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Joined: January 1970
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2020 23:20:32 GMT -5
CAESG: Rats need control measures. Especially if they are near or under your home. Get some ordinary drain pipe---any kind of gutter down pipe, four inch corrugated drain pipe or even wooden "tunnels". Cut to three-foot lengths and lay them beside walls where rats run. Place the rat bait in the center, wire it in place if you can. The rats will enter the "tunnels" and eat the bait but no pets can enter. In about a month you will be rat-free if you keep the tunnels baited. I once used the corrugated drain pipe as it could be bent into a "U" and the bait dropped into the center. Now the rat bait is in big chunks and I had to wire it into the center of my tunnels last rat-fight I had.
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caesg
Pro Member
Posts: 152
Zone:: 5b
Favorite Vegetable:: Butternut Squash
Joined: April 2018
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Post by caesg on Feb 24, 2020 9:19:08 GMT -5
@oxankle2, I'm not sure that I understand. Is there a trapping mechanism of some sort?
Latest rat update:
+ I closed up all the tunnel entrances/exits along the perimeter of the house on Saturday. Sunday, Monday, none have been dug out/opened up. It got up to 50F yesterday and hovered around freezing the two nights since I covered up the holes for monitoring purposes. + The font yard is currently all gravel with the side and back yards just dirt and weeds. I'm moving the gravel to create an 18" gravel perimeter around the entire house. I'll have to move it all back when we move out. But, if it helps convince the rats that various nearby hovels are more appealing than mine: awesome.
A reminder that I rent.
+ The landlord attempted to build a new unit 2 feet away from the unit I live in. When the city attached a "Stop Work Immediately!" order, instead of getting a permit he just... filled it with clutter and now uses it as a giant storage unit/small barn I guess.
+ Virginia Creeper covers the storage unit/barn. I could cut down the Virginia Creeper. I *did* cut down the Siberian Elm and will continue to keep that down to a stump. I'm leaving the Creeper for now, figuring that if I keep my postage stamp tidy then maybe they'll stick to the postage stamp two feet away.
+ I feel like this exposed OSB barn cluttered with all sorts of junk inside is going to be an appealing Norwegian Rat habitat no matter what I do to maintain the narrow strips of land surrounding it. I can't do anything about the inside.
+ I've considered installing an owl box but I don't know if that would do anything without neighbors installing boxes, too.
+ It's impossible, in my neighborhood, to *not* coexist with Norwegian Rats. We live along a sewer line that attracts rats to my neighborhood. I live in a low rent district in a city with an insufficient tax base to address this.
+ This is ultimately the landlord's problem and as long as they don't penetrate *inside* the house I'm not going to make a fuss. They already know that the unit has historically hosted mouse and rat infestations.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Feb 24, 2020 17:00:49 GMT -5
Ugh, caesg. I am surprised that the city hasn't made the landlord tear down the illegally constructed barn/storage unit entirely. Maybe they will? Until/unless they do, you are definitely going to have an ongoing rat problem to manage, since that a partly constructed, junk-filled building is very attractive to mice and rats - there is plenty of shelter from the weather and hiding places from predators in there.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 28, 2020 13:45:49 GMT -5
Found out this week that a lady at one of our feed stores collects and sells cattle feed tubs. The kind the farmers feed protein in, about the size of a big wash tub but deeper. I will buy some of those and place them close enough to a water hydrant that a short hose will suffice. Instant raised beds. I'd give a lot to find a horse boarding stable.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Feb 28, 2020 17:45:51 GMT -5
Nice! Those should be perfect for instant raised beds. Do be sure to drill some holes for drainage before you fill them, though.
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