Are there rats in your place?

Are you sure you have rats, or are they just mice? Either is a health hazard as well as a nuisance. Can you get a cat, or maybe a couple?

I hate rats so much! I used to live in New York and would watch giant rats run around in the streets and subways. I am not a native there and wasn't used to seeing them in abundence and at such a large size. In my old apartment building I would see them occasionally in the halls but never in my room. I had rat traps and poison set up in corners, just in case they would try to seek in.

We had river rats in the heating system in an apartment where we lived for awhile, the landlord called a company to come get rid of them. They also fixed the place where they entered so no more could come in. These rats were as big as cats, it was scary.

I have not seen any rats in my apartment but in a family members house I heard sone scratching one night. I told my brother-in-law so he set up traps and captured one.

Thankfully no! I hate rodents and if any get into the house I can not sleep well at night. I even had one get in the bed once. I felt something on my leg in the middle of the night and woke up in time to see it scurrying away from me! Ugh!

Kala, It looks, next only to terrorism, rats menace seems to be the global problem, based on the huge response you have received! From Newyork to Singapore, rats seem to be there everywhere! I have an interesting anecdote on rats. 4 years back we had been to Tirupati (a group of about 8 to 10 people). We had our darshan, collected laddoos (twice the number of people) and slept in the Cottage. Mid night there was a "karakara kasamusa" noise and somebody switched on the light. A huge rat was found running away from our stock of baggage hurriedly towards the window. The plastic bag in which the laddoos were kept was found partially open! Panic! Has the rat tasted the divine prasadam or not? Some investigation was done and except for some nibbling marks on two of the top laddoos, there was no visible damage. Whether the nibbles were because of the rat or because someone of had tasted it became a hot topic of discussion. Someone said we can't take risk and we should throw the whole lot away. Someone said it can be donated to the beggars. Someone warned that if something happens to the beggars, then we will all acquire sin! Finally one of the strong willed lady who had a bulldozing power of convincing others said that she did not see the rat coming off from the laddoo bag and the nibbling marks were definitely not from the teeth of the rat. Most of us were not too inclined to lose such a good stock of Tirupati laddoos, really! Who can face friends and neighbors asking for the holy prasad back home? So we were willing to get convinced and took the laddoos with us. Though there was a shade of worry in most of us while eating the laddoos, fortunately nothing happened!

Kala! We are sailing on the same boat. We also suffer from rat menace. They keep coming from pipes, stairs and wires and once they are inside our house, they make it their permanent home, till they are trapped or killed. One big rat has made our life hell for the past few days, he has destroyed many things and cut my cell phone charger one night. We keep our doors closed and the bloody rat has mercilessly eaten our wooden doors and curtains from the bottom. We have no option, but we will have to kill him sooner than later. We do not feel like killing rats, but he is such a clever rat that he won't come in mouse-trap and he is so wise that he will eat the bread loaf in the mouse trap and will not get trapped in it despite our numerous efforts. He hides himself in the day time, however, at night when we go the sleep in our second floor bed room he makes marry on the first floor and do whatever he feels like doing. I wish somebody could devise or suggest me a mouse trap in which I could trap the nasty bugger.

[i]Hello kalav56, Yes, we have rats in our house. We used to put some sticky paper around the place where they walk at night. During the day when we check out the bait there are mice stuck on the paper and we just throw or buried them out. No we screened our windows and they can't get in the house. There are still in there and we see them once in a while outside the house. Regards.[/i]

I once lived in an apartment right on the river and so we had river rats that would crawl in thru the basement. I never ever went to the basement but I saw them outside a few times.....ugly nasty looking creatures! They would get up in my ceiling and I could hear them running around at night. I was always afraid that one would fall thru one of the tiles or find its way down to my apt. If they did...I was lucky enough to never see it. I was so glad when I was able to move from that place. Are you renting? You should complain to the landlord. They should be able to get a professional exterminator in there for you. It sounds as if you are fighting a no-win battle there...kind of like trying to kill off the ant population.

I have similar experience with you in so far as rats are concerned. There were times that rat dominated our house. As you can see, we reside in a rocky place and a certain portion use to be a farm land. So obviously the place were dominated by rats before. Since we constructed the house in the area, some rats might have transferred to our house. But with the rat poison that I have used, I rarely see them anymore. But I think from time to time, there are still a few who will enter our house.

The first time I saw rats on the streets was two weeks ago. We did an operation for arresting an wanted arab in his village, and as i'm going down on my knees i'm breaking into his house, i'm watching on the floor and see rats running between my legs! I don't afraid animals, so I didn't freaked out. It did was grows and kreepy. I must say that the villages of the palastinias are very nasty, and they live there in nasty and garbage all around them. I guess that's what brings the rats.

of course they are every where you go. but we can drive them away if we can keep our place clean and if we can close every hole they can pass through going to our house. we used to have many rats. but we just cemented every place that can dig and make a way for them inside our place. we saw many holes in the garden. cause when they dug a hole in the soil in the garden they were able to create a passage way going out of the canal in the street. so we closed it. and we cemented every thing they can get into. and we renovated our place. like every hole in the roof which they can find their way into the ceiling we repaired it.

Hi kala, thats too bad. Once they come they make it a habit and come daily looking for some thing to eat. They take a while to break this habit. It happened at my place and it took nearly a month before they completely disappeared. Now we have no problem with rats..Why dont you continue with the rat poison, in time they will perish and stop coming..

My goodness, rats in your house? There are rats in a lot of places in Singapore, but so far nobody has complained of rats inside the house. Once Orchard Road was infested with rats at night and the news become a national news within days. A few pages of the newspaper were devoted to the pictures of rats, the type of rats (seems to be Norwegian kind of rats), rat poisons and various methods of catching rats, even a write-up of the pests controllers and their jobs. If my house has a single rat, I will be featured in the front page of the newspaper! Good luck with your battle with rats. Do you need to read Sun Tze Strategy of War to battle the rats?

Ewe! I hate rats. They carry disease. I live in an old house and they come every winter. I keep my house clean but I am also learning that you have to keep all of your packaged food stuff in containers or else they will gnaw through the packaging. I had a sealed box of 24 containers of ramen up on a shelf and the rats gnawed through the corner of the box and then proceeded to eat most of the ramen in their containers before I realized what was happening. Same with rice cakes. They even got into a plastic salad dressing bottle and it leaked all over the floor. It was a mess! And don't get me started on finding their droppings and piss. They come out at night and get into things and make noise. Drives me crazy. I've even gotten up and shined a flashlight in the direction I think the noise is coming from and the noise stops; I go back to bed and the noise begins again. I am not a cat person. I used to use the pellets, but as alot of people here have said, you never know where the animal is going to die; could happen behind a wall and then you are screwed. I use the trap. I have to do it; I get no help from my bf (he is a self professed wimp). It is actually not bad. I use peanut butter. I use a rat trap, but I've also caught mice with it. Sometimes the mice are alive and I release those; altho I often think "Am I releasing this critter so it can come right back in?". When I catch one I lift up the trap part and slide it into a plastic bag. Tie the bag up real well and put it in the outsie garbage. I make sure I wash my hand real well. For awhile there I was catching one everyday. It almost became an obsession for me. I haven't caught anything in about a month. I have never used the sticky traps. Nor have l used the fly paper someone here suggested.

I live in the country, so yes, I get mice and rats some winters, but not so much in the summer. I have five cats so they take care of them very quickly, I also have a golden lab dog, but he's next to useless...big soft thing

Oh that would be so aweful. I am so sorry for you. No I have never had rats here, but we live out in the suburbs. We do occasionally get field mice in the basement, and one little guy did manage to get in in here once, I don't know how he got in here, but he practically ran run right up to me. I managed to capture him and put him outside thank goodness, but it really grossed me out that he was in my house. I don't know what I would do if I ever saw a rat in here.

Get a big mean cat. My cats keep my house clear of mice and rats. The outside dogs take care of the large rats trying to find their way in. Usually all we find of those are their tales, the rats not the dogs.

When our screen door was broken, I saw a mouse came in here from that door, and at once I bought a mouse trap and fortunately got rid of it. From then on, I always keep our doors closed, so as to prevent any lost mouse go in our house. And I just hope that would be the last one in our house.

I've never had this problem but I really feel for you, must be horrible. Anyway, I read the other day about somebody who had an infestation in their house of rodents and they used essential oil of spearmint and peppermint, this got rid of their problem. Just sprinkle it around where they get in and hopefully they will not come near or cross the line. Hope this helps.