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Rat Problem
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- Start date
UncleBoots
Gold Member
- Joined
- May 27, 2020
- Messages
- 581
It's a hard smell not to notice. Rotting meat and fungal feet and that vague suspicion that you might have a gas leak.I had one in a wall once.
Scratch, scratch, scratch . . . until it stopped. Either it died in the wall -- didn't notice any post scratch smell -- or moved on.
tyr_shadowblade
Gold Member
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2006
- Messages
- 12,677
Ammonium triiodide is fairly safe to make in very small amounts. As a "prank" people would paint a silver dollar with it, set it on the ground, and wait for someone to pick it up... once it dries it's a contact explosive sorta like a black cat firecracker. If someone were to pour that liquid onto a Triscuit, allowing it to soak in, then placed a homemade peanutbutter cookie on top of said Triscuit, that's basically a rat sized landmine.
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2009
- Messages
- 20,674
I have experience with these
I've been skunked on traditional traps when they lick the bait clean.
My trick was to tie jute twine on the trigger and rub the peanut butter in
The trap would trip when they bite and pull the string.
They are so much better than the wooden snap trap.
Effective on mice and rats.
You put peanut butter in the cup, the mechanism has a long leverage arm and plastic parts.
They step on the long lever to get to the bait.
I lube the plastic a bit with the peanut butter oil
No rusting and having it seized shut.
You set it with your fingers on the latch side, not the snap side.
There are screw holes already in.
I use those to screw it down to a 2 foot long plywood scrap
If I set it outside, I pile up a few bricks - direct the rat to the bait side and hold the trap down
The ideas is to make sure all the spring energy goes into a quick snap instead of recoiling the trap away.
Also I've lost normal traps in walls and ceilings when they take it for a walk and the board stops that.
Coons or skunks rob the dead vermin out and the coons can take it so you never find it; until you find it in the lawnmower.
I often tie them down with a bit of wire too.
It's not just one rat, it's not just one trap. It's a long involved war.
The normal stuff applies, remove all sources of food.
No outdoor pet food, bird seed, trash.
Compost bins, cover all surfaces with 1/4" hardware cloth
Use metal trash cans.
Use glass jars in your pantry for stuff in cardboard boxes and bags - raisains, oatmeal, flour and so on.
block up entry points, you can see the greasy spots they travel
Fill the house holes with stainless steel pot scrubbers and spray foam them in place.
They create burrows under bricks, patio stones, tree roots and so on.
Waterproof, no cave ins, no predators digging from above.
You can use gas bombs to smoke them from outdoor burrows, but be careful.
My neighbor burned down a detached pole barn garage with a smoke bomb too close to posts.
These are expensive, but they reset themselves for multiple hits.
Read their instructions too.
$100 for the trap and you are buying their CO2 cartridges and bait paste.
Their cartridges screw in, any bb gun co2 I've seen are plain no screw in.
I've been skunked on traditional traps when they lick the bait clean.
My trick was to tie jute twine on the trigger and rub the peanut butter in
The trap would trip when they bite and pull the string.
They are so much better than the wooden snap trap.
Effective on mice and rats.
You put peanut butter in the cup, the mechanism has a long leverage arm and plastic parts.
They step on the long lever to get to the bait.
I lube the plastic a bit with the peanut butter oil
No rusting and having it seized shut.
You set it with your fingers on the latch side, not the snap side.
There are screw holes already in.
I use those to screw it down to a 2 foot long plywood scrap
If I set it outside, I pile up a few bricks - direct the rat to the bait side and hold the trap down
The ideas is to make sure all the spring energy goes into a quick snap instead of recoiling the trap away.
Also I've lost normal traps in walls and ceilings when they take it for a walk and the board stops that.
Coons or skunks rob the dead vermin out and the coons can take it so you never find it; until you find it in the lawnmower.
I often tie them down with a bit of wire too.
It's not just one rat, it's not just one trap. It's a long involved war.
The normal stuff applies, remove all sources of food.
No outdoor pet food, bird seed, trash.
Compost bins, cover all surfaces with 1/4" hardware cloth
Use metal trash cans.
Use glass jars in your pantry for stuff in cardboard boxes and bags - raisains, oatmeal, flour and so on.
block up entry points, you can see the greasy spots they travel
Fill the house holes with stainless steel pot scrubbers and spray foam them in place.
They create burrows under bricks, patio stones, tree roots and so on.
Waterproof, no cave ins, no predators digging from above.
You can use gas bombs to smoke them from outdoor burrows, but be careful.
My neighbor burned down a detached pole barn garage with a smoke bomb too close to posts.
These are expensive, but they reset themselves for multiple hits.
Read their instructions too.
$100 for the trap and you are buying their CO2 cartridges and bait paste.
Their cartridges screw in, any bb gun co2 I've seen are plain no screw in.
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I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the water bucket trap yet. I've seen a bunch of videos of it on youtube, but I never tried it out myself. Drowning rats seems like a cruel way to kill them. Snap traps are quick and effective if they are used correctly.
Supposedly steel wool works really well. The kind you get at a hardware store. The story is that it's too painful for them to force or chew their way through, but it has to be the right grade, otherwise it's not effective. I forget which grade of steel wool that it was supposed to be.
Supposedly steel wool works really well. The kind you get at a hardware store. The story is that it's too painful for them to force or chew their way through, but it has to be the right grade, otherwise it's not effective. I forget which grade of steel wool that it was supposed to be.
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2009
- Messages
- 20,674
I've used the stainless pot scrubbers.
They are more coarse then steel wool
They are less likely to rust and weep rusty water.
Any holes I've filled like that were in concrete or next to it.
The water bucket trap work really well on mice.
I just had an open drip pan of used engine oil in a shed for a few years waiting to be emptied.
When I did get to it, I used that to start a bonfire. The bottom half of that tray was full of dead mice.
I was surprised that oil would be such an attraction.
However, rats can jump and swim
Rats can jump vertically 36 inches and horizontally 48 inches.
They have also been known to swim for three days at a time.
Dropping from a height of 50 feet doesn't kill or seriously injure rats.
Squeezing through small openings: Rats have flexible skulls and can fit through openings a half-inch in diameter.