The presence of rats is a problem in many private homes, since rodents are able to move almost freely from the yard or garden into the premises through numerous slots and technological holes in the walls (and often bite their own passages).
Meanwhile, it is necessary to fight rats in the house immediately after their discovery, without reconciling with such a neighborhood and without taking it for granted. The fact is that these rodents do not just harm the household, spoiling food, gnawing wiring and leaving their sewage in the most unexpected places. In addition, they are literally dangerous to humans: they carry pathogens of deadly diseases (including typhoid), they bring fleas into the premises, and there are also many cases when these animals attacked people (often even sleeping children become victims of bites )
In practice, it usually happens that an episodic struggle with rats in a private house seems to be ongoing, but not in a hurry and without much hope of success. Many people for weeks and months unsuccessfully spread the poison, carry an ultrasonic repeller or an unfortunate mousetrap with an ineffective bait in different rooms, and the rats and mice still exist. At the same time, rodents do not pay attention to all these efforts, live nearby, breed and are not going to leave anywhere.
Let's try to figure out why this is happening and, most importantly, how to quickly and effectively get rid of these unwanted guests once and for all ...
We use effective poisons to fight rats
Poisons (more precisely, poisoned baits) are suitable for fighting rats in most cases. If not in the whole house, then at least in rooms where children and pets do not enter. Their only and truly significant drawback is the danger to pets and small children. Moreover, the risk lies not only in the fact that pets or children can be poisoned by the poison itself, but also in the fact that a cat or dog can find a poisoned rat and eat it.
The optimal poisoning for controlling rats, suitable for use at home, is based on flocumafen (this is the most effective second-generation blood anticoagulant to date) Of the available and inexpensive preparations based on it, for example, the Storm preparation is on sale: to fight one rat two or three briquettes are quite enough. If there are more rodents in the house, then you can buy several packages of the product. With it, rats in a private house can be lime in 7-10 days.
On a note
On average, pests die in a period of 4 to 6 days. This is quite enough not to cause suspicion among more cautious individuals, as a result of which in most cases it is possible to destroy the entire population of rats in the house.
Other drugs based on second-generation blood anticoagulants are also approximately effective: Rat Death No. 1 and No. 2, Ratol, The Nutcracker, Efa, Zookumarin Neo and others. Fighting rats with them can be several days longer than when used It’s a storm, but for domestic use there are no significant differences between these rat poisons.
On a note
The listed drugs are the very small bags that are often sold in bazaars from trays. They are really effective, despite their modest appearance.
Poisons with blood anticoagulants of the first generation are somewhat less effective - for example, Zookumarin, Ratindan, Rakumin. These funds work more slowly, and their main feature is that for poisoning the rat usually needs to eat the bait at least twice (if you don’t put in new portions of the product on time, you can’t achieve the effect at all).
In general, when using poisoned baits, it is important to adhere to the following rule: once every few days, the product must be checked, and if it is eaten, then new portions should immediately be put in its place. This should be done until the remedy ceases to disappear - this will mean that there are no rats left in the house.
An important nuance of using poison baits: when working with them, you must either wear rubber gloves, or remove them from the packaging and lay them out with tweezers. The fact is that soft briquettes easily absorb the smell of human hands, and rats, sensing it, can suspect something is wrong and bypass the bait. The same applies to rats like Rat Death, in which briquettes are packed in filter bags. These packages do not need to be opened - the animals themselves gnaw through the shell and enjoy the contents.
On a note
Some rodenticidal products contain, in addition to poison, also bitterness (for example, the drug The Nutcracker). Rats do not pay attention to this bitterness, but a child cannot swallow such a remedy. Pets, too, will not be able to eat such a remedy, but they can find and eat a poisoned rat. Therefore, poisoned baits are recommended to be used only where there are no pets.
Another way to prevent children and animals from finding poison is to place it in a bait box with a narrow entrance into which only a rat can climb. It can even be done with your own hands, for example, from a cardboard box by cutting a hole on the side. But, again, this design prevents eating only the bait, but not the poisoned rodent.
What are the best ways to deal with rats in the house where the cat or dog lives? Rat traps can come to the rescue ...
Destroy rats with rat traps
In general, rat traps can also present some danger to pets and children. For example, in an ordinary crush (usually called a mousetrap), the spring is so powerful that it can break a cat’s paw or child’s finger with a staple. In any case, the bruise from falling into such a trap will be very strong. However, this problem is solved by using the bait box - the rat trap is installed in it, the box closes, and no one except the rats can touch the trap.
And in those places where neither the children, nor the cat and dog can find a rat trap, it can be installed openly.
Most often, at home, for rats, the most simple rat trap-crush variants are used. They are easy to use, inexpensive (cost about 100 rubles) and very durable: with one trap, it happens that several generations of house owners catch rats.
A more modern analogue of the crush is the SuperCat rodent trap, which works on the same principle, but is more expensive.
In addition, in recent years, battery-powered electric rattraps have become more and more popular - efficient, safe and automatically not only killing rats, but also folding them into a separate compartment (for the most expensive models) and informing the owner about catching the pest.
On a note
There are also glue traps on sale and just glue for rodents, which can be applied to a piece of cardboard and get a homemade glue trap. The disadvantages of this method: if a pet gets into the glue, then it will have to be trimmed, and in some cases the clothes of the “caught” child will only have to be thrown out. In addition, there is an opinion that the glue rat traps are completely inhumane: the animal in them suffers for a long time until it dies of thirst.
Rat traps are installed where rats are most often. The right choice of an effective bait is also very important, otherwise the animals will bypass the device.
As a bait are well suited:
- Food for cats or dogs;
- Smoked sausage;
- Smoked fish;
- Fat fried on a match from one end;
- A crust of bread moistened with vegetable oil.
At the same time, cheese and fruit for rats are not as attractive as meat products.
We catch rats alive
You can catch a rat with a trap that does no harm to the animal.There are many designs of such rat traps, and perhaps the most common of them is a cage with a door that slams when an animal tries to pull off the bait.
Such devices (live traps) do not pose any danger to humans and animals, and their main disadvantages are the bulkiness and the need to do something with the rat after capture. This need does not arise during the operation of the trap - he himself kills the rodent, the corpse of which is enough just to throw out with the garbage.
The living rodent will either have to be killed on its own, or taken to a large distance from the house (at least a kilometer) and released. Alternatively, prey can be given to a cat, but many modern cats themselves are panicky afraid of rats.
Live traps are installed in the same places as the traps, charged with the same baits.
It should be noted that catching rats with live traps does not imply a mandatory purchase of an industrial production device. It is possible to deal with pests in a private house with the help of improvised means, and often this method is even simpler and more effective.
Simple but highly effective homemade rat traps: design description
There are many design options for rat traps that you can assemble yourself from improvised materials. With the search for such materials in a private house, usually there are no problems.
The following are examples of original designs.
A bucket with a rotating plastic bottle (or aluminum can) above it. The bait is smeared on the bottle, the rat reaches for it, the bottle scrolls, and the animal falls down. It is useful to pour water into a bucket before use so that the caught animals can not jump back. The photo shows an example of such a device:
Next, the video shows another unusual way to fight rats in the house using a makeshift rat trap:
It is more difficult and troublesome to make such a rat trap than to buy a ready-made one, however, when it is important to quickly take measures to catch a pest, then a self-made device can be a good solution to the problem.
Do not forget about the traditional methods of struggle!
Practice shows that with a relatively small number of rats in the house, a good cat-trap will fight them more effectively than any traps and traps.
The only problem is that most domestic cats are lazy and, alas, cowardly. They don’t want to watch the rodent for hours, and many even panic fear the food objects of their ancestors.
Nevertheless, it also happens that a cat actively catches all mice and rats in the area, but lives in the yard, but is not allowed into the house. In this case, in order to defeat rodents in the house, it is enough just to allow the fearless yard hunter to enter the house, the basement, the garage and the attic for some time. Even the smell of a cat is often already a deterrent for rodents.
On a note
If it is known that only one or two rats are wound up at home, then you can also take a cat or cat from a neighbor for a while, if the pet has rat-rat abilities. As a rule, in two days in the basement without food, rat-rats destroy pests faster and more reliably than any poison and traps.
Also, rat terriers and yagd terriers are actively catching rats, and domestic ferrets are frantically hunting them. However, getting such hunters can be much more difficult than borrowing a cat living in a neighboring house.
Or maybe scare off the rodents?
But to fight rats with the help of repelling agents is often not as effective as described in the advertising of various rodent repellers. The fact is that even rats can quickly get used to even the most effective deterrents and devices.
Popular folk remedies are especially ineffective:
- Black beans;
- Elder;
- Ash;
- Broken glass;
- Singed fur;
- Burned plastic ...
In most cases, they do not scare away rodents at all. In some cases, animals can be wary if kerosene or vinegar is poured in their moves, but in such conditions people cannot live in the room (and kerosene is also fire hazard).
A little better, but still imperfect, the situation is with ultrasonic rodent repellers. The most efficient appliances are quite expensive. For example, it was experimentally verified that the following ultrasound devices scare away rats:
- Biostrage (price about 4500 rubles);
- Chiston-2 missile defense (about 3000 rubles);
- Chiston-2 (2500 rubles);
- TM-315 (more than 10,000 rubles) ...
But rats sometimes get used to them. Devices with a price of up to 1000 rubles, as a rule, are completely ineffective and do not allow you to fight rats in a private house.
On a note
So-called “electromagnetic” and “magnetic resonance” repellers are completely useless for fighting rats. Their principle of action is not practically confirmed and is not even strictly theoretically substantiated. Simply put, these are ordinary dummies that can please, perhaps, with multi-colored LEDs.
Small Chinese repellers, which are positioned as super universal, are also ineffective: repelling rats, mosquitoes, bugs, and cockroaches. All these creatures react completely differently to sounds (and some do not respond to them at all), and therefore the most “universal” device in practice will be the most useless.
It is important to keep in mind that powerful ultrasonic rodent repellers are harmful to cats and dogs - these pets hear well in the ultrasound range (above 20,000 Hz). If the house contains home decorative rats, hamsters or mice, then they will also react sharply to the signals of the repeller - they can stop eating and even die from stress.
Where can I contact and complain if rats are wound up in the house
Finally, you can fight rats with a private house with the help of professional disinfestants. This is not cheap (depending on the area of the house, the number of rooms and the distance from the city, such a service can cost from 3000 rubles), but it completely saves the owner of the house from any worries.
The main difficulty here is to choose a bona fide contractor who will fulfill his obligations efficiently and really destroy the rats in the house. To do this, contact companies that:
- Long in the market;
- Have a large number of positive reviews;
- They work strictly according to the contract, sign and stamp on the contract itself;
- They provide a guarantee for their services and indicate it in the contract.
But it does not make sense to appeal to the state SES or other municipal services: a private house is the jurisdiction of its owner only, and it is the owner who ensures his protection from rats and solves all the problems associated with the appearance of rodents here. Therefore, the best place to go for help is private disinfestation and pest control services.
Reliable protection against rats
The fight against rats will not be completed if you do not understand how these animals get into the house and do not block the path of penetration.
Most often, rodents enter the house in the following ways:
- They make their way through the cracks in the walls, as well as through the cracks between the sewer and ventilation pipes and the walls of the house;
- Through open doors and windows;
- Through a ventilated or decorative facade. Here they rise between the facade and the wall to the attic, climb into the insulation;
- They are climbed under the foundation under the foundation if there is an earthen floor in the basement or basement (such undermines can make moles, and rats and mice will use them later).
It is important to understand that a private house attracts rats with a warm microclimate and an abundance of food. These animals cannot live all year round on the street, the main place of their dwelling and breeding is precisely human housing, and therefore they always strive to settle in a house, basement or in technical buildings.Therefore, if the rats have the opportunity to appear in the house, then they appear here simply because they will not survive elsewhere.
It is not difficult to understand that a rat lives in the house: it leaves its litter wherever it happens, gnaws food packages, spoils food supplies (almost any of them), litter at night.
After breeding rodents, it is important to monitor the condition of the house for a week or two, and if the signs of the appearance of rats have disappeared, then we can say that the fight ended successfully. Then you need:
- Check all possible places where rats got into the basement, close all the cracks and passages (if the floor is earthen, it is useful to lay a metal mesh on the floor);
- Close up all the gaps between the pipes and walls;
- Check if rodents can enter the attic along the facade. This way of their penetration into the house is most difficult to block; here you need to either close holes in the facade or block the places of penetration from the roof to the attic;
- Allow the cat to enter the house, or for prophylaxis, let it in for “inspection” once a week or two.
If these measures are not taken, then the fight against rats can turn into an endless epic - they will arrive regularly from neighboring yards and neighboring houses.
Interesting video: an example of the work of the original home-made rat trap
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