Rodents!

[Nick Jones]

Yes, it's me in the ranting zone again......

 

We have a rodent problem.  Our utility room (approx 4m x 4m) is a single storey extension added to a gable end.  It has a pitched roof and thus a separate loft.

 

I'd had intermittent reports of "noises" above the ceiling for a few weeks from various members of the household.  Then I heard it too - heavy scratching.  Of course it shut up when I stuck my head through the loft hatch with a torch and I saw nothing.  We set rat and mouse traps at ground level and in the loft.  Caught 4 mice at ground level and one in the loft.  Then nothing.  No bait taken.

 

Then a couple of days later the alarm went off - tamper alert on the back door, just below the area of the noises.  So I had a proper look and the wire (6 core phone wire) is chewed right through.  Worse, sections of the lighting and ring main wiring have had the outer layer of insulation chewed off.  On most places in the inner layer of insulation is still there - but not everywhere.  Also, there's been some gnawing of timbers though nothing structurally threatening.

 

Bugger.......  Obviously the wiring has to be fixed.  So today I dug out my overalls, mask and gloves and started by putting a temporary striplight up there fed from a different circuit so I could see what I was doing.  Then I started rolling up the insulation so I could see the extent of the damage.  Immediately it became evident that there is mouse crap EVERYWHERE.  On top of the insulation, under the insulation, in the insulation.  Literally drifts of crap.  Also (I think) some bigger stuff from either rats or squirrels. I'd judge that most of the wiring damage was done by something bigger than a mouse.The toothmarks are too big and in some places no way could a mouse have reached the wire - more squirrel reach.  The chewed beams.... well, they re-introduced beavers to the Otter valley (yeah, really!) in Devon - only about 20 miles away.  More likely squirrels.

 

So now I need to get rid of all the insulation and clean up without catching anything nasty, then fix the wires (easy bit in fact), then figure out how they are getting in and try to stop that (probably impossible to stop the mice but maybe the damn squirrels) then fit new insulation.  I can think of many things I'd rather be doing.......

 

Oh, yeah, the bastard plumber (see my last rant about professional tradesmen) has been in here too and made a really nasty job of linking the boiler into the main house. 2 pipes with 4 metres unsupported run and too lazy to insulate properly so just piled the loft insulation on top of it.

 

Arrrrrgh!  Houses.......

 

Nick

[SP]

Probably squirrels as you said Nick,i had them in my loft in a previous house surrounded by trees,they chewed a semi circle out of the gutter and made an entrance under the slates.Wiring and timber chewed including a 45 amp shower cable.

 

One morning i heard noises and went out to find one sitting in the gutter chewing the edge,i shot it with an air gun!.

Steve

[Nick Jones]

Squirrel = bushy tailed tree-rat. Certainly plenty of the little buggers in these parts.  Not cute at all. They liked the bird feeder - which is now banished to a far corner of the garden due to it's vermin-magnet properties.

 

Chris hit a couple with a catapult - one KO'd but recovered and escaped before it could be permanently dealt with.  May have to sanction the use of the air rifle, previously rabbits only.  Bloody Bambi and his girlfriend are eating senior management's new plants too, but don't think an air rifle will deal with them.

 

Nick

[JohnD]

Try a "Slinky" around the feeder pole?

 

Lots of amusing videos in YouTube, but also Slinky-beating squirrels!

 

John

[Nick Jones]

We are quite partial to the "squirrel flinging" videos.  Some of the squirrels even appear to enjoy the experience - oddly enough.

 

Nick

[zetecspit]

I loathe grey squirrels. Especially once they started scrabbling about in the loft of our old hose.

 

I used my old airgun to dispatch a fair number, though they are surprising tough little buggers. Need to be accurated.

Also employed a trap, and then drowned them (illegal to release them once caught) but that ended when Gill had to del with one in the trap. |It was binned after that experience, and I got a right earful.

Best solution was rat poison. Got a tub off the school caretaker, and put a couple out a day.Very satisfying to see a squirrel up a tree munching on a blue block.Hopefully they share with their friends. The poison seemed to go almost daily,and the population reduced fairly fast.

New house is much better, I guess fewer trees and shrubs helps.

[Nick Jones]

Finished the cleanup...... no rockwool or rodent crap in the loft.  Now to fix the wires and try to rodent-proof it before adding new insulation.......

 

Been cheering myself up by watching squirrel launching video clips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PQyHb3djDs#t=84.30055

 

but the greasy pole......

 

and squirrel vs. slinky

 

are more entertaining.  There's a lobby here that thinks that the grease should be spiced up a bit with strong chilli.....

 

Nick

[PeterC]

Had squirrels in the loft, nesting. So set up bird feeders with peanuts ten feet from a window. With 0.22 pest control pellets in the rifle it is usually a quick despatch.

Tally over 50 to date. They give us a wide berth nowadays , but I see them around our neighbour's ! some sort of group hazard avoidance? I dunno.

Peter

[Nick Jones]

Thread revival…. The little bastards are back…. 
 

Well, actually they’ve never really gone away, but have broken in again, though mercifully only into the soffit boxes. My wire mesh seems to have kept them out of the actual loft area.

Chewed wooden soffit removed.

Revealing a fresh nest. Unoccupied.

No respect!

Plan is to replace with uPVC and buy oversized so it can be profiled to match the tiles to keep their chewy little snouts out…..

 

[JohnD]

On 4/30/2017 at 10:43 PM, zetecspit said:

Best solution was rat poison. Got a tub off the school caretaker, and put a couple out a day.Very satisfying to see a squirrel up a tree munching on a blue block.Hopefully they share with their friends. The poison seemed to go almost daily,and the population reduced fairly fast.

Zetec, all,

Yes, rat poison if you need it, but please, don't just leave it out where rodents will find it.   Use it in those plastic boxes that have rat sized entrances:

A random example from the Net.

 

The bait will attract other rodents - no fear for mice, voles etc, but for hedgehogs!    They are endangered and a valuable asset to a garden!   

I suspect that squirrels will get into a rat box, but suggest you mount  the box off the ground, to keep the poison  away from the 'hogs.

John

Edited April 16, 2023 by JohnD

[zetecspit]

2 hours ago, JohnD said:

Zetec, all,

Yes, rat poison if you need it, but please, don't just leave it out where rodents will find it.   Use it in those plastic boxes that have rat sized entrances:

Holy 6 year thread throwback!

John, could I ask that you call me Clive?  it seems more cordial, especially as it is in my sig. 

I have used baitboxes elsewhere on the ground. And I have never left rat poison in an area accessable to hedgehogs. Mostly nailed to something only a sqrat poison uirrel can access without a ladder, or my favorite was a shed roof, with 3 bricks forming a tunnel. The squirrels did tend to take all/part of it and chomp away on it elsewhere.

One of our rentals had a rat issue a year or so ago. They reported mice had got into the laundry room (yes, students do laundry!)

I poppped over, to find a slightly worried student explaining that a mouse had dragged a towel off a drying rack and tried to pull it under a skirting board. The towel was the biggest, thickest bath towel I have ever seen, and I decided it wasn't a mouse that had done the deed, but didn't mention my suspicions. 

I placed rat poison beg=hgind teh washing maching and tumble drier, and placed some small sachets of a corn based rodentcide next to the likely areas the buggers were getting in. I revisited a week later, some had gone, and no more issues. I have left blocks of the stuff behind the appliances just in case.... I will check and refresh at changeover in August.

[thebrookster]

23 minutes ago, zetecspit said:

could I ask that you call me Clive?  it seems more cordial, especially as it is in my sig.

I would temper this with the observation that for those of us who predominately access the forum using a smartphone, we don't see the signature section Clive! It only shows when viewing the desktop version of the site.

Phil

[Nick Jones]

1 hour ago, zetecspit said:

Holy 6 year thread throwback!

Indeed. The story continues unfortunately.

Not especially fun cutting the shape, getting it to fit nicely and getting it sat back up in the right place. Dunno if it is usual to use the soffit to hold the bottom row of tiles up (no builder me) but they were here and every dropped a good inch, which had to be won back. 
More fun than scraping 3 barrow loads of moss off the roof mind. It’s not even a big roof. Half way through it struck me I should leave it on for the extra insulation but it was looking really ugly by then.

Bit of a gap left in this corner, now stuffed with wire mesh.

Poison left where only squirrels/rats will get it. IE inside spaces.

Did try a trap back along, left on the lean-to roof. Only ever caught next doors cat (released grumpy but unharmed!) - apparently he likes peanut butter more than the bloody squirrels….. Abandoned that idea.

 

[JohnD]

Thank you, Clive, and apologies for the lack of vigilance.

And thank you for your care with the poison.   I was concerned by your saying that you had seen a squirrel in a tree, "chomping on a blue block", which implied that the block and bits could be anywhere.   Hedgehogs do deserve our care - their number have fallen by 50% in the last decade!

John

[zetecspit]

8 hours ago, JohnD said:

Thank you, Clive, and apologies for the lack of vigilance.

And thank you for your care with the poison.   I was concerned by your saying that you had seen a squirrel in a tree, "chomping on a blue block", which implied that the block and bits could be anywhere.   Hedgehogs do deserve our care - their number have fallen by 50% in the last decade!

John

The tree rats would collect a block of poison, take it up the tree and eat part of it, and I presume take it back to their nest or whatever. Never saw any bits on the ground in that area. We did have some hedgehogs living under our shed at one point. I presume they lived there.

[JohnD]

I found bedding compost spread all over the floor of my outhouse from a chewed sack.    Not wanting to use poison - the hedgehogs must be hibernating, but I don't want rotting corpses hiding in the garage. or the 'crusher' type of trap, so I bought a trap that is supposed to electrocute them.     After a fortnight, it has caught nothing!

As bait, I used peanut butter, said to be irresistible, then cheddar, then best Brie, then bought a tube of rat bait paste.  Nothing!  What do you use as rat bait?

John

[Escadrille Ecosse]

3 hours ago, JohnD said:

As bait, I used peanut butter, said to be irresistible, then cheddar, then best Brie, then bought a tube of rat bait paste.  Nothing!  What do you use as rat bait?

Foie gras?

Right tricky b######ds they are

[andymcp]

Try chocolate.

[zetecspit]

Bounty bars. 

BUT rats are super intelligent, and are very suspicious of anything new. So it may be a case of set it up and leave it untouched for a week or 2.

Amusing story incoming.

One of teh udent properties I look after is a2nd and 3rd floor maisonette. Big place, 5 huge bedrooms, and the main bathroom has a door leading to a laundry room. I was asked to visit as they thought they had mice. When I arrived, I was shown the biggest, thickest bathtowel I had ever seen, chewed along one edge. But the "mice" had been trying to pull it through a gap between teh floor and wall next to the washing machine. My immediate reacion was "bloody big mouse" ie a rat. But didnt mention the R word. Instead, I left a few rodentcide block behind the units, and soon after the "scurrying" noises stopped. Roll on a few years, I was poking around under the bath locating a leak (The bath waste was broken, very odd) and spied the skeleton of a sizeable rat. Quite fascinating to see the length of the rear leg bones. I didn't mention the skeleton to the current students, they were just pleased the bath leak was fixed.

[JohnD]

Zetec, students might not mind a bathroom that was a bit niffy, but I would!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Chocolate!!

[flatter4]

Peanut butter and all the other suggestions have been found to work at ours - so long as the other easy sources have dried up (next door's rabbit food).
+1 for Zetec, they are cunning and sometimes 2 weeks needed, and use gloves as they will smell you on the cage / trap.
I use a cage trap set on a hair trigger - and check it 2 + times a day to make sure nothing is in there suffering.  Any rats are then drowned - not sure how humane any of it is, but drowning is pretty quick.
I have caught rats with a spring type (oversized mouse trap) - but only after leaving in a dark chamber (old brick piled up) for >7 days.

[flatter4]

1 minute ago, JohnD said:

Zetec, students might not mind a bathroom that was a bit niffy, but I would!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Chocolate!!

 

When a mouse dies in our loft it stinks - that rat in the bathroom must have been real special!!!!

 

[John I]

Mouse decided to go to sleep in the boiler casing.......slightly cooked smell lasted 3or 4 days after that no problem. Found the mummified body about 9 months later when serving said boiler. If rats are in a space where they have no access to water a small bowl of water in a cage trap is all that’s needed.

Need to hep Mr and Mrs Tiggywinkle when ever we can.

[John I]

7 minutes ago, John I said:

Mouse decided to go to sleep in the boiler casing.......slightly cooked smell lasted 3or 4 days after that no problem. Found the mummified body about 9 months later when serving said boiler. If rats are in a space where they have no access to water a small bowl of water in a cage trap is all that’s needed.

Need to hep Mr and Mrs Tiggywinkle when ever we can.

Bugger meant to say servicing......not serving blxxdy spell check

[Escadrille Ecosse]

55 minutes ago, John I said:

Mouse decided to go to sleep in the boiler casing.......slightly cooked smell lasted 3or 4 days after that no problem. Found the mummified body about 9 months later when serving said boiler.

Same thing happened to my parents many years ago while I was still at school. Took a while to work out where the smell was coming from