THERE'S A RAT IN MY KITCHEN

Dude, I have had fucking snails in my kitchen and I can't get rid of'em. A rat seems much more manageable: just put some rat poison. Snails? I have pt a ton of poison in my kitchen but they keep coming. ARGH

If you put down something like the empty skin of a half a grapefruit, all the snails should congregate under it, then you can relocate them. But what you really need to do is fill the gaps to stop them coming in to start with.

With the rat, I would just leave out some red red wine or something.

To quote the Blues, "Get yourself a mountain cat."

Get a "have a heart trap" and use some peanuts to lure the rat inside. Once it's in there, record its sounds of protest and make a record out of it. Then take your feral rat to a rich suburb and set it free. That's what I did.

Ask him to cook you a nice meal that will bring back fond memories of childhood. And then open a succesful restaurant or something.

I must tell you the story about the rat in our kitchen in 1991. We named him Edwin. We tried to catch him! The cat let us down - we had him cornered but she baulked when he rushed out and turned out to be as big as a small kitten. He ran behind the skirting boards. He found a place we couldn't get him. It turned out to be a place from which he couldn't escape. Oh, Edwin. We left out poisoned food, we left out poisoned water... to no avail. He died three days later. We rang the real estate. They said they';d send someone. One week later, and he was starting to smell. Two weeks later and the kitchen smelled like a decaying wet sock filled with faeces. Three weels later and it was in our clothes, and we couldn't enter the kitchen without vomiting. At last, a carpenter came and removed the cupboards, and found and removed Edwin.

GYah!

yuk

We have rats in our kitchen and bathroom, in the winter, and probably everywhere else in the house technically speaking but you only ever see them in the kitchen-to-bathroom circuit. We put out traps and poison but only ever killed one of the little bastards. Otherwise I just call them all Ratso Rizzo and stop my feet in the AM to clear them out.

How big are these rats we're talking about? I freaked out over a couple mice last year. I think I'd lose it if we had an actual rat.

New York rats tend to be the size of dachshund.

dude's totally trying to steal my thunder.

x-post I know! That's why I'm so horrified. *shudders*

I haven't seen or heard anything since saturday, but I'm pretty sure those droppings this morning were fresh.

I really don't want to deal with this, but apparently the guy upstairs and one door down saw one on his kitchen counter, so at least that horror has been spared me so far.

How well do those rat-repellent sirens work? Anybody have luck with 'em?

I'm taking the mickey out of GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ thread title, because it reminds me of the UB40 song, I don't really have a rat. Last time I had rats was in an old place where I was living, they were living underneath a neighbours' patio and getting into our place through a broken airbrick and underneath the floorboards. Luckily another neighbour had a couple of terriers.

(xpost) another time, in a different house, we bought an ultrasonic siren to keep animals out of the garden, including rats, but it attracted bats...
^^^ 2X THREAD LINK COMBO YAY!!!

I have considered biological pest control: I got a couple of friends whose cats are stone-cold, dead-eyed hardcore mouse killers. They don't want to risk the whole fleas/plague/kitty HIV thing so they won't loan 'em to me. Can't say as I blame 'em. All the dogs I know around here would probably just let the rat kick their ass.

We had a few mice in our kitchen last year. They were quickly dispatched by the cats, in a dazzling display of teamwork and agility. Then the squirrel came...

...and because you were not a squirrel, you said nothing.

I cannot keep cats in my house, so HOW can one get rid of a house-wide mouse infestation? It would be nice for no other reason than to get my dog to stop barking at them all night long. Mouse traps are doing very little, it seems.

Also my landlady has never had a mouse problem in her house and seems to think we've done something specifically intended to attract them, like sending out engraved invitations. Lord knows. They just showed up. I think that's how they work – just showing up. My family had mouse problems, too, when I was a kid (our house did, anyway). They were tidy – mice just seem to eat anything. In our storage room, I discovered mice gnaw-marks on Ivory soap and oil paint tubes, giving me the curious image of mice walking around blowing colored bubbles.

If you live near a recently torn-down structure, that's where the mice came from. It could be a garage or a shack or something. I had maybe 2 mice in 9 years of living at my current place, and suddenly one winter after a nearby shack got torn down I had to fucking kill at least 7-8 of those motherfuckers in the space of three weeks.

How about if I live in a neighborhood that has been decaying for over 100 years and has the world's most heartbreaking little cemetery, and also everything has rotted? (My house is quite nice tho.)

Synchronistically, I just read this story. The YouTube links are well worth it.
http://www.laweekly.com/news/features/palisades-rathouse-unchallenged-by-health-officials-elderly-twins-fed-local-vermin-population/19342/?page=all

Uh... Oh...

First wasps in my office, now a rat in my kitchen. Thought I saw it last night, but decided not to tell the missus until I was sure. Then she saw it today. It ran into a little cove between the fridge and the wall. I'm afraid to go poking in there in case it jumps me.

Shitty....