Rats and Mice.
As per normal these tips and advice pages are put on here to help the DIYer and newbies to the pest control industry learn about the pests and what to do, based upon my findings over the years I have been a pest controller. I hope the tips can be of some use to you.
Also please remember that these pages are not a training package just a short tutorial about the treatments and what to look for.
Professional pest controllers must adhere to the new EU restrictions on the use of rodenticide outdoors where wildlife can be present, a 40-60% increase in rodent infestations indoors has been noticed over the past few months. This could increase public health risks because of the contamination associated with rodent urine or droppings. However, the new regulations allow constant use indoors where there is no risk to wildlife. But at the same time, there are major risks to human health.
Why do we have more rodent infestations, especially indoors? this winter's heavy rain could be one contributing factor as it would drive the rodents out of their burrows and indoors but the new rules around pest control are significantly adding to the problem.
The rules have been developed following some new directives which are aimed to help save non target species being poisoned.
According to the new rules, previously used tamper-proof boxes containing rodenticide poison would be laid to prevent an infestation from happening. Pest controllers are not allowed to carry out this practice anymore until there is evidence of an infestation.
The obvious increase in rat numbers is where there are restaurants and food takeaways, and anywhere else where there is a constant supply of food such as bird feeders. decking, poultry kept without proper control on feed, pet food left out, holes in the walls, broken or breached sewer pipes, poor property maintenance, rubbish bins not having lids that close, if indeed they are closed at all, rubbish left lying around, food waste and food containers thrown out of cars instead of being placed in a bin.
In an ideal world you would use nothing, but you cannot live with rats and mice. They are too dangerous.
What can be done to help solve the problem. First find out if you have a mouse or a rat problem, obviously most people only realise they have a problem because they see nibbles in food containers or food packets in the cupboard. This is where panic sets in. Look at the size of the pooh, if it is small the chances are it’s a mouse, if they are larger then its likely to be a rat. Look on google to see pictures of the difference. If the pooh is larger than a mouse and in the attic, there is a good chance it could be a squirrel. I shall cover squirrel control on another page.
Once you have decided on what the pest is, you then have to locate the entry point into the property, in the case of house mice they will follow a wall edge or along something solid and normally straight, they will follow a skirting board around the room rather than walk across the floor. The giveaway with mice is they walk and poop at the same time and so it is easy to discover where they come from. A mouse will get through a hole the thickness of a pencil, and a rat through a hole the thickness of a man’s thumb. Rats will walk anywhere and will not normally walk and poop, they tend to stop and poop.
By far the easiest method of control is with traps. In the case of a mouse the trap is smaller and can be set off by a lighter critter, whereas a rat trap is larger and stronger sprung than a mouse trap.
Depending on the trap you use a house mouse can sometimes set off a rat trap and be killed, whereas a rat will set off the mouse trap and will drag it around behind itself, if it cant shake off the trap a rat will often chew off its own limbs to escape. And so, the correct trap is essential.
The next thing to learn is how to set the trap, ideally you need to find the run and place the set trap at right angles and across the run, so the pressure plate can easily be walked over, this is important especially with mice.
The life cycle of rats are that she will mate up to a hundred times today to ensure she in pregnant, twenty eight days later she gives birth to 6-8 young, and the next day she mates again, twenty eight days later she gives birth and the young that was on the teat are sent packing and they have to fend for themselves, a few weeks later they mate and the numbers grow rapidly, mice are fast maters as well but not quite as fast as rats.
If you have one rat or mouse you certainly will have more, always keep the traps working and set and keep them out of the way of pets and children. Ideally keep the in a tunnel type area i.e. put a trap near the wall and put a board or similar at an angle above it but not touching the trap, by doing this you will be more likely to catch the rodent than pets, if you can place the trap in a cupboard then that is better.
As for a lure on the trap it is better to use something like chocolate sauce on the pressure plate.
Once you are sure there is no more rodents in the area you are treating or if you are sure they are outside then block the entry point with something hard like rapid drying cement or expanding foam with wire wool in the hole first. Never use foam on its own as this is as much use a chocolate fireguard, rats and mice will chew through it in seconds.
As a tip do not keep visiting or moving the set traps, rats are neophobic and will not go near anything new or moved around until they are sure it is safe to do so.
If you use rodenticide there is a completely different set of rules to apply. The bait you buy as a DIYer is the same bait and chemical base as used by some pest controllers, it is just smaller sizes of blocks or quantities, a pest controller can buy bulk and bigger blocks that the general DIY market are allowed to sell.
There are generally three types of bait on the DIY marketplace one is grain, another is blocks and then there is a pasta type. You will have blocks or grain.
We will cover blocks first. Normally when you buy the blocks you will also have a sealed bait station, if this is for mice the holes in the bait station must follow along a wall / skirting board. With the side of the box containing the holes being nearer to the wall than the blank side. The idea is that as mice walk along the edges of rooms etc they will readily walk into the bait station and eat some bait before carrying on its way. If you have rat bait stations the entry hole is larger, and it does not matter if the holes are against and along the walls or near to it.
If you have an entry hole made by rats, it is always an ideal situation to encourage the rat to enter the box and so if one of the entry holes in the box is place against the entry hole in the wall or fence the rat will use the bait station as a tunnel and will eat some bait on its way through.
Bait does not kill rodents immediately; this is by law the rodents must not die in agony and as such it slowly dies over a few days becoming lethargic in the meantime and stopping its reproduction cycle before it dies.
If you use block bait outside of the bait station a tunnel effect MUST be made so that only the target species can get to the bait, this is the law and if you use the bait incorrectly and it kills the neighbour’s cat you can be heavily fined.
The other type of bait commonly used and used incorrectly is grain bait. This type of bait must be covered over in a tunnel but better still only used in enclosed areas such as lofts where it can be left in open trays. If this type of bait is used near chickens etc and the chicken eats a bit of it, the chicken may become ill but may not die. The chemical eaten i.e. the rodenticide will be in the eggs and meat and under no circumstances should they be eaten.
I have seen householders use grain bait in trays inside a greenhouse and the cat next door used it as a toilet.
Video showing how Rats are neophobic
This video is 3 minutes long and just one of a few i have. The bait station has been set with a trap, and peanut butter lure, the fence behind the bait station is from a very untidy area behind a garden shed in the garden behind the fence which is also higher. The rats are coming from that area under the fence which has a very small gap beneath it to the bait station. However the rat is neophobic which means it will be wary of new items for a few days which is why it has to be left alone so the rat goes in. The rat behaviour is clearly seen on this video and although you may not see rats in your garden this shows how they can well be there. I love the infra red showing the rats eyes just glowing. The first part of the video shows the Rat not moving, but it will do after a short while once it has fed itself from that point.