Effective rat and mouse control

The fight against rats continues to be a serious problem for civilized mankind for several millennia. The confrontation acquired a special scope in the Middle Ages, since fleas that lived on rats actively spread plague among people.

And today the problem remains relevant. With all his ability to adapt the environment to his needs and destroy almost any other animal species, a person still does not always come out victorious in the fight against rats - this is especially true of the situation in the fields and large warehouses. Fortunately, more or less noticeable success can be achieved with the destruction of rodents within individual rooms and small summer cottages.

Practice shows that many city dwellers today have little idea why it is necessary to restrain the increase in the population of rats and mice and take off. Perhaps the rodents are not so dangerous and not so harmful as to destroy them?

In fact, it is useful to bear in mind that rats are considered one of the most dangerous and harmful neighbors of humans. At a minimum, they:

1. They carry deadly infections. The most terrible plague pandemics in the history of human civilization have been associated with rats - in the Middle East, medieval Europe, and Asia, millions of people died during them. Today, rats continue to be carriers of deadly diseases, and people (mainly children) continue to die in the countries of the Third World from their neighbors. See this article for more details. What are the risks of rats and what diseases do they carry;
2. Cause man-made accidents. With their holes they weaken the dams, with powerful teeth they bite cables and wires, bite hoses and belts in industrial units and ordinary cars;
3. Destroy and spoil a huge amount of food supplies. Millions of tons of grain, thousands of tons of finished products annually go to feed the army of rodents that inhabit every major city. A huge number of finished products are simply rendered unusable due to bites and bites. An uncountable amount of yield deteriorates, not having time to get into the granaries;
4. With all this, gray rats are perfectly adapted to life next to humans, reproduce very quickly and easily adapt to changing living conditions in urban and rural environments. Moreover, over the past few centuries, these rodents began to feel much better near humans than in the wild, and therefore breed here much faster than their wild counterparts.

Thus, the effective fight against rats and mice is a matter of not only saving, but, first of all, human security. Not surprisingly, the methods of exterminating and scaring away rodents are improving at about the same speed as scientific and technological progress. Moreover, usually the most effective means and methods are first used by the industry for the destruction of pests in warehouses, sown areas, in various farms, and only then they adapt to private needs and become available to fight rats in private houses, apartments and cottages.

On a note

And what people just did not try, trying to get rid of the neighborhood with rodents. They were poisoned, caught, burned, infected with special infections, invented the most ingenious traps and traps, scared away, but so far progress is not always visible at the global level.Where rats and mice harm a particular person (even the owner of a large enterprise), they are fought very effectively, but in places that actually have no owner, rats enjoy the freedom granted to them, breed and master.

As a result, it turns out that in the basements of apartment buildings, rodents often feel much more comfortable than in the basement of a private house, which is always guarded by a caring owner. Of course, provided that the owner uses really effective methods and means when fighting rats ...

We will talk more about effective methods and means of controlling rodents in more detail ...

 

Means for the fight against rats: from the Middle Ages to the present day

One of the first ways to fight rats and mice was to attract their natural enemies. In Asia, Europe, and then in North America, cats were used for these purposes, and, it must be said, they were used quite effectively. True, only until a certain moment, until the cities became too crowded and dirty, where rats bred faster than cats could destroy them.

It is interesting

In various exotic countries, other animals were used against rats and mice - ferrets, mongooses, and even snakes. And in England, terriers were specially trained for hunting rats.

Around the same time, various traps and traps for rodents appeared. Moreover, in the 17-18 centuries in Europe there was a profession of the Pied Piper - such masters were invited by the authorities of different cities to exterminate pests. Pied Piper caught rats with the help of special snares, live traps and even bare hands. And in India, Pakistan and China, poor peasants used rattles in similar gardens to plant gardens and plantations for their own food.

But over time (as cities grew), it became clear that manually hordes of rats could not be exterminated. Even autonomously working snares did not allow fighting rodents so effectively that they completely exterminated their populations even in small farms, not to mention large ones.

Then the rats began to try to poison. This approach really turned out to be more effective on an industrial scale: labor costs for laying out or spraying rodenticides turned out to be much smaller than when fighting with traps, and gradually more and more new drugs for controlling rats and mice appeared on the market, a single treatment of which allowed sometimes destroy thousands and tens of thousands of rodents. Despite serious shortcomings and associated dangers for the person himself, this method is most often used in industry today.

But, surprisingly, it did not help to completely control the rats. They adapted to some poisons, some learned to bypass the party, and as a result they respond with ever greater fertility to the constant development of ever newer and more effective toxic agents. And if locally, at the same enterprises, in houses and apartments, it is most often successful to poison rats with the right approach, then in general, around the world they continue to capture the neighborhood of human housing and agricultural land.

New means and methods of fighting rats and mice are constantly being developed. So, for example, today ultrasonic repellents are actively used in apartments, houses and summer cottages, in some places rodents are poisoned by gases and even burned out with the help of special flamethrowers. “Smart” electronic traps appear, craftsmen make original designs, and those tools that eventually turn out to be effective are being actively used by more and more people (a vivid example is the use of a relatively recently developed electronic trap for rats, which can operate on batteries and destroy several rats automatically).

Let's see which of all these methods of struggle are considered the most effective today ...

 

Highly effective poison for rats

These funds are often optimal for mass persecution of pests, both in private homes and in large enterprises. Modern poisoned baits are inexpensive, after placing them on the territory, huge numbers of rats eat them and die quite quickly (within a few days). Thus, the maximum beneficial effect is achieved with a minimum of effort and resources.

On a note

It should be borne in mind that the use of poisoned baits, for example, in the open territory of a summer cottage or in a field, would lead to the mass destruction of a wide variety of animals, including birds. Therefore, it is important to observe the restrictions on the use of a particular drug prescribed in the instructions.

In homes and apartments, poison is used when pets cannot reach the bait. In addition, it is important to consider that cats and dogs can eat not only poison, but also a poisoned rat, and therefore even the presence of special bitterness in the composition of the preparations is not a reliable protection for pets. Moreover, it is impossible to openly use such funds in rooms with farm animals - chicken coops, pigsties, pigeons, and even more so in pig farms and zoos. The main place of their use is basements of residential buildings, industrial enterprises, they are also used on ships.

On a note

The use of special bait stations helps prevent poisoning by domestic animals. The bait station is a plastic box, inside of which the poison bait is located in the compartments. There are small openings in the box through which only rodents can climb inside.

Of the optimal for domestic use, the most effective ones contain second-generation blood anticoagulants as bromadiolone, flocumafen, and brodifacum as the active substance. Well-known drugs include, for example, Storm, Rat Death # 1 and # 2, The Nutcracker. In most cases, when used in accordance with the instructions, they allow you to get rid of rats in 7-10 days.

 

Rat catching agents

These funds are well suited specifically for domestic use, when you do not need to destroy a lot of rats (not hundreds of individuals). They are safer than poisons, although certain precautions must be taken when using them, since individual devices can injure a pet or child when triggered.

Today, the following types of traps and traps are most often used against rats:

1. Standard crushers with a cross over bracket (small size for mice, larger for rats);
2. Live-trap cells, in which the door slams when the rat pulls on the bait. They are absolutely safe and can be used in any room;
3. Electric rat traps killing animals with high voltage current;
4. Glue traps on which animals stick and cannot come off;
5. And also a variety of home-made traps, often of very original designs.

In most cases, crush traps are used that kill rats and mice. Still, people themselves do not like to kill a still living animal, and few people want to take it far from home. The trap solves both of these problems, leaving a clear conscience of the pest fighter.

Battery-operated electric rat traps are also very effective and easy to use.

In general, in a garage, private house, cottage or apartment, the use of any effective lethal trap is the best way to deal with rats.

 

Fighting rats by using their biological enemies

For hundreds of years, the relevance of human friends, while being enemies of rats, has not disappeared.Perhaps the number of pests that cats kill in all cities and villages in the world is comparable to the number of rodents that die from poison and traps. And although many cats today are spilled out in comfortable sofa-bed conditions, those hard-working rat-traps who have not yet slept with the call of their ancestors and who receive feeding from the owners only three times a week, successfully support the image of the best helpers of people in the fight against rodents.

Practice shows that many cats and some dogs very effectively catch rats and mice just for fun. After that, they do not eat them, but bring them to the owners for praise. It is these smaller brothers of ours that should be kept to fight rodents in private homes and sheds. And in the case of a garden plot, a garden, a pigsty (less often - a chicken coop) to get a cat-rat trap is the most effective and safe way to fight rats.

 

Should I count on rat ultrasound repellers?

But the now popular ultrasonic rodent repellents are often not as effective as many would like to consider.

Rats are smart enough and quickly understand which indoor noises are signs of danger and which are not a threat to them. Powerful high-quality devices (for example, Chiston-2, Chiston-2 Pro, Biostrazh, Tornado-800 and some others) give a certain effect, but even they often give a “misfire”. And the simpler and cheaper Chinese "tweeters" in most of their rats are not scared at all.

The photo below shows an ultrasonic rodent repeller Chiston 2 Pro:

Another problem is connected with the same: powerful devices are expensive. The price of the same Chistons is about 2000-3000 rubles, and the TM-315 repeller costs about 10 000 rubles. And when the buyer chooses between them and a trap-crush worth 100 rubles, he usually decides to buy a less expensive and more traditional tool.

 

Professional disinfestation, its pros and cons

One of the most effective options for combating rats and mice can be called the challenge of specialists - the service is called deratization, in Moscow and other major cities it is carried out by many private companies (do not confuse them with SES).

If you call really good specialists, they themselves will examine the territory, select the optimal set of methods and means of exterminating rats (or mice), which will allow to safely and quickly remove all pests.

The main difficulty in interacting with private services is to find the one in which highly qualified specialists really work. The fact is that many offices only imitate professionalism, but in reality they are one-day firms that work, to say the least, of poor quality. Therefore, it makes sense to apply only to services that have long been on the market, have many positive reviews, work strictly under the contract and give an official guarantee of the result.

On a note

Interaction with SES is possible when it is necessary to bring rats in the building of a municipal institution - a school, kindergarten, clinic - or from the basement of an apartment building served by a housing office. At the same time, it is useless to contact the SES in order to fight rats in a store, private or country house by the forces of this service. Here rats are the problem of the owner of the premises.

 

An integrated approach in the fight against rats

What do we get as a result?

1. In a private house, apartment or cottage, it is most rational to use rat trap-crushers or electric traps. If children or pets do not live in the room, then crush can be used openly, otherwise it is advisable to use live traps (they are completely safe) or traps installed in bait stations;
2. In addition, in a summer cottage, garden, in a barn, a chicken coop or a pigsty, a good cat-trap will help get rid of rats.Using other means of control in some cases can be dangerous due to the fact that they can injure other animals, including domestic animals or simply useful for the site;
3. In the basements of apartment buildings, in industrial enterprises, it is rational to use rat poison (rodenticides with second-generation blood anticoagulants - for example, bromadiolone, flocumafen or brodifacum);
4. Where there is an opportunity to experiment, there is no urgency and there are financial resources, you can try to scare away rodents with ultrasonic repellers, bypassing the cheapest devices.

Finally, the above tools can be combined, or replaced one with another in case of inefficiency of any option. In this case, first of all, the safety of using the product is taken into account and only then - its effectiveness, price, ease of use and speed of work.

You should also take measures that impede rodents from entering the room. To do this, find all the passages through which they can climb here, including cracks near the pipes, holes under the foundation, holes in the walls, and close them up.

 

If you have personal experience in fighting rats or mice - be sure to share the information by leaving your review at the bottom of this page (in the comments box).

 

Interesting video: super-rat trap, set and forget

 

And this is how an electric rat trap works