Thread: 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.

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.

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.

Originally Posted by red96ta

How the heck did he get out?

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.

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.

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.

Originally Posted by red96ta

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

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....