Preventing Rats
21 June 2024
Dealing With Common Pests in The Home
Mice
Droppings are black and the size of rice grains. Mice are incontinent, they get absolutely everywhere and do not sit still for long. The good news is they can be tracked by the trail or presence of their droppings. A good place to start is to try to locate & remove their food source. Then disrupt the environment where they are living.
Spring traps are the safest way to kill mice. Bait spring traps with whatever they are eating or small amounts of melted chocolate works a treat. Remember to keep checking and resetting the traps.
Rats
Droppings are black and the size of pointy beans. Unlike mice rats are not incontinent and not so invasive, however rats are extremely neophobic; they hate any type of change to their environment. Moving stuff around and having a tidy up can be enough to send them on their way; rats absolutely hate tidy environments.
Rats can be caught on the bigger type rat traps, this may take up to 6 weeks to take effect as positioning your new traps or bait boxes will causing their neophobia to kick in and scare them off until they become accustomed. Poison is often the quickest way but by far the most dangerous way to eradicate rats. For this reason it is strongly recommended if done by a professional to avoid any knock on effect to pets and wildlife.
If you are still seeing rats 7 days after you have tried the above please contact me for help.
Rat fact
Bird feeding should be stopped this attracts rats like nothing else. Birds do not need to be fed in the summer. If you wish to attract birds to your garden for pleasure or ornithological reasons please use hanging feeders that are positioned in the open and away from building and structures, but if you really want to discourage rodents, bird tables are a definite NO NO!
Ants
Problems can be resolved with good hygiene and cleaning. This will remove their food source and the pheromones that they lay down to enable others to follow each other around your kitchen or property. This always works. Try to follow them back to the nest and treat it directly. Boiling water has limited effect as it is warm water when it hits the nest. Ant powder must be put down as thinly and finely as possible because ants will walk around piles of it just as you would walk around a sand dune.
Use crawling Insect sprays indoors as they last; Fly Sprays do not last. Always read the label to get the best effect. Ant power is best used outside.
Cluster Flies
Cluster flies are big, slow flies which will have over wintered in your house. They are not breeding in your house and are NOT caused by hygiene issues in your house. They will only be Blue Bottles or Meat Flies whose eggs will have been laid on a carcass if a rodent has died or if some meat products have been inadvertently left lying around your house. Let the Cluster Flies escape out of open windows; they will not return until the autumn.
Most other flies can be controlled with good hygiene (as is always the case with Fruit Flies).