Posted on 12/12/2007 4:38:04 AM PST by Global2010
I have a serious question.
We live on a bay on the Oregon Coast and this time of year the rats want in really bad.
I can D Con in the Garage because I can hide it behind the tool bench where they follow along the wall.
I cannot D Con around the house because we have 3 Labs and sometimes the other Labs in the area sneak away and come visit our home ( I don't encourage them).
So I am looking at these plug in the wall sonar rat repellants.
Do they work? Can I plug them inside next to the doors and have them be effective?
The suckers come every year when it gets cold and if I don't kill them they knaw at the door frame.
I had one come up one year in the day and as my Lab was standing over his bone barking to the nieghbor Lab up the way the dirty rat came up under him and stole his bone. I kid you not. Brazen lil' sucker.
I hate rats.
They have been known to get into homes here while folks are gone for the winter and literally destroying the interior.
We have had 10 JRT’s in the last 16 years, half of those we have taken in because they needed homes. We have 3 now. A couple have been hyper but most have not been. Our favorites are the rough and broken coats (long haired) ones that you don’t see as many of. If you want a JRT you need to meet the parents.
When I was having the problem (back in the fall when the weather first started getting cold here) I visited dozen of websites, and people post what works/doesn't (that where I learned of bobcat pee)...but there was one funny story (had been in the news) on many sites. A man found a nest in his yard (he had been battling mice for years). He douses the nest w/lighter fluid, tosses a match and enflamed (literally and figuratively) mice run from the nest...and follow their usual route into HIS home (into crawl spaces, walls) so by the time the FD arrived the house was gone. But on the upside...NO MORE MICE :)
She is definitely versastile.
‘So you would know about ocean/bay dock rats.”
I know there was one picked up in the bay by a local radio host. It was swimming in the middle of the bay (couple miles from shore) and she thought it was a dog. She took it to the vet for a checkup where she learned it was a rat. A BIG one.
Other than that I know they will chew thru the tile roofs, walls, and such. Don’t know how to stop them though.
I lived on the Pacific coast. I used one of these, and the next morning there was a submarine in my front yard.
I tried them once, when we had liberal house guests, but they didn’t seem to notice.
I like the sqirrels, bunnies and deer that lurk around.
The labs have been taught not to go ape crazy with the bunnies and squirrels that hang out in the brush/lawn.
We live on the bay but in the low coast range rain forrest.
We have up the way a few acres the bigger predators and on my park area away from the house where my angels are some skunks have been using the area as a potty.
Big ugley boomers up in the forrest here too.
Global, another problem using dogs to kill rats is that most rats can climb. One night in Louisiana, the dogs started raising a ruckus and I turned on the light in the courtyard and saw 5 rats lined up like Rockettes about 5 feet up a brick wall. That's when the pellet rifle came out.
Thanks.
Don’t poison them. They crawl into your house (where you can’t find them) and die. They you have the smell.
Use traps where your dogs can’t reach and seal up the entrances to your crawl spaces and such with screening.
I had a family munch a hole in the sheet rock out in the garage a few years back and did exactly what you suggested.
Threw a pack of d con blocks in the hole stuffed it with steel wool and patched it over.
Then had to put the spray foam along the bottom of the wall to keep them out.
Bobcat urine and wolf urine as someoe else suggested sounds like a good repel. Thanks.
“I lived on the Pacific coast. I used one of these, and the next morning there was a submarine in my front yard.”
At least you didn’t have any dead whales.
LOL And I don’t want to scare away the occasional Killer whale that is chasing down the sea lions in the bay. : )
“Bobcat urine and wolf urine as someoe else suggested sounds like a good repel. Thanks.”
Lime works to keep the bigger ground bugs and snakes outta your yard. Don’t know if it would help with rats.
You are so right the lil bast***** can climb and leap/fly.
I keep the exterior lights on all the way around the property too.
I don’t mind if they want to live out around the nieghborhood just would like to keep them away from the house.
We have vendors drop of supplies for KV care and I have them trained to bring everything in the house not just drop in the garage and run...same with my UPS and Fed Ex guy.
Fed Ex guy is cool he use to have one of my pups from a litter years ago. And that was when he was living in Eastern Oregon.
Bred some fine hunting dogs back in the day.
We only have them in the Fall, for a week or so (til we get the whole family). My next door neighbor admitted to the problem as well (there is a heavily crowned vetched hillside behind our backyards...thats where they come from). They had Orkin come...and used some kind of blue pellets. True story. Never had then seen evidence in their upper kichen cabinets (only in their basement, under the kitchen sink, and a loosely cover plate of sweets on the kitchen counter). They spent several hundred dollars for the pro to come and spread these pellets in places where their dog couldn't get to them. After several days, my neighbor Bill discovered a BLUE PELLET IN HIS COFFEE MUG (which was stored in the wall cabinet where the mice had never been before). It was kind like an 'in your face, f-you' kinda move from the rodents. And no other cup, bowl, mug...just his. They purchased the large size sticky pads too...and he bought the bobcat urine as well (I wonder if I could become a vendor, LOL).
I have used the electic traps for mice and they work really well! No messy bodies or traps to touch. No poison for the pets. Just cute, *dead*, mice, dumped in the woods.
Yes, they are expensive, but they are reusable forever.
Also, I know that mothballs thrown under a porch will keep out wild critters like skunks and possum. I don’t know if it works with rats or not.
We got one that wasn’t sonar — but made like a bag crumpling/popping kind of sound. No problems since we started using it. *shrug*
Granted I also put down traps, poison, glue boards *laugh*
I don’t like rodents. Rats . . . gah. We caught one in the trap — well, killed one. I didn’t look. Hubby dealt with it.
No more activity though since putting in the noise maker thing.
WE bought a very large sticky trap. That sucker ATE right thru it. Teeth marks about an inch long..shudder.
We went to the FEED Store, and they suggested we put down their poison "sticks" in the location the rat was entering the house. They said the Rat would leave to seek "water".
The point of entry was behind our Dryer. HE literally ATE a hole thru the dryer vent tube.
So he ate the poison, and went outside to find a source of water. We know this, because we saw our Cat fighting with it. We moved the cat indoors. No more rats.
Get a litter box for the garage, and the cat will use it to urinate..
Good luck.
sw
“$40 for 1 hmmm kinda spendy...”
Yeah, I guess it all comes down to how badly you wish to get rid of your rat problem.
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