We have been providing a lovely home to a number of rats - compost to feed off and the ceiling cavity to live in.
A few weeks ago I hit the wall and put out rat bait. All eaten in a matter of minutes.
Now we have a horrible low-grade aroma of decaying rat that it seems I only I can smell AND the house is full of big dozy blow flies.

I wish I set rat traps.instead - grrr.
Emptying out fresh dead rats from traps would be better than smelling the decaying ones!

The smell of decaying rats in the ceiling is the absolute pits Helen - I know exactly what it's like, it nearly makes me retch. When it happens I hope like h*ll no-one comes visiting!
Regards,
Dawn.

I've heard that rat traps are generally more difficult though - this explains it [www.kiwicare.co.nz]

What annoys me is that companies that sell rat bait all claim that rats go "away" to die. In my experience and from others I have heard of lately, the rats are more likely to die within the walls/ceilings of houses.
I don't think I can do the bait thing again. It doesn't rest easy with me on an animal welfare issue and the smell/flies are just awful.

Yes, the poison is supposed to make them want to seek water, but I agree that doesn't always work.
D.

At risk of sounding like the worst house in town - which my children think it is - we also now have a plague of ants and more than a few fleas.
The wet must have driven the ants indoors and the dog must be behind on his flea pill.
The pantry is now speckled with lids of ant poison - I don't think there is an alternative is there? Milo will have the much dreaded pill pushed down his throat this afternoon.
Aargh.

We've had ants appear out of nowhere this week too. I have the tray of ant poison sitting in the middle of the bench.. looks lovely. At least the stuff tends to work quite quickly though.

I hope you manage to expel all the invaders!

Ants have disappeared with the help of ant poison and we now seem to have a solution to decaying rat odour.
There is a product of granules designed specifically to remove this type of odour.
Rodent Odour Removal
I have just ordered 2 bags from Fly busters so look forward to living in an odour free house.

Helen, if you've got a flea infestation you probably need to bomb your house, there may be eggs that will hatch, pilling the dog won't treat that. I tend to bomb the house once a year, and this also seems to keep the ants away. No rats here (touch wood), but we've had a bit of a mouse infestation, all sorted with some traps.

my house has become infected with rats i can't seem to get rid of them, we bought some sort of electric thing that was meant to help up get rid of them but it seems to to be working. i need some advice please. my house is stinking up and i can practically breath in their waste.

helen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ants have disappeared with the help of ant poison
> and we now seem to have a solution to decaying rat
> odour.
> There is a product of granules designed
> specifically to remove this type of odour.
> [url=http://www.flybusters.co.nz/shop/DIY-Pest-Con
> trol-Services/DIY_RatsMice/ODOUR+REMOVER+BAG.html]
> Rodent Odour Removal[/url]
> I have just ordered 2 bags from Fly busters so
> look forward to living in an odour free house.


Helen, I'm just wondering if your odour remover bags worked.

Months ago a rat family decide to set up home here, first time it has ever happened. It was only when we discovered that one of them had a liking for bananas in the fruit bowl that we knew they were here. I think we tried just about every commercial "remedy" available. At one stage the entire box of tasty treats we put out had disappeared, later we found it had been dragged into the next room. Eventually, we resorted to rat traps, lucky, or not, over several nights that sorted the problem. With no smell left behind.
Just an afterthough,t I have heard that both rats and mice are very attracted to coffee grinds, a lot of us throw them into our compost bins. Apparently, it's the oil in them.

Hi Marnie, I am pretty sure the odour bag works. Someone was here the other day and commented that with a dog in the house there was no odour.
Regarding the dead rat smell, I think that the odour was going as I put the bag up but I will certainly not use poison again. Traps it is.
I noticed a tunnel in the compost bin so may have to get some traps set before we have another population explosion.

Thanks Helen.
After our last rat invasion and managing to get rid of them we bought one of those pest gadgets that plug into an electric socket, they supposedly deter rats, mice, cockroaches and other unwelcome visitors. We thought we had it sussed but a week or so ago a partly eaten banana in the fruit bowl brought us down to earth again.
The trap was set again and we caught one, we hope he was a loner but have had no sign of any other since.
Come to think of it we haven't seen any cockroaches (fingers crossed) in a while and no religious canvassers have been around, either.

I found that two large German Shepherd male dogs were good deterrent for the last,Marnie!

Griz, I'll see if I can borrow a couple of German Shepherds.