Rat in the ceiling!.

[Cerdic]

How about Baldrick’s recipe for ‘rat-o-van’…?

 

[keithmac]

Talking from experience, I wouldn't advise using poison, you could end up with a dead rat that will STINK!! for at least a couple of weeks. Use live catch or snap traps, we had a rat get in the house which produced 8 off spring, they were dispatched by various methods over a couple of weeks, we also bought a torch (possibly UV?) that showed up the urine stains all over the cooker, worktops, inside cupboards, you get the idea🤮

It's a secondary measure, there's a big brick cemented in now so hopefully they won't get anywhere near the bait!.

Quick release floor boards as well for time being so I can keep an eye on it. Electricians managed to smash those to bits as well, can't have heard of a multitool it seems.

 

[oldwheels]

Hmmm…I was thinking of UB40 actually!

Is that some kind of lubricant/penetrating oil?

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Hmmm…I was thinking of UB40 actually!

I as going ask him whats he gonna do?

 

[slowmotion]

I'm with @grumpydad. You really, really, really don't want a hidden decomposing rat corpse in your house. The "inconvenience" is lengthy and entirely disgusting. We had a couple of mice pegging out under the floorboards and that was bad enough.

 

[Teamfixed]

As mentioned above, if you use poison you will end up with a dead rat in an inaccessible place. The stench will be disgustingly unbearable for a long time and you'll just have to live with it unless you are lucky enough to find the rat.
I know this from personal experience.
We had exactly the same with a removed air brick.
One day I was using a reciprocating multitool to cut through upstairs floor boards in an attempt to locate them following scratching sounds above the ceiling. I happened to look out over the back garden and saw two of the creatures run out of the missing brick (there was a vertical void between floors that they must have used) obviously petrified by the loud noise I had been making. Worth a try maybe.

 

[robrinay]

A word of warning based on experience. Once the rat dies do your best to try to find the body before the smell of its rotting body permeates the house. The good news is that if you don’t find it the smell will go away in a week or so as it dehydrates or is eaten by insects. My invading rat holed up and died under the garage having slipped through a missing brick hole from the cellar and was unreachable 🤢
Finally be very careful when clearing up the droppings and the dead rat owing to the risk of rat flea bites and Weils disease.

 

[keithmac]

We've gd them in the loft a while back so have an idea what's what but never in the ceiling .

Contemplating pulling up some floorboards in the other bedrooms as well now as they will have knocked a few more bricks out when rewiring I would have guessed.

 

[bikingdad90]

the stench is bad but the blue bottles in the rotting bodies is even worse, they come out of every crack and orifice in the house for about 4 weeks straight while rattie decomposes and their f-big huge flies too!

 

[keithmac]

Well..

Been in the loft last weekend pulling insulation out and rat proofing.

Had enough after 2nd day and managed to fall out of the loft!.

Anyways no activity since (I'm not allowed back in yet..).

Ankle and shoulder are still feeling it, not something I'd make a habbit out of!.

Nogginned all the entries to middle boarded out area for now. Mulling over what to do with the eves..

 

[bikingdad90]

@keithmac what you do will depend on the type of roof soffits you have and if it is an open ventilated roof or a closed roof space.
With an open system you can’t block the vents off as they are required else you end up with damp and condensation in the roof liner.

 

[keithmac]

Yeh I'm going to have a good think before doing anything and see how the roof breathes.

Got this to keep me busy, other side is just as bad!. Must have been Friday afternoon when they knocked the walls up..