Got a rat problem?

Well I do! I have tried everything from neck snappers, which they wont go near, to those cruel glue traps, you know, the ones they step on and stick to! Cant go any where so they die of dehydration or they chew their feet off to get away. My problem rats just shake those loose! I find them 20 feet from where I placed them with rat hair and foot prints but no rat! I cant use poisons because of our dog Rusty!
I searched every tack and feed store, every pet store and couldnt find anything that would do the trick!
The other day I was at ACE hardware picking up some electrical doodads and thought Why not, lets see what ace has. Well, they had some gimmicky looking device called the rat zapper! A blue one and a silver one. I thought it couldn't hurt to try so I went for the blue one and was immediately warned off the blue one by an ACE salesman. He said the silver one gets rave reviews and no one seems to have any luck with the blue one! I bought the silver one for 60 dollars + tax, I set it up per MFG. instructions. It took about a week before the rats would go near the thing, but when they finally did, I turned the trap on and have killed a steady flow of rats! I am so happy with this little gizmo that electrocutes and induces little rat heart attacks that I thought anyone here with similar problem would like to know!

The website iswww.ratzapper.com and their number is1-888-DEAD RAT!

I hope you all find this information useful!

Man, don't tell the south about this. We already have enough fun with bug zappers. Now a critter zapper? Jeeze...

I had a rat problem once, and I filled a 5 gallon bucket 1/2 way with water, floated a bunch of sunflower seeds on top, so that they covered the water, and looked like a bucket full of seeds, and then put a little ramp going up to the top of the bucket. The dirtly little suckers would climb the ramp, jump in to get a bunch of great seeds, and eventually drowned. Not the most "humane" way, but effective. If I see a rodent in or around my house, I will do everything I can to kill it.

Matt

Rat electrocution. Cool.

I get mice now and then that have some secret passageway into the cabinets beneath the kitchen sink. It's there that I keep stacks of pizza boxes with bits of crust and food still left in them. And then there's the garbage, which I'm sure they love.

I occasionally get a mouse with a neck snapper in the house, not for a while though! I think we got them all! Our problem is in our barn where the alfalfa and grain and hay are!

Yes! I too have a rat problem, or had a rat problem. Little buggers were getting into my car engine and chewing bits!! They had almost chewed completely through my ABS cable (or whatever) apparently.

I poisoned the living bejeebers out of them, and things seem to have settled down. But I am definitely getting me a Rat Zapper for ongoing rat protection.

Thanks Mark!

James.

i don't think they're big enough for the politicians down here =(

do they come in larger sizes?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Blade Wielder

Rat electrocution. Cool.

---

You are soo not PC! I love it!!!:D

I used to live in an apartment in which the master bedroom was a room built inside the attic. And the previous tenants had stored food in the attic. And the room itself was insulated with styrofoam.

Any thought of 'humane' traps went right out the window after the critters kept me awake for an entire night. I just wanted them dead.

In the end, I removed the styrofoam that was such a good hiding place.
Then I put up mouse traps, and slow working poison. At first they ate the poisoned grains by the shovel full without effect. But when I mixed 2 different brands, the population suddenly dropped off.

But Matt's suggestion seems great as well. Never thought of it, sadly.

mice are actually very easy to kill. they're just way too curious and have to explore every inch hundreds of times a night.
so what do we have so far? electric chair, poison, drowning, hanging.
how about the gillotene, and the firing squad?
interestingly there is also a patented gas-chamber mouse trap, which for obvious reasons hasn't caught up with the market


the traps we've used were always a cage-type where you really trap the critter fully intact and have the freedom to decide on its destiny. my grandparents favored water-based methods, such as drowning it or pouring boiling water over it.
sometimes a cat was utilized, which seems rather unfair, but again we were in a socialist country where even the lazy get provided for.

have you tried getting some barn cats?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mhailey

I had a rat problem once, and I filled a 5 gallon bucket 1/2 way with water, floated a bunch of sunflower seeds on top, so that they covered the water, and looked like a bucket full of seeds, and then put a little ramp going up to the top of the bucket. The dirtly little suckers would climb the ramp, jump in to get a bunch of great seeds, and eventually drowned.

---

Clever. A similar method is to put a round pole resting over a barrel of water. The rats start walking over the pole, it starts to spin and they fall in. I guess rats aren't too smart.:rofl2:

You can't put poison up high on a sill or something where the dog can't get it? I have a dog and that's what I do.

Rat electric chair, I like that, just wonder what it would do to a Yorkie?

Living out in the sticks we have more problems with field mice, but when I'm up late at night I hear things go bang that sounds like it was made by a critter as large as our 10 lb Yorkie. We put poison in the closet with the hot water heater, seems they habitually make that a hidey hole.

Mr. Toes gets at least one mouse/week. He's good. But the rat thing, well they are scary. We had one that used to show up on the counter at the wee hours before Mr. Toes was around. I put out a spring trap and late one night I heard the trap snap. In the morning I went down and there was a 1.5 lb Norway rat a foot away from the trap. The bastard got himself out of the trap before he died! There was alot of blood. It really wasn't nice. Now with the cat and the dog, I occassionally hear a rat gnawing in te wall but they never show their little faces. I think the cat is really a great rat deterrent force. Plus he makes me laugh.

I use a bait block called "Just one bite", that stuff works, I keep it away from the dog, the rats will eat from it and then go hide to die.

the last time I saw a rat in my house, I simply shot it with a .22 revolver.

There's a rat in me kitchen, what am I gonna do?

Seems a lot of people favor the poison, but my problem was I had one die in the wall, and started decomposing. Man that smell is something I will never forget. After being forced to rip out part of the wall to get his nasty little decomposing body out of my house, I swore I would never use poison again.

Matt

The problem with poison is that Rusty is a hunter and scavenger! If he can catch it he will eat it and if it is on the ground he lays claim to it! If he eats enough of the poisoned rats before I can gather them, the poison could kill him! It takes a month for the poison to leave the body once ingested, so, where one or 2 rats in a month wont hurt Rusty, 2 a week could potentially be fatal!
As for cats, they would be a tasty meal for Rusty! We had a feral cat that lived in the area. A big mean black cat! I am told that it lived in the area for more than 2 years. the coyotes wouldn't even touch this cat, and most dogs I have known will engage a feral cat in battle and once the cat begins to fight back, the dog high tails it out of there! Not Rusty! I heard the barks one night at about 12 am. I stepped outside to see rusty jumping back and forth in circles around the very angry feral cat who stood his ground! Rusty lunged, the cat slapped, rusty backed off and lunged again, the cat slapped again! I tried to chase rusty off but he was having none of it! He grabbed the cat around its middle and shook the cat! the cats claws dug into Rusty's face! I pulled Rusty away to give the cat a chance to escape and he did! I let rusty go but apparently the cat came back because the next morning Rusty was strutting around the yard with the dead feral cat in his mouth!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JMS

The problem with poison is that Rusty is a hunter and scavenger! If he can catch it he will eat it and if it is on the ground he lays claim to it! If he eats enough of the poisoned rats before I can gather them, the poison could kill him! It takes a month for the poison to leave the body once ingested, so, where one or 2 rats in a month wont hurt Rusty, 2 a week could potentially be fatal!
As for cats, they would be a tasty meal for Rusty! We had a feral cat that lived in the area. A big mean black cat! I am told that it lived in the area for more than 2 years. the coyotes wouldn't even touch this cat, and most dogs I have known will engage a feral cat in battle and once the cat begins to fight back, the dog high tails it out of there! Not Rusty! I heard the barks one night at about 12 am. I stepped outside to see rusty jumping back and forth in circles around the very angry feral cat who stood his ground! Rusty lunged, the cat slapped, rusty backed off and lunged again, the cat slapped again! I tried to chase rusty off but he was having none of it! He grabbed the cat around its middle and shook the cat! the cats claws dug into Rusty's face! I pulled Rusty away to give the cat a chance to escape and he did! I let rusty go but apparently the cat came back because the next morning Rusty was strutting around the yard with the dead feral cat in his mouth!

---

Sounds like my dog. She was the sweetest thing ever but would kill almost any mean creature out there. I went outside one day and she was growling up a storm at one of the meanest, biggest opossums I've seen. I tried to call her away, but she wouldn't budge until she at least injured it. At that point I was able to get her away, shoot the opossum, and bury it.

Mark, re-route your exclamation key from your period key:roflmao

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Quick Orange

Mark, re-route your exclamation key from your period key:roflmao

---

Old habits are hard to break, but you'll notice there are less exclamation points in that post than normal *fights to keep finger from exclamation key* .:o

Lol, I think I see two periods peeking out of that entire thing. I guess progress is progress:roflmao

Hey Mark, If Rusty is such a badass, why doesn't he kill your rats?

I live in Florida. My backyard is a wetland, I'm also quite close to a river. I had problems with rodents for a while. I saw the Rat Zapper, almost bought it, but instead, I found some stuff called "just one bite" I have no pets. The rats actually chewed through my screens in my screen room. The poison worked, and I haven't seen one since....I'm glad to hear that rat zapper worked....I'm thinking, Where are all the snakes?

too bad the dog can't get along with the cats, what if they were introduced to him when young? My grandparents had a ranch when I was a kid. almonds and some catttle. big hay barn. they had 17 cats, including two siamese that were mean as satan. the female was bigger, they said 17-18lbs. they had lots of ranch dogs, one went after her, she layed his shoulder open to the bone:eek:

the male was standard size, incredible hunter they said, he'd bring rabbits, birds, anything you can imagine, lay with them outside back door.

I was young when they sold the ranch, about 10? I asked my grandpa what they did with the cats "lead poisoning" took me a few years to understand what he meant.

I hate all rodents when it comes to my house. filthy disease ridden buggers.

Red

Once again I agree with Jockeys! I was going to suggest shotshell 22LR cartridges. I too had a small mouse problem a few months ago. We had the first cold snap here and then started to hear scratching in the walls. Well the wife was tiring of it so I set a trap on the counter with peanut butter. BOOM!!! Got one the first night! Couldn't figure out how he ate all the bait then the trap triggered???????? Figured it out. He was killed quite effectively while dining on the bait, then his buddy seeing that all was safe decided to finish his "dinner". No worries, I got his buddy the next night. Funny thing was he was a pudgy little bugger too. Got 2 more after that and have not seen anymore droppings, nor have I heard anymore scratching.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by icedog

Hey Mark, If Rusty is such a badass, why doesn't he kill your rats?

---

Rusty does his best and has even caught one but the rats go and stay in places Rusty can't get to.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zib

I'm glad to hear that rat zapper worked....I'm thinking, Where are all the snakes?

---

We have a gopher snake living in the barn. He is a youngster though. I'm not sure he is big enough to handle a full grown rat, but I have noticed that I don't see any small rats anymore so maybe he is living off of the runts and younger rats.

Wow, all periods!:y

I used to have a mouse problem, then I started leaving my pellet gun out and ready. There were few that got past me twice- most ended up with a pellet in the head. I'm still not sure how I was able to shoot so well except that I really hate rodents and creepy crawlies.

Well i had to try it. I picked up a rat zapper at my local ace store on Saturday and took it into work on Wednesday. Try as i might i could not get my boss into the device. upon further contemplation i realized that there would not be enough electric current in the machine to do him quick anyways. Anybody have a wood-chipper i can borrow.


hmmm... i wonder if these have been tried on IRS agents :D

We've *only* got a ****roach problem in the appartment building here. They probably get everywhere through the waste canal in the hallway, and then into appartments via the door. They cleaned and purged it a month ago, but it didn't help completely. Will have a special poison dispenser here in a few weeks, should kill everything insect in a radius of about 50 metres :D. I just hope none of the neighbours have a fishtank...

Well, here's an update. It took one week before the rats would go near the thing as I believe I have already mentioned. In 10 days I nailed 7 rats. then another week went by with nothing. There were rat droppings so I knew they were still there. I was beginning to think they were on to me, then yesterday morning I got another one, last night and this morning too, for a total of 3 more making 10 little rat heart attacks all together thus far! that is about a rat every 2 days! I can live with that.

Got one this morning and one an hour ago for a total of 12! YIPPEE