Trapping Rats! Monsters sized rats

Our apartment complex has a rat problem...

They aren't in the house, but run around along the walls outside and it drives me nuts when I'm trying to sleep. Yesterday, I went down to the store and got some nice big rat traps, the snap kind, and loaded them up and set them in the back patio. Tonight, I heard that trademark SNAP! and went to check...sure enough I had knocked one of them off. Satisfied, I shut the door and went back to SRP. I had gotten him right on the neck and he wasn't moving. About ten minutes later, I heard a commotion on the patio and went to investigate....no more rat!!! Somehow this monster had gotten himself out of the trap! How the heck did he get out? These things would surely break my finger if I had it in the way when it went off, but somehow this rat managed to get his full head out of the trap.

any ideas?

I also have a rat issue when the Bunya nuts fall each year. I've found the most effective solution is poison. I set up pet-proof bait boxes - you can either buy them or make your own out of pvc pipe and some tin to ensure the access holes are rat and mouse sized - and just load them up with baits. Sure, it is not as immediate as a trap but I have found it works well over time.

James.

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Originally Posted by Jimbo

I also have a rat issue when the Bunya nuts fall each year. I've found the most effective solution is poison. I set up pet-proof bait boxes - you can either buy them or make your own out of pvc pipe and some tin to ensure the access holes are rat and mouse sized - and just load them up with baits. Sure, it is not as immediate as a trap but I have found it works well over time.

James.

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James, if you can get all the rats to stand under one of those bunya pines for long enough you might just get lucky and have a pod of nuts fall on them. You wouldn't even have to dispose of the bodies, they would be buried already. :)

In an apartment where I lived, I had a similar problem, but with mice.
I tried many things. I've found poison to be the most effective. I alternated between 2 types of poison every 2 weeks or so, because I noticed that with only 1 type, they just kept eating and eating...

I also used traps, but the problem is I had more mice than traps. And when I came back from holiday, I found mice that had been in the trap for 10 days, during a summer heatwave. Let's just say I threw them away with traps and all.

Mice and rats have a tendency to walk along walls. What you could also do is to bury a bucket with a lid, and have a length of pipe run along the wall, and have the pipe end in the bucket. Or instead of a bucket us a cage with a lid that only swings inwards. Or something similar. Then you only need to come up with a way to give them a quick death.

Get a case of beer and a high powered air rifle.

The best bait I have found is called "Just one Bite", get the one in the yellow brick.

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Originally Posted by red96ta

How the heck did he get out?

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Very unlikely that an apparently dead rat in a trap regained consciousness and then managed to escape. HIGHLY unlikely. What I suspect happened is more likely, though not very pleasant to consider. Rodents have no problem eating their own. I've witness them eating their own recently deceased family members! I suspect your dead rat was pulled from the trap by other rats...and consumed.

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Originally Posted by eflatminor

Very unlikely that an apparently dead rat in a trap regained consciousness and then managed to escape. HIGHLY unlikely. What I suspect happened is more likely, though not very pleasant to consider. Rodents have no problem eating their own. I've witness them eating their own recently deceased family members! I suspect your dead rat was pulled from the trap by other rats...and consumed.

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Wife seems to think it was a hawk...but they only capture live prey, no?

Rodents like that have very agile bodies and they can squirm their way in and out of spaces that seem to be too small or too tight.
I've found the traps with the glue on them work really well. Once on them they can't get off and you get to catch them alive and then you can torture them to death if you have a mind too. I usually throw them in a bucket of water.

Either that or get a cat. A big cat. The rats I grew up with would beat up the cats.

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Originally Posted by red96ta

Wife seems to think it was a hawk...but they only capture live prey, no?

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Some Hawk species will scavenge, but I seriously doubt any Hawk would feed at night. If it wasn't other rats, I'd guess it was a cat that pulled the rat from the trap.

Ewwww....

Run a large ad in the Fresno paper, front page, that the government has banned the ownership/possession of rats;
see how many people snatch them up to collect/hoard/sell.

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Originally Posted by thebigspendur

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Either that or get a cat. A big cat. The rats I grew up with would beat up the cats.

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One of my dogs seems to break their necks with one shake, rats that is.
Cats do seem to keep the rat problem at bay, next door had four siamese cats and for a while, no rats or mice in the immediate neighbourhood. Although the dogs don't seem to differentiate between rats and cats, I think the cats perished on the busy road outside.
We also have a large population of Red Kites and they do scavenge. In the Middle Ages they were known as shite-hawks because they fed largely on town rubbish dumps.

I wouldn't want to use poison. Not only rats but sometimes dogs, cats and other useful animals tend to eat it as well.
We have dogs and a cat and no rats or mice around. We have also a large population of fox and raccoon dogs living around. They hunt rats very effectively as well.

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Originally Posted by nun2sharp

The best bait I have found is called "Just one Bite", get the one in the yellow brick.

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i've used this as well seemed to work well.... and good for rats that are used to heart medication (warefin resistent). if you used bait stations your dogs, cats, kids and other livestock will be fine. in the past i have baited the barn, sheds and garage. the barn took about 3 weeks before the bait stopped being taken. now in the fall i makes sure to leave some out before i get a nest in someplace warm; a dead rat in the wall would stink for a LONG time.

If you have a rodent problem it's due to two things, food and shelter. As long as they have enough food and decent shelter they'll still be there, trapped or poisoned or not. You have to get at the root of the problem, figure out where they are sheltering and where they are feeding, remove those (if possible) and then they'll leave. You can't always do anything about those two things unfortunately, sometimes it's out of your control. Poison is quite effective but won't eliminate the problem, just lower it. For traps I'd recommend sticky traps over snap traps. They're cruel but they work. But like I said traps and poison alone won't remove the problem.

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Originally Posted by Theseus

Get a case of beer and a high powered air rifle.

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+1 That my kind of thinking right there.

+1 for a big Cat, I haven't seen any Mice or rats here. Loads of Cats, each dumpster has 5 or 6 living around it.

Well the OP said they were outside so let's assume that his apartment house is fairly rat resistant. twothings that just dawned on me... is there new constrcution or demolish in your area? and all this talk of poison and traps... why not snakes! something like rat snakes would be a good addition to the yard "pets" and they help get rid of chipmunks and squirrels too.

Killed the bugger this morning!

Traps are reset and placed in case any of his friends come around for some delicious peanut butter...

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Originally Posted by red96ta

Our apartment complex has a rat problem...

They aren't in the house, but run around along the walls outside and it drives me nuts when I'm trying to sleep.
.....snap....

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Apartment complex, Fresno, CA and rats. Complain politely to the landlord.
Find out if there are any landlord specific regulations in your city and county.

A safe tangle foot trap can generate some proof if they doubt you.

Look for and check one or more bait boxes -- It is not uncommon for a service to
be sloppy and not replace the bait or skip a scheduled visit. It is also common
for tenants to be sloppy and not shut the covers on trash containers. Many home
owners feed pets and birds outside in ways that invite visitors (rats and other rodents).

Water, shelter, food... contribute. Many critters travel a lot further than you might
guess. Because of this letters (anonymous at first) to all the landlords within half
a mile can help. If all the landlords get after the pests things improve. If only one does
it is like spitting in the ocean.

The is a new (environmentalist out of control) law in Washing DC that will blow your mind.

Exterminators are no longer allow to kill rats. They must trap and relocate them. They must try to capture "families" if possible. What idiot wrote this law and what brain dead legislators voted for it?

Wildlife Protection Act of 2010. Rats are now wildlife and are protected.

I had a roofing problem around the fireplace a few years ago and a opossum was getting in the attic. The local animal control insisted that I get a cage and trap him instead of kill him. When animal control was asked what they were going to do with the trapped animal, they said they were going to kill him.

get yourself a 110 conibear trap from Welcome to F&T Fur Harvester's Trading Post becarefuly as a 110 coni has taken more than a few unlucky houscats out of this world. but it will take even the meanest largest rat you can find out fast.

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Originally Posted by Theseus

Get a case of beer and a high powered air rifle.

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consider the following cautionary tale...one night i heard some scuffling in the kitchen shortly after i had gone to bed. the glue trap i had placed behind the refrigerator had caught it's first victim which was now thrashing around. i grabbed a bb gun and approached the beast, while i was wearing only (and this important) a bathrobe. i pumped up the gun, squatted down and held the muzzle to the monster's head and pulled the trigger. Remember i am wearing only a bathrobe. the projectile had the intended effect and put the poor mouse out of it's misery. however not without karmic payback. the bb ricocheted off the decades old hard lead paint on the pantry door frame, angle of incidence equals angle of reflection and all that happy horsefeathers, and came right back at me and hit me in a very sensitive part of my anatomy. i use snap traps now when mice invade. sometimes one of the cats will get them before the trap does. i have nothing personal against mice, but when they come into the house and walk around where i store and make food, their lives are forfeit.

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Originally Posted by RayCover

+1 That my kind of thinking right there.

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amen to that but a 22 is better less chance of the police being called vs a extremly loud bang of say a 30-06

I had a small mouse problem a few years back. I had seen the droppings and had occasionally seen a shadow flit across the darkened kitchen when I was sitting in the living room watching the idiot box late at night. I went out and bought the Victory brand mouse traps and set them out in the kitchen and turned off the lights. I sat down to watch the TV and not five minutes passed before I heard the loud THWACK.

When I turned on the lights I saw that the trap had practically burst the mouse. There was a fine spray of blood covering the lower cabinet doors and a thick spray of it across the floor. I couldn't believe that a mouse so small could contain so much blood. After that it was glue traps, which proved very effective. Only trouble was that they were alive and pathetic looking when I would find the traps in the morning. I usually filled a bucket up with water and dropped the trap into it to drown the mouse when I got up in the morning. After a while, no more mice.

Years later, when taking my house back from my ex I was cleaning up my kid's room (I'm no neat freak, but my ex lived in total squalor) and I found mouse crap in his dresser drawer. I set out a glue trap under the dresser and the next day my kid said "We caught one, dad! What are you going to do with it?" I said "Well son..."

The look on his face went from excited to horror. So I took the glue trap out into the woods behind the house and poured peanut oil all over the mouse. He wriggled right off the trap and disappeared into the brush. My son was relieved.

I'm sure the owl who ate him that night loved the dressing.

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Originally Posted by Noisykids

consider the following cautionary tale...one night i heard some scuffling in the kitchen shortly after i had gone to bed. the glue trap i had placed behind the refrigerator had caught it's first victim which was now thrashing around. i grabbed a bb gun and approached the beast, while i was wearing only (and this important) a bathrobe. i pumped up the gun, squatted down and held the muzzle to the monster's head and pulled the trigger. Remember i am wearing only a bathrobe. the projectile had the intended effect and put the poor mouse out of it's misery. however not without karmic payback. the bb ricocheted off the decades old hard lead paint on the pantry door frame, angle of incidence equals angle of reflection and all that happy horsefeathers, and came right back at me and hit me in a very sensitive part of my anatomy. i use snap traps now when mice invade. sometimes one of the cats will get them before the trap does. i have nothing personal against mice, but when they come into the house and walk around where i store and make food, their lives are forfeit.

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Yeah, I learned the hard way also about not shooting the air rifle indoors. I had a bat loose in my bedroom and figured that i'd shoot it. Let's just say that bats are a lot harder to shoot than tv's.

Interesting thread, Youtube has some ideas which you use to "build a better mousetrap".

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/PIpIYpR5FGA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I hope the link works this is the first time sharing a Youtube video. If the link does not work, type in mousetrap in Youtube search there is plenty stuff to see.


Fred

Sorry to hear about your problem, rats are disease ridden disgusting rodents! I would like to give you some advice, but I can't, as there are no rats in Alberta. Good luck!

That guy is an idiot. He's just pushing his problem off on someone else.

Maybe you need one of these: Skunk Launcher - YouTube

MOVE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:mexwave: