Rat

He might get lucky once or even twice, but not every time. Odds are he'll trip the trigger... sooner or later. Hard to imagine he cleaned off the trigger mechanism without getting the special dessert offering. At least you have taught him to be less cautious and where he can find a snack.

Some string or dental floss rubbed in cheese and tied to the trigger may be the answer.. less is more, less food and more death.

JR

I just don't want to find a rat running around with a trap stuck to its head. 

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Try using a cage trap.  Nothing gets stuck, smashed, or dies up the wall. 

Well, on tonight's menu is some kippered beef stuck firmly on the bait hook. If that doesn't work, I'll try the floss trick. If that doesn't work, I'll be calling a professional to rent a cage trap. All the cage traps in the hardware stores are for mice only. Just too small.

He really cleaned off the trigger, and I mean really. Licked it clean. I have 2 different styles of rat traps that have slightly different trigger mechanisms. I have some family coming on the weekend and staying overnight. Would prefer not to have to keep them out of the basement due to my new pet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA_hGJVo3DY ;-)


If your beast can grab the food from the trigger, how about a light barrier, mounted on the trap. And then go from there to trigger the trap in a similar way to the video. Might as well go for a tinkerer's solution .

Marik said:

living sounds said:

Marik said:

What a horrible way for anything on this planet to die... even a rat. Only humans could invent anything like that, as if it is not enough just to kill... Indeed, something to be proud of.

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Over here these glue type traps are banned.

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It's not even that. It's about the fact some people would consider using it, first place. Let alone, suggest to others...

Best, M

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What is worse, maybe someone should ask the rat .....
1. a glue trap - squirmingly horrible?
2.  rat poison - gut wrenching, rat foaming agony?
3. a spring trap - that catches it across the nose - a painful and slow death?
Maybe the Rat Pied Piper could round them all up and send them away to a better place

Junction said:

What is worse, maybe someone should ask the rat .....
1. a glue trap - squirmingly horrible?
2.  rat poison - gut wrenching, rat foaming agony?
3. a spring trap - that catches it across the nose - a painful and slow death?
Maybe the Rat Pied Piper could round them all up and send them away to a better place

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If the rat could answer, he wouldn't need to steal food and shelter, he could go on Letterman. 

The spring trap generally breaks their little rat neck so death is quick and relatively humane, if there is such a thing as a humane way to die.

I have only seen one rat who was not killed instantly by the spring traps and he died nearby from internal injuries, so I assume he didn't linger long, because he didn't get very far away.

JR

PS Rat poison is generally blood thinners like Warfarin, coumadin, etc. They die from internal bleeding. My 82 YO neighbor has a prescription for Warfarin, I'll have to ask him how it feels. The sticky traps seems like a real downer. A recent theory floated by scientists is that rats not people contributed to the deforestation of Easter Island, nasty buggers get around.

John, yes the glue is a downer but the other options just weren't options for me, I have 3 curious small children and I am not going to leave poison round where they can pop them in their mouth or a spring trap which would be an interesting looking toy, the glue was not, to my knowledge, poisoness, just horribly sticky, I know cause I got some on my fingers - that'll learn ya!

For children catch and release is less troubling for their tender psyche... 

Me i'd prefer to blast them with a shot gun, but then you have new holes to patch, and a mess from the splitter splatter of little feet.

JR

Hmmm. I'd get a shotgun, but the wait time here for a license is nuts.

He made it back upstairs, so my traps were pointless. I moved one upstairs, and covered the beef in peanut butter, as well as putting some peanut butter on the bottom of the trigger. I'm hoping he'll lick the peanut off and either try to chew on the beef, or trigger the trap by trying to get the stuff on the bottom. I'm out of cheese at the moment.

If he's still around tomorrow, I'll be calling an exterminator to rent a couple of cage traps. I'd prefer not to have to kill this guy, especially if the trap doesn't kill him right away. Then I am obligated to finish the job, which is not something that is easy. Taking a life is tough for me, even if it is a rodent.

Edit: My girlfriend got a good look at him tonight. He is approx 5cm long, so either a very small rat or a big mouse which accounts for him not setting off my traps. The scary question is, is this just a baby rat? Are there more? Is mama rat still around? Don't know. Going to pick up some smaller traps tomorrow. Once I get him, I need to figure out how to remove the pocket door he hides under to see what is in the nest. Wee.

> He is approx 5cm long

Help me. 5cm is 50mm which is two of 25.4mm which makes two inches scant?

That's a mouse. Maybe better-fed than some, but not too large to be a mouse.

No wonder he can gnaw rat-traps. Not big/strong enough to trip them.

And yes you MUST core the food with something inedible and tough. For mice, a scrap of paper-towel rolled to a half-toothpick and soaked in nut/fat/salt. Rats may need string, like you tie-up your newspapers.

If it were/is a rat..... Isn't there an old-spouse's tale, that rats can't burp? That if allowed to drink their fill of beer, they die of gas pressure? Against that theory: if beer killed rats, the Black Death couldn't happen. Everybody drank beer and bottle-caps had not been invented. (Or was medieval beer served flat?) Also the MythBusters filled a pig stomach with Pepsi and Mentos, did not get explosion.

There is a plastic tip-over trap for mice. They only have to get halfway to the bait, then it tips, door drops. Yes, they have a Last Meal then starve to death, dump their bowels, rot. You have to check often, and be prepared to deal with the trapped beast dead or still-screaming.

For yet another option (with good and bad points), RatZapper.com has been on the web a long time (since NetScape 0.9 at least) and is still in business.

> shotgun

I'm good with a long-gun against paper targets, but the several times I have stalked mice they moved MUCH too fast to swing a long-gun. A 2-foot spray is no good if it is 4 feet behind the tail (though the noise may spook them). Maybe a very cut-off shotgun, but that's usually associated with Criminal Intent, anyway still a lot of mass to swing.

The "Lightweight Spackle" is much easier to use for filling such damage. Won't fall out of the hole. Doesn't shrink. Won't take a fine surface like drywall mud, but if this is how you control rodents (or you have wild tenants) maybe that's less important.

> Rat poison is generally blood thinners like Warfarin

Most everything has been tried on mice/rats. Several of the "poisons", in smaller doses, have many many effects, some interesting. I know some (more than I want) about sub-fatal strychnine. It isn't a lot of fun, but maybe more than the "bath salts" which are in the news.

The other thing about poisons is that dogs/cats get it, either direct from the bait-station or by nibbling the "easy prey" staggering around or laying there like food.

Yup, 2" is not even a good sized mouse..

back to regular sized mouse traps. I wonder if they make a baby sized trigger for junior mice. I guess you could glue something to the trigger for leverage to make it more sensitive.

A friend of mine used to make sport of taking them down with a pellet gun, but I don't think he shot them in full scamper.  I was kidding about the shot gun... I don't even have one, and it would be too messy even if you did hit them.

JR

Put out mousetraps. The landlord dropped off some poison. I put the poison in the 2 areas where he has been the most active. Interestingly, he was very active before friday. My brother and his wife stayed with us over the weekend. Haven't seen or heard him since. No further evidence. Doesn't look like he ate any of the poison either. Weird. Maybe he left of his own accord? Or maybe he went upstairs to visit my neighbour.

You will smell him if he didn't leave to die.

I have one cockroach poison that is remarkable because they crawl out into the middle of the floor and die where they are easy to collect.

I would not have poisoned a small rodent. Too many horror stories about tearing out walls to get to the smell.

Of course if he is a small one the smell will go away eventually.  Or let the next renter worry about it.

JR

I caught a rat in my place of work (a hospital). Caught it with a cleaner's yellow hazard cone. It was a bit dopey, docile. I planned to release it humanely but the cleaner took it out and whacked it....

...wanted in fifteen counties of this state, the condemned standing before us...

sitting before us...

Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez...

(known as "The Rat")

has been found guilty by the third district circuit court of the following crimes:

Murder, assaulting a justice of the peace, raping a virgin of the white race, statutory rape of a minor of the black race...

derailing a train in order to rob the passengers, bank robbery, highway robbery, robbing an unknown number of Post Offices, breaking out of the state prison, using marked cards and loaded dice, promoting prostitution, blackmail, intention of selling fugitive slaves, and counterfeiting.

Crimes against places of high authority include burning down the courthouse and sheriff's office in Sonora.

The accused is also guilty of cattle rustling, horse thievery, supplying Indians with firearms...

misrepresenting himself as a Mexican General, and unlawfully drawing salary and living allowances from the Union Army.

For all these crimes the accused has made a full and spontaneous confession.

Therefore we condemn him to be hung by the neck until dead... may the lord have mercy on his soul... proceed.

I recently had two mouse sightings and had to get serious about the hunt.

#1
This guy was in our home. He was living behind our kitchen stove. Sneaking out every night and getting into whatever food he could and leaving tiny little droppings all over the counters. We hand a handful of sightings. My wife insisted on "catch-and-release" so we bought two of the traps the tip and the door shuts. He would not go near them. Two weeks and nothing. I finally broke down and purchased two of the small snap-traps. Baited them up quite liberally with peanut butter on the trigger. Went to bed and waited for the morning. Yes. He licked the triggers clean. I was absolutely amazed at the audacity if this rodent. Next up was tying a sliver of greasy pepperoni tightly to the trigger. This was successful within hours. I dumped his body in the bottom of the compost pile.

#2
Mouse spotted darting from behind the fridge in the kitchen at the studio. A couple females work there and they too demanded catch-and-release. I chuckled to myself and went through the motions with no luck. Someone purchased glue traps. Nothing. I tried pepperoni tied to my snap-traps and the guy tripped it the first night but somehow escaped. We thought maybe he died in the wall because there were no more sightings. One monday morning one of the ladies came in to find a dark-chocolate bar practically destroyed on her desk. Bits and pieces of wrapper everywhere. She was most upset but from that moment I knew I had positively identified my bait because there were leftovers.

One square of dark chocolate in the middle of each glue trap provided results by the next morning.

I recommend that you use whatever means you have available and terminate that dirty-rat-bag with extreme prejudice. Find out what he likes, where he lives. Set your traps and wait.

Catch and release is uhhh. Ok I guess.... But what's one less dirty-rat-bag on the face of this earth? A good start if you ask me.

Please post proof when you are done..

Best luck!
-jb