gosh darn rodents

[GonnaCatchABig1]

i hear a noise and look over.. all i see is about a 5-6inch tail and then it noticed me and took off..

great... absolutely lovely.. now i hafta tear apart my room (and the rest of the apartment) looking for the point of entry..

my assumption is since the restaurant next door closed down they no longer have their food supply from the dumpster and are invading else where in search of food.. sons of you know whats.

only consolation is the exterminator bill is the landlords responsibility not ours.. but i wont be sleeping tonight.. cause the little bstrd ran off into the kitchen and disappeared.. not that i fear mice/rats.. just rather not get a bite on the toe in the middle of the night. or wake up to one staring at me. being taken by surprise sucks.

[Raven]

but if you feed them
away from your place
thats where they will go...

so if there's a dumpster nearby
go grab some cheap bag of birdseed
and sprinkle some in it or under it...

(just until the exterminator gets his job done)

so they won't be looking for food
inside your place

and here's the other bit of info
you'll freak out on...

most mice and rats can climb houses with ease
they climb trees ...and can literally run up walls
i've seen it first hand and it blew my mind...

of course it depends on the outside wall material
and whether or not they can sink their sharp claws in it
to climb....

my point being, that the entry hole isn't necessarilly
on the ground level

also you can lightly sprinkle some white flour
on the linoleum floor
(if you have one) and it's like artificial snow
then in the morning you can check it

sometimes it helps you determine which direction
they came from and narrow down the search a little.

[GonnaCatchABig1]

gonna be a week before he gets here.. hopefully they will go mess around in the neighbors apartment till then.. if hear/see them again.. i'm gonna try to lure them back to the dumpster..

as fas as them climbing.. i am well aware.. my travels once brought me to lovely nyc. sitting out in a back alley having smoke with some buddies.. we noticed a parade of rats. and watched in awe at their skills.. they were parading along a ledge.. which was covered in large rat traps. over the traps they went with out even thinking twice about goin in.. then proceeded to climb a ladder (it was like a fire escape but built into the wall) as if they human. i was amazed. they actually climbed up the rungs of the ladder one by one. all the way to the top of a 15-20 story building..

of course comparing nyc rats to normal rats is like comparing a civic to a ferrari. those are completely different beasts.

but yeah this weekend they are gonna take out what ever little critters are in the restaurant. (same building) so hopefully that will do the job and we wont have to have a major evacuation and wage a full scale war upon them.

[Surfcaster2884]

Let the war begin......

[freebie]

I've heard they taste like chicken.....

[justplugit]

Originally Posted by freebie

I've heard they taste like chicken.....

LOL

GCAB1, you might get lucky and have a chinese restaurant take the old one's place.

[spence]

I've read that mice have an incredible ability to memorize patterns, once they find food they can recall exactly how to get there...once study said cab drivers often had a similar skill.

So they advise moving things around once you set traps out. The mice will be forced to seek out a new route and will be more likely to find your bait.

We had a lot of mice this winter. The snap traps did nothing so I put out a lot of poison baits in the dirt cellar...didn't happen overnight but it was clear when the flies were massing on the warm side of the house outside that the deed had been done. I couldn't believe how much of the bait they had eaten.

-spence

[GonnaCatchABig1]

ok now it's on.. hadnt seen any since the original sighting so i figured.. maybe they actually decided to bother my neighbors instead.. just opened my door and spooked on that was on my bed. and it lunged for the door way (aka at me) and seeing as i was just as surprised as he was, gave me a good jump. i am not to found of things jumping at me from out of no where. now he must die... also. i am now fairly certain the point of entry is under/behind the fridge. so now i gotta move that... greeeeat.

[eastendlu]

Its rat season!!

[Andy D]

I had the same problem they were comming in from the crawl space
and then under my stove. Put down poison pellets d-con I think .
It took a couple applications but it did the job. It was weird because I
could hear them munching when the house was quiet and I was on the computer in the dinning room . I also had the swarm of flies to let me know it, they were finished .

[Rob Rockcrawler]

I did the dcon thing for mine. It was sorta funny but a little messed up. A mouse ate some, and came into the living room. It was acting drunk, stumbling, shaking. I had to step on the bastard to put it down. If you use traps, line them against the wall. The usually walk along a wall, and when the see the food, snap. The flower on the floor is a good idea, im a nasty bachelor so i just use dust. I just deal with an occasional squirel or chipmunk lately, i have a few pellet holes in the drywall.

[Slingah]

Originally Posted by GonnaCatchABig1

i wont be sleeping tonight.. cause the little bstrd ran off into the kitchen and disappeared.. not that i fear mice/rats.. just rather not get a bite on the toe in the middle of the night. or wake up to one staring at me. being taken by surprise sucks.

I wouldnt worry about the toes... it is a know fact that most rodents are attracted to ear wax and dried nasal mucus (snot)....put a little of that flour near your bed and see what they have been up to.

[GonnaCatchABig1]

Originally Posted by Slingah

I wouldnt worry about the toes... it is a know fact that most rodents are attracted to ear wax and dried nasal mucus (snot)....put a little of that flour near your bed and see what they have been up to.

well thats even less comforting.. considering i caught that bugger on my bed today.. the d-con has been set..

ripped out the fridge... nothin.. but then i figured out their path.. coming from in the heater room.. found some turds in there today. that was my original thought. but i didn't think they could get out of that room. i was wrong.

[riverrat55]

RATS!!!
FOILED AGAIN!!!
LOL'S!!!

[GonnaCatchABig1]

these little bstrds are driving me nuts. i've kept my bedroom door closed, assuming they were getting in from the other room. guess i was wrong.. cause i was sitting here with the door closed, and there was another one.
so there IS a way in in my room after all. uggggggg... but with my door being closed they have also been spotted in other rooms..

i thought i had one pinned. it ran under a shirt on the floor that had nothing around it. went and picked up the shirt.. little bugger was gone. i have no idea how he pulled that off..

[GonnaCatchABig1]

i think we got him....

i'm sure right after posting this one will pop out after 3 days with out a sighting..

[Swimmer]

It was a show on cable the other night. These guys got called into a racetrack to clean it out, because it was so bad the trainers wouldn't sleep in or around the stalls anymore. They had this aligator trap, it looked nasty.


If you fish Columbia Point at all over by ZooMass, grind up all the rats and chum with them.

[FishermanTim]

Originally Posted by Swimmer

It was a show on cable the other night.
.... They had this aligator trap, it looked nasty.:

The show was called "the verminators"
The traps were affectionately call "T-REX" and have a hair trigger.

I prefer to use traps instead of poison only because the rat/mice ususally end up dying behind a wall or fixture that you can't get to, and they stink when they rot.

I set traps along the walls, since they will hug the walls for safety.

Good luck. (I like the idea of using them as chum. It would only be worthwhile if they were trapped, and not poisoned.)

[GonnaCatchABig1]

Originally Posted by FishermanTim

I prefer to use traps instead of poison only because the rat/mice ususally end up dying behind a wall or fixture that you can't get to, and they stink when they rot.

yeeeeeeup... we got em.. and now the living room stinks to high heaven. traps next time.. definitely..