Rat in my Kitchen
 

I don't post too many new topics, but I wanted to talk about this.
OK, for the past few weeks my family has thought that we had a little mouse living in the kitchen. It has happened before so we weren't surprised. We set out little mouse traps but they weren't working. The bait would be gone but there would be no mouse. Now I like Mice so I don't mind sharing the same living area that much. I know it's not good, because who knows what it could be carrying, but mice are cute, so I wasn't in a hurry to kill it.

Well, today I heard a noise and I looked into the Kitchen and I saw something moving and I was like, "oh, the mouse!" Then the "mouse" stood up on it's little back legs and stuck it's sniffy noise in the air. I then realized that this is not a mouse. This is a freaking huge rat. I freaked out and called my dogs, I don't know why, I don't want my dogs near the rat. Then I called my mom and now I'm too freaked out to go into the kitchen.

So I'm posting here to ask if anyone has any tips on how to get rid of a rat. Because I only have little mouse traps and I don't think they would work too well.

Buy some rat traps at your local hardware store. They're much bigger.

Or you can always borrow a scruffy Jack Russel from a friend. Or a good cat.

If all else fails, call an exterminator.

You should have left the dogs in there. Dogs are usually much better than cats when it comes to taking out rodents. Better yet, get a ferret...or a snake. Rats don't even like to hang out where they smell snakes! Rat traps will work, like Partymember said, but they are messy when they finally do nail their quarry, AND if you're not careful, they will get your finger, and a rat trap can easily break a finger! The exterminator will put out poison bait, in some place where your dogs can't get to it, but you can buy the stuff at a hardware or ag supply store and do that yourself. You'll still have to deal with a rotting carcass somewhere that you can't get to it to remove it, though.

pitbulllady

Yeah, poison can be messy when they die behind the walls. I would go with a dog, personally. Ever see an Airdale (sp?) terrier? They're huge! IIRC the small ones we're used to were bred small from those original dogs to hunt rats in mineshafts in Scotland.

AH man, some of this sounds gross. I don't think I want to do poison with the whole dieing behind the wall thing. I think my dogs are wimps, this rat has been here for a while and they haven't done anything about it yet. I'm probably going to go with a trap of some kind.

Thanks everyone for the info!

I've never had to deal with rats as pests before (just pets ;) ), but I've had excellent luck trapping mice with these black, enclosed mousetraps. I believe they make them for rats too, you might want to try them? As far as mousetraps go, I highly recommend this type of trap.

(And mice are criminally cute! Of course, I think rats are cute too.)

Thank you Sparky. I think I like that trap best. :)

EW, I know this... a mouse apparently died of natural causes in one of our really deep closets, so we didn't know about it until MAGGOTS started coming through a knothole in our wall! It was digusting!

Also, since rats can be cute, too, if you don't want to kill the rat, they have humane traps that just TRAP the rat without killing it. Then you're free to just let it go somewhere away from the house. Same goes with sticky traps, as long as you get the thing off with cooking oil and don't leave it there to die.

I'm indifferent to rodents. I think as pets, they can be pretty nice. One of my friends used to have pet female rats, and I got to handle them. When I see one running around the house, however, it does scare me a bit, and the fear of them biting me or carrying a disease exists.