets of dirt and stone..... a week later the hole would be empty. I had no idea it was a rat condo. When I went on my rat killing spree I dumped many of the bodies in there, along w/ broken bottles and barbed wire. The hole is no longer on my side of the fence, it moved about 3 feet over to my neighbors yard.

I hate rats. I can't wait to move.

I personally would sit wherever they come out with a cheap BB gun. You could work on your marksmanship skills and rid your house of the pest at the same time.

To make it more challenging, only go for headshots.

It's crucial that you eliminate the entrance points to the house. Otherwise, what is the point?

I use the expanding foam in the can to fill every concievable gap (and it can be trimmed/painted/etc. when it dries). Then comes the barrage of traps with peanut butter (very aromatic).

I've got a 12-guage. Gimme directions, and I'll take care of 'em for ya!

We have huge field rats here in NC. Make sure you tie the rat traps down or you will be going back to the store to buy new traps.

What alot of people i know do is take a 5 gallon pail fill it a about 1/4 with water...put some oats (or similar stuff rats love to eat) then put a board leading up to the bucket...the fall in and drown to death :)

POOR LITTLE RATS!

Rats make the best pets ever. And they are so cute! I am so much against these posts. Unless you use a humane trap and take them somewhere else where they can survive...

CO2 powered pellet gun, timalkin's right it's fun and useful :)

A 10 gauge works quite well too, especially on multiple targets. Just make sure there is nothing downrange that you don't want pasted with rat innards. Not that I would know or anything......

Little fluffy white rats are cute. (Well, as cute as a rat could get.)

Big ugly grey ones that will not hesitate to try and take a chunk out of whatever is in their way (North Missouri rats have attitude problems, it seems) are anything but.

What the Hell Else?
 

A War Hammer, naturally...

http://www.medieval-weaponry.com/media/2607.jpg

Traps or Cats, too.

HAHAHA.... This thread is one of the most unintentionally hilarious threads I have ever read at the TFP...

We had a neighbor who had rats in his attic. He used to sit up there with his .22 loaded with that little tiny birdshot stuff (tiny little pellets, powerful enough to kill a rat, but not enough to go through the roof or floor). Hed sit up there, and every now and then the kids outside would hear a few little pops as he went at them. Good for a few laughs if nothing else.

Automotive anti-freeze, They drink it like sugar water, then die in the walls.

Yeah I have pet rats even after having to deal with sewer rats. It's like comparing a poodle to a wolf. Pet rats are very loveable and smart. I've never been bitten by one... Sewer or i guess "ferral" rats are pretty viscious and I wouldn't mind smashing some up. They're more destructive than squirrels... and I HATE squirrels.

Shotgun!