Desperate!

This isn't a plant question, so hope it's ok to ask?
We have a rat that has set up house inside the insulation of our hot tub!!:(
We have tried everything, even a exterminator and it,they are still there.
I'm not getting in hot tub till dang thing is gone! Haven't found it doing backstroke in water yet, but still. :)
Any remedies are greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Kathy

Make sure you plug the hole. Use the bait boxes with the bait fixed inside. Rats are hoarders and will simply carry off the bait if it is not locked in. You want them to eat it, not hoard it. Look for food sources nearby and move them: Garbage can, bird feeder, compost pile, pet food dish. They usually set up house near their food source.

So you remove the free food. You give them the bait box. You plug their holes with hardware cloth. They either die or move on to better pastures.

They are everywhere in the underbrush. They especially love ivy groundcover.

If you have a little terrier dog, you can keep him outside for long periods of time and he will kill them if he can catch them.

Best of luck.

One thing you might try. Peppermint oil, the real essence. It does not smell badly and rodents hate it. If you put it all around where you can get access to the insulation, he should move out. It worked for me in my attic and smells nice as well!
Rebecca

I have 2 thoughts but not sure if they work. There is a plug-in sound thing that keeps rodents away. The sound is high, I think and it's a simple plug-in. The other thought is a bag or box of moth-balls so the smell wafts up into their nest. I'm not sure how successful this will be but I know the plug-in works for squirrels within a small area.

We are having a rat issue right now too. I won't go into details, very complicated, but you want to be sure the rat can't eat thru any tubing in your hot tub. Once they eat the bait, they become dehydrated and will do anything to get to water.

We are now putting out traps. Well, the pest company is. They come once a week and check them. We have them under the house so we need to make it rat proof down there, which we are doing, and then trap any rats that might still be there.

When we moved here, a rural area, I learned that you can't put out birdseed in feeders. The seed attracts rats. So if you have birdseed in you yard, get rid of it. Grow things for the birds to eat instead of putting out seed.

Gwen

Ratzapper, Doxiesmom! I highly recommend them. One quick little trip over the plate electrified by 4 D cell batteries and your rat will be gone, quickly and pretty humanely. I would not want a rat to die inside my hottub insulation- very hard to remove. The Ratzapper takes some time to allow the cunning little rodents to get used to it ( you set it out like an innocuous little mail box with delicious peanutbutter or other bait inside to tempt them in without the power being hooked up.... later, when they're used to the free snack, the power goes on....)

You can find it and testamonials at Ratzapper.com

We have rats living in a huge cedar stump whose insides must be much like a rodent condo by now. Chipmunks and squirrels also check in and out of there daily. We are all done with treacherous traps and poisons: the ratzapper is now our constant companion unless it's pouring rain.

All good advice above on minimizing the food sources available. They are smart little monsters with a ferocious will to live. Good luck on your battle- it is worth fighting just to get your hot tub back!

Thank you all for the replys.
Did not know they lived in ivy, now I know why my dacshund hunts around in there. I even bought her sunglasses to protect her eyes as I can't keep her out of there.
I quess my feeding birds sunflower seeds is over. I'll find something else for them.
We did use peppermint oil, but didn't work. I'll try the mothballs and see what happens. Just hope it doesn't end up smelling mothbally forever.
We have tried every trap we can find, sticky ones(caught a bird :( ) and the live, the snap. They are very smart.
Exterminator came and set trap thing, but didn't help.

I'll look up ratzapper and order it. I'll try any thing. We even tried neighbors cat but found out he doesn't mouse. He's kinda like Fernidad the bull who smells flowers. lol
Take care all,
Kathy

When we moved into our house 5 years ago, ivy was everywhere- overgrowing everything. And the rats were plentiful. I would see them running along the top of the fence. Clearing the ivy made them move to 'greener' pastures, and having two rat hunting cats did the rest. Also, our dogs will sniff them out. We haven't had any problems with them since then, even with bird feeders. (but we do have our feeders on a pole with a squirrel barrier which likely would keep a rat off, too. Good luck. They are smart creatures, but no thanks!

Pixy, the rats that were drawn to our feeder were actually after the stuff that falls on the ground, not seed in the actual feeder itself.

We've had the traps out for a few weeks now. When the pest guy was here 2 weeks ago, he found one more rat. He's due back tomorrow so we'll see if he finds anymore. Hopefully not. So disgusting...

Gwen

Our rats were real gymnastic types and climbed the farm light pole, out the wisteria branches or the bracing arm that led to the feeder and just clung to it for hours on end munching happily. They have been up in my rail rider planters on the deck railing too. Hateful little rodents.

Gwendalou are you freshening up the bait in the two week old traps? Might not be too appealing by now.

Hateful, but extremely smart animals. Yes, they are certainly acrobats. I'm pretty sure it was the ivy removal and the cats/dogs that drove ours away. Hope you are getting a handle on them Gwen.

Great thread.

I am seriously considering getting rid of (or maybe just not refilling) our birdfeeders, unfortunately. I know I will miss watching the finches and other birds. I feel kind of bad to have to do it, as the birds have been using our yard as a regular feed source for years. But, we have a rat problem also. I have tried everything. And I mean, everything! - except remove this food source. So time to do it?

One thing that works GREAT are the wooden snap traps, but I've come so close to breaking my fingers in a few cases that I'm giving those up.

We also have two terriers, they get some of them, but I get tired of picking up the carnage too. :-p

I am liking this rat zapper, I am going to try one.

Good Sue. I was hesitating to type RATZAPPER again, like a broken record. They really do work, you just have to be patient in acclimating the varmints to its presence. They do recommend that you remove all other food sources while initiating the zapper use- hungrier customers, more tempted to a food source, you know.

Bear in mind that a Ratzapper is only as good as its owner: I just returned from getting my car fan and air intake box cleaned up from two mouse nests messing things up in there LOL! I was nearly alarmed when I heard a funny crinkling in my plastic lunch bag on the car floor a couple weeks ago "Perhaps something shifting in the bag" was my thought. But no, it was apparently Mickey or his friend Minnie doing recon for my sandwich! Time to fire up the RZ in the garage again. Or feed the cats less.....

Good luck. I'd hate to lose our birds too. The finches just got here in the past week or so. So nice to see someone with color other than a Stellar Jay.

I wonder if the ratzapper works on voles. I have a burgeoning population feasting off the old pumpkins in the compost pile. They are larger than mice, but smaller than rats. What do you bait a ratzapper with?
Poochella, I just saw a picture of your sweet and furry pooch. Looks a little bit like mine, though yours appears to have much better groomed fur.

I use peanut butter ( crunchy LOL) in the Rat Zapper or when we formerly used spring traps. Works well.
You can use dog food too, but keep your dogs/cats/kittens and puppies away if you do.

I would adore you furry dog! I have neighbor dog Sophie on my member page, but you might have seen mine which is below- Yet another furry beast who can't catch vermin!

Sue, if you get rid of the bird feeders, you'll probably still get birds. We have tons of birds in our yard, probably cuz we have a lot of plants they like or something. And you can still put up bird *houses*.

The rat guy uses peanut butter in the traps and checks them every two weeks, put in new PB. His last visit, he didn't find any rats. Yeah. We got the crawl space rat proofed so they can't get in anymore and now can get the heating fixed and have heat just in time for warm weather!

Gwen