Rats are like any other uninvited guest. When you stop feeding
them, they will leave.
Actually, that's only half the story. When you remove their food,
they are still instinctually bound to stay where they are as much
as they can, and they will eat their young as a food source rather
than go elsewhere. Because they are generally destined to die
unless they can find another site where they won't be 'trespassing'.

In my experience, the presence of dogs, their food, and their feces
are an extremely common theme with rat infestations.


David Combs wrote:
In article ,
Lar wrote:
In article .com,
says...


The biggest problem (to me) is that
rats carry many diseases, most unpleasant,
some fatal. This fact alone may lead
you to retain a professional exterminator.
Unfortunately, it is my belief that exterminators
don't *kill* many rats, but just
drive them away. My infestation closely
followed an episode where my neighbor
had a rat problem and hired an exterminator.
I think they just moved up the street.

I know of no product in my profession that chases rodents away from one
place to another. My guess would be that when one finally hires a pro,
the pro will also point out areas on the property that needs addressing
to make the area less inviting for a rodent problem. When people
actually now spend money to take care of a problems like rats, they are
more inclined to follow any advise given to help keep the rats away. If
one yard in now less attractant to a rodent population they will migrate
to an area more to their liking.

The traditional approach is poison bait. The most
common poison is warfarin, which
is an anticoagulant. Unfortunately, rats
evolve very quickly, at least metabolically, and
have become resistant to warfarin. I had
absolutely no food in my garage, but I found that
the rats had made their nest in an old box of
DCON warfarin-based rat poision (?!).

I think the key word with this statement should be "was warafin". I'm in
my nineteenth year of pest control and have never seen warafin based
products used professionally for the most part, it has always been the
second generation anticoagulants and have never heard of any resistance
that warafin is known for.


A more
modern poison uses bromethalin, but I am
afraid rats are adapting to this, also. Bromethalin
attacks the myelin sheath on the nerves (like polio).
I never got bromethalin to actually
kill a rat, but it slows them down so
that other approaches become more effective.

I choose not to use bromethalin products for it is an acute toxin, kills
on one feeding, killing the rats too quick, raising the chance of dead
ones being found on the attic/crawl space/walls. But when there is a
heavy population that is in need of a quick reduction, bromethalin is
the way to go.

Rats will take the bait back to their nests
and hoard it, so I would recommend using cubes
of bait (rather than loose grains) and then
leave some cubes loose (for rats to take home)

Never allow them to be able to carry it away...no assurance that they
are not dropping the baits behind the bushes for non target animals to
get into

my ace, which is antifreeze. Rats apparently
like the smell and the taste. The largest
rat literally keeled over while drinking antifreeze.

As do cats and dogs and just a cap full is suppose to be able to cause
death to a cat.


--
Lar

to email...get rid of the BUGS




So, what then *do* you use?

And, are there any good books (or sites) on *how* to do it
(get rid of rats, that is)?

(Professionals-to-be have to learn *some* way...)

Thanks,

David