In most cases, when people set rat traps, the animals die from poisoning or a broken spine when caught in the rat trap. However, if your traps are boxes and buckets that the animal can get into but cannot get out of, then you need to decide how to humanely and quickly kill it. In this article you will learn about what to do if you catch a rat and how to kill it, the better way to kill it so that it does not suffer.
IMPORTANT! Under no circumstances should you show children scenes of the killing of any animals, including rodents. This can seriously traumatize their fragile psyche! Only a trained person can kill a rat without consequences. Usually this is an adult man with a tempered psyche, who is confident in what he is doing, because... wants to protect his family, home and supplies from pests.
Precautions and preparations
First of all, you need to list all available humane and non-lethal methods of getting rid of rats. Today there are a lot of traps, thanks to which a caught rat can continue its life outside your home. For example, having caught an animal in a box or in a special container, it can be taken far into the forest and there released into the wild . You don't have to kill the rat.
It is best to simply take the rat away from people's homes, for example, into the forest. But no closer than 5-7 km, otherwise the rat will easily find its way back.
If there are no other options other than to end the rat’s earthly life, then you need to prepare for murder. To prevent a rat from biting you, you need to wear thick rubber gloves, a jacket or sweater with long sleeves, and it is advisable to pull the gloves over your sleeves so that there are no exposed skin areas. These animals are capable of attacking people in case of danger.
Next you need to find out about the rat’s well-being. If she is injured, then the decision to take her into the forest can bring the rodent even more suffering than a quick death. You will have to make a serious moral choice.
When killing, do not irritate the rat. In panic, she may begin to break free, bite and even run away . Don't run around her, don't scare her, don't shine bright lights or make noise. Do everything slowly and calmly so that the rodent remains calm too.
In any case, never decide to kill a rat if there is even a remote possibility of getting rid of it alive. You can always release it in the nearest park or on the highway when you are traveling somewhere. Killing, even a rodent, leaves a mark on the human psyche, which for some people can be a serious shock that will have to be dealt with with the help of a psychologist.
Think 10 times before deciding whether to kill a rat or release it into the wild.
We catch the pest alive in the house: quickly and inexpensively
There are several options to quickly catch a rat in the house with homemade devices. The most effective of them, which have been repeatedly tested in practice, are described below.
Option 1:
- Take a saucepan (or other available container), attach a piece of sausage, lard or bread with vegetable oil to the middle of its wall;
- The pan is turned upside down and placed on the floor;
- One edge of it is raised, and an unstable support is placed under it (for example, a nail or a jar lid on the edge). The edge of the pan rests against the support.
When a rat crawls under the pan for the bait, it is highly likely to push the support, and as a result, the pan will cover the rodent. Even if the rat is very careful and does not touch the support, the animal under the pan will rest its front paws on its wall to get the bait, and will still move the pan from the support.
Option 2 – allows you to catch a rat alive using an unstable bridge over a container:
- A stool is placed next to the empty open barrel, on which a small plank is placed, about half of which will hang over the neck of the barrel;
- The bait is placed at the very edge of this overhanging board.
- The rat will try to get to the bait, the board with it will tilt and fall into the barrel.
In addition to the free nature of the described traps, their beauty lies in their complete safety - neither pets nor children risk injury if they accidentally stumble upon such a device.
The main problem with a live trap is the need to decide what to do with the caught rat. It’s good if there is a cat or dog living in the house, which will gladly save the owner from this problem. If there is no such pet, then you will either have to kill the rat yourself (which not everyone can do), or spend time and effort to release it away from the house.
If you don’t want to do either one or the other, then you shouldn’t catch a rat alive.
It is also important to remember that a caught live rat may well bite until it bleeds if you try to pull it out of the trap with your bare hands or wearing thin gloves. Such bites are quite painful, and, in addition, when bitten, the animal can infect a person with a dangerous infection. Therefore, all manipulations with a triggered live trap should be carried out wearing thick construction gloves.
You can fight mice and rats with the help of mechanical traps, which must be installed along the walls where rodents move. Hunting for pests will not be effective if you catch them far from the nest. How to catch rats and mice if their habitat is unknown? It is easy to identify the pest by piles of droppings or traces of spoiled things.
Strangulation method
This method can be considered the most humane in relation to the rat, since the animal experiences a minimal amount of pain and discomfort and often does not even realize that it will soon die.
First, find any plastic container at home. This could be a food organizer, boxes for various office supplies, and so on. Then place the rat itself in the container. Handle it with care and caution so that the rodent does not become nervous.
In a small cup or other flat container, mix vinegar and regular baking soda, which are found in any housewife's kitchen. Fill the bottom of the container with the mixture or simply place it in the original cup. In just a few minutes the rodent will lose consciousness and die very quickly. Soda, reacting with vinegar, begins to release carbon dioxide , which is impossible to breathe.
The use of carbon dioxide is the only officially approved method of killing rats through asphyxiation. If you want to use something else, you can find the necessary information about chemical reactions on the Internet.
Ultrasonic repeller
Ultrasonic rodent repellers
A modern invention that operates on the basis of ultrasound. The human ear does not feel vibration, so the operation of the device does not affect one’s well-being or health. The device runs on city electricity or batteries. To prevent rodents from getting used to ultrasound, it is possible to periodically change the frequency.
The area of action depends on the power of the device. Carpets and furniture drown out the background. It is recommended to place a repeller in each room so that the negative background is present throughout the house. It is recommended to install the devices for 1 month, then take a break.
The ultrasonic repeller acts on the nervous system. It can drive away rats in 3-4 weeks. The animal feels constant discomfort. The only way for a rodent to get rid of poor health is to escape.
A modern way to kill rats in an apartment is an ultrasonic repeller. This device is absolutely safe for humans, but effective in pest control. Working on low-frequency waves, the repeller will save you from an infestation of rats after just a week of working indoors, and without the use of poisons and other chemicals that are so dangerous to humans and pets.
Rats are smart, quick-witted and well able to adapt to any living conditions. Rodents will never just leave a place they like. Simply exterminating pests will not bring the desired result - they will appear again. The main thing that every owner must understand is that the fight against rats in a private home should begin with identifying and eliminating the cause of the appearance of animals on the estate.
Rats are attracted to freely available food - grains, vegetables, food products that are difficult to obtain in the wild in winter. If access to them is not reliably blocked, pests will definitely find a way to get to them. Therefore, first of all, do everything to put things in order in the house and in the utility rooms on the site.
You can get rid of rats at home using powerful industrial poisons, folk remedies, as well as various devices and baits. All of them have different effectiveness, can kill or scare away animals, are dangerous or safe for humans or pets.
If rats appear in the house, they must be destroyed immediately. The simplest and most proven method is to place rat traps in the room. These primitive designs make it possible to kill rodents the moment they remove the tasty bait. Some disadvantage is the need for maintenance - rat traps must be regularly checked, animal carcasses removed and the mechanism charged again.
Modern means include traps of various designs that help catch a rat, but do not kill it. What to do with the animal, destroy it or release it into the wild away from home, is decided by the owner himself.
We suggest you familiarize yourself with: Anti-mole netting for garden beds
You can also use home-made or factory-made glue traps in your house or apartment. They hold the rat in place but do not directly harm it. They do not contain poison and are completely safe. They act, for the most part, only against baby rats. Adults rarely get into them.
You can simply and safely remove rats from your home, apartment, and technical buildings using electrical appliances. The principle of their operation is based on the emission of ultrasound, which rodents can hear well, but humans cannot. Such devices are produced with dependent and independent power supply. Consequently, they can be plugged into the network or placed in places where there are no sockets or where they are needed to connect other equipment. For example, in a cellar, feed warehouse, garage.
The rats do not die from the operation of the device, but quickly leave the area. Different models provide different wave ranges, but where they work, rats feel uncomfortable. After a few days, the animals panic and leave the area. As an example, we can name the following brands:
- Tornado 200;
- Ultrasonic Dual Pest Repeller;
- Chiston-2;
- Riddex.
This protection works flawlessly. Ultrasonic emitters should be recommended as the most effective remedy for rats without the use of poison. The only caveat to consider is that some pets can also hear ultrasound well. Consequently, they may react painfully to turning on the device, so it is undesirable to use them in a house where cats, dogs and guinea pigs live.
If there are large numbers of rats in the garden and in the house, synthetic drugs will help get rid of them. They can be bought at hardware stores or at the market. They act quickly and with 100% results. The death of rats occurs soon after they eat the poison.
Rat repellents are available in the form of liquid, powder or granules that must be mixed with bait, such as grain or seeds, or in the form of ready-made poison baits based on cereals. They can simply be scattered in animal habitats.
Among the most effective remedies for rats are the following drugs:
- Zookoumarin;
- Ratindane;
- Storm;
- Krysid;
- Cyclone-B;
- Krysin;
- Cyclone-D;
- Goliath;
- Fluoroacetamide;
- Mortorat.
They allow you to quickly get rid of both earth rats in the garden beds and their gray relatives in the house. When working with poisons, precautions should be taken and access to them should be limited to pets and children. They can become accidental victims instead of pests.
Traditional methods
Many residents of private houses prefer to get rid of rats using folk remedies. These preparations are easy to prepare yourself, and they are attractive because they are practically safe for humans, but have a good effect on pests. Some of them kill rats, and some only scare them away. Taken together, they give quite satisfactory results. The minimal cost of self-made formulations and the availability of ingredients is another plus in favor of folk recipes.
There are several ways to get rid of uninvited guests on your site. Choose the one that suits you and start acting.
- Take the ash and scatter it near rat holes indoors or between the rows of plants in the beds. Pests cannot stand its smell, so they quickly leave to look for shelter in another place.
- Mix flour and gypsum in equal quantities, scatter the mixture in secluded places so that rodents are not afraid to approach it, and add a saucer of water to the “treat.” After such a meal, the rats die because the plaster sets in their stomach.
- To get rid of rats in your home, prepare a cement mortar and add broken glass to it. Use the resulting mixture to seal holes in the walls through which pests enter the room. While the animals look for other ways to feed, some of them will die from wounds, and others from hunger.
- Take a piece of cloth, soak it in vinegar, ammonia, kerosene, gasoline, and place it in the corner of the room. A strong specific smell will prevent rats from getting inside. You can lay out rags soaked in cat urine in the basement or barn - the result will be amazing.
- Prepare a mixture of baking soda, sugar and flour and place it in rat habitats. Having eaten such a “dish”, the pests will soon die from stomach bloating. This will be facilitated by the reaction of soda and the pest’s gastric juice.
- Place wormwood, mint, tansy, wild rosemary, and bay leaves in the house. The aroma of these plants will scare away rats, and they will leave the building. If you plant wormwood, mint and tansy in the garden of a private house or in a country house, then it is likely that the rats will leave the area altogether.
For all its simplicity and convenience, traditional methods do not provide quick results. It usually takes time to kill rats. If you have the opportunity to wait and do not want to harm yourself and your pets, then this is undoubtedly your option.
Calling specialists
If there are a lot of rats, independent measures do not help, or you simply don’t have time to deal with pest extermination, seek help from specialists. These can be either private companies or government services. They know exactly how to get rats out of the house, barn, basement and garden, and make sure they don’t appear for a long time.
A team of specialists who arrive upon request will not only destroy the rodents, but will also treat the premises with special protective drugs that will prevent the appearance of pests for a long time. All work is guaranteed. The only “but” is that it is not cheap.
Drowning
Another of the easiest ways to kill a caught rat is to drown it. If you catch a pest in a bucket or barrel, you can cover the animal with a thick rag and put a heavy object on top so that the rat does not jump out. Then simply fill the container with water.
But here you will have to try to ensure that the rodent is well pressed to the bottom, because, sensing the approach of death, it can get a surge of strength and try to escape from under the load, so it is recommended to press the rag with a stick and hold it there for several minutes until it choke and die. You can simply pour the dead animal out of the bucket and prepare a trap for subsequent rodent catching.
Unpleasant rodent odor. How can you get rid of it?
Baits based on chopped carrots, oats, soaked peas, pumpkin, potatoes and zucchini are very helpful in the fight against rats. Vegetable baits are laid out throughout the area in the spring, but grain is used in the fall.
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Poisoned baits that you can make yourself can help get rid of rodents. 30-40 g of flour is mixed with 20-25 g of alabaster or gypsum and a small amount of sunflower oil.
Remember: you cannot touch the prepared bait with your hands, as the water rat smells human hands very well.
The most important thing is to keep your garden area clean. And then the appearance of water rats can be avoided.
- Treat all corners, furniture and other surfaces in the apartment with vinegar.
- Use potassium permanganate to wipe floors, walls, corners, and furniture.
- Use hydrogen peroxide to solve this problem. The effect of peroxide treatment will increase many times if you clean the house with chlorine before using it.
- Ventilate the apartment frequently and continuously. Rodents are very afraid of drafts and will try to quickly leave the room.
- Treat all items that have absorbed the smell of pests with a disinfectant: carpets, fabric items, pillows.
If you notice an unpleasant odor, first find the cause of the stench. Most likely, these are the remains of dead rodents. Remove them immediately. If this cannot be done, seal the area where the pests die. Every home owner can do this.
If you carefully read our advice and take into account the recommendations on how to get rid of mice and rats, your home will be insured against the invasion of dangerous pests.
You can get rid of rats forever using folk remedies. Rodent control combines the use of mechanical methods and chemicals. Using folk recipes you can exterminate rats or drive them out.
When you see a rodent in the house, you should not run headlong to the store to buy a trap to exterminate pests. You can quickly build the structure yourself, without much financial expense.
- In a plastic bottle with a capacity of 5-10 liters, cut off the neck. Turn it over and insert it inside the bottle. A fragrant bait is placed at the bottom. The neck is secured with tape. Place the trap in an inclined position near steps and shelves. The rodent gets inside and cannot get out. It remains to solve the question of how to kill a caught rat. The method is especially effective in the village for controlling rats in a private home.
- Turn over a large pot for indoor flowers. They lift it up on one side and insert the board edgewise. The bait is placed in the center. The rodent makes its way to the food, catches the board, and finds itself in a trap. The structure must be installed on a solid base in the home - a floor, a concrete surface, to avoid undermining.
- You can fight rats in a private house with a bucket of water. Pour, not reaching the edges by 5-10 cm. Husks, straw, dry leaves are spread over the water in a thick layer. Grain and seeds are thrown into the center. Place a board next to the bucket. It serves as a ladder. The rodent makes its way to the bait and falls into the water. You can exterminate rodents without much effort by periodically restoring the appearance of the trap. The good thing about this method is that you don’t have to kill the pests afterwards.
Repellent
Fight against ratsRats are eliminated mechanically, chemically, or using repellent methods.
- You can remove rodents in 1 day using tree resin. The product is suitable for private homes if rodents are found in a barn, cellar, outbuildings, closet, or sauna. Sprinkle the floor with ash. Rodents intensify their activity at night. In the dark, the ash is not visible. Sticking to the body, it causes irritation and burning. The animal tries to get rid of the contamination with its tongue, the substance enters the stomach, causing discomfort. The rat does not die from the ash, but escapes.
- A strong smell will help drive out rats. Moisten a rag with gasoline, kerosene, ammonia, vinegar, place it in a plastic bag, and make a small hole in it. The smell slowly fills the room and begins to drive away rodents.
- Burn the fur or a dead rat and throw it in the basement. The smell of burning makes rodents run wherever they look.
- Herbs. To prevent rats from avoiding the house and not wanting to stay in it for a long time, you can use plants. In each room leave a bouquet of wild rosemary, chamomile, wormwood, peppermint, tansy, black elderberry, and ratwort.
- Essential oils. The smell of mint, chamomile, and lavender repels rats. To spread the smell throughout the house, you can use a special lamp or sprinkle a few drops on a wax candle or lamp bulb. When heated, the aroma will spread throughout the house. The smell has a beneficial effect on people and drives rats out of the house.
- Catch a rat. Set the tail on fire and let it go. The rodent will run to its relatives, who cannot stand the smell of burnt wool. She herself will drive everyone out of the house.
- Spicy mixture. Scatter hot peppers, dried chamomile, and prickly burdock seeds on the floor. Pepper and chamomile cause skin irritation, the thorns cling to the fur, preventing normal movement. After a few days of such inconvenience, the rats will leave the area.
Poisoning
Folk remedies
- Gypsum. The most common method is a mixture of gypsum with flour and sugar. The ingredients are taken in equal proportions. The treat is laid out on plates - lids. Place a container of water nearby. The mixture inside the stomach hardens, along with the insides of the rodent.
- Poisonous mixture. Mix 15 g of borax with 20 g of rosin. Add 30 g of powdered sugar to mask the taste of the poison. Place in areas where rodents have been spotted. It is necessary to prepare the mixture using rubber gloves so that the human smell does not remain on the prepared dish.
- Soda. Mix soda and sugar in equal proportions. Add a little flour. The product is safe for humans and pets; it causes death to rats. In the stomach, soda reacts with natural juice, and a bubbling reaction begins. Gases collect. Since rats are unable to burp, excessive gas and bloating leads to death.
- Wine cork. Grind the cork and fry it in lard. The fragrant bait for rats is ready. The plug in the stomach swells, deforms internal organs, makes breathing difficult, and causes suffocation.
- Alcohol. Soak the bread in beer and place it on a plate. Mice are attracted to the smell and eat the bait with pleasure. After a few days of beer feeding, they switch to vodka. First diluted with water. Every day increasing the dose of ethanol. Then it is soaked in pure vodka, but the taste of bitterness is masked by adding sugar. Rats develop alcohol addiction. They are not interested in other food, they make their way to the bowl every day. At this stage, you can calmly kill the rats, or watch how the individuals degrade. Adult rats die from alcohol, new offspring are born weak and incapable of survival.
- Autumn colchicum. The plant blooms in late summer and autumn. All parts are poisonous. For a deadly bait you will need 10 g of seeds. They are mixed with 200 g of any product - cheese, grain, seeds, cereals.
- Cook the beans and beans over low heat until they crack. Drain the water and dry. Fry the beans with chilibuja seeds in a frying pan in vegetable oil.
- Stearin. Turn the chilibuha seeds into powder, add sugar, raisins, grated stearin.
- Quicklime. Mix with sugar in a ratio of 1:3 so that rodents do not notice the unpleasant taste of lime. They are scattered into plates and placed in places where rats like to be.
- Beer. Add the alcoholic drink to the milk and leave the bowl. In the morning you can collect dead rodents.
- Barbarian way. If you can’t get rid of rats in any way, you should use a not very humane, but extremely effective method. They catch several rats and put them in a metal barrel. They are starving. Over time, the rats begin to gnaw each other, the strongest survives. This beast is released into the wild. In a short time it will destroy the entire family of rodents, young and old.
Folk remedies for rats are amazingly inventive. They can be used if there are small children or animals in the house, or if you don’t want to deal with toxic substances. If independent efforts do not produce the desired result, you should seek help from specialists. Breeding rats is a process that requires special effort, skill, and caution.
Firearms
If you have caught a very huge rat that cannot be strangled or drowned, then you can use a firearm or pneumatic weapon. Of course, not everyone has such a thing, but hunters and simply weapon collectors can use this method to quickly kill a caught rat.
So, first you need to decide which caliber to use. It is best to use small-caliber weapons , since a rat is still not an elephant, there is no point in taking out a shotgun or sawn-off weapon to kill it. When using such a weapon, there is a high chance that after the first shot the rat will literally leave a wet spot, not only on the floor, but also on the walls. Moreover, the ricochet of a bullet can greatly harm you.
You can use an air pistol, but you need to aim directly at the rat's head
Choose a place to kill. You should not shoot in the house, chicken coop or basement; it is much better to do it in the backyard or in the barn, as long as there are no other people nearby whom you could accidentally injure.
You need to shoot strictly at the head . Of course, a shot at any part of a rat’s body will be fatal for it, since it is small and fragile, but if it hits the head, the risk of suffering and pain from the wound is much lower. The rat will die instantly, and will not suffer before death.
Weapons can only be used by people who have already dealt with them and know how to handle them. If this is the first time in your life that you are holding a pistol or shotgun in your hands, it is better to put it down and find another way to get rid of the rat.
Industrial live traps
This is always a big problem - how to get rid of rats in an apartment. The simplest way to combat this pest is a regular rat trap, into which the rats fall thanks to the bait, after which the slamming mechanism is triggered - and the rodent is trapped.
There are traps with a sticky adhesive layer applied to cardboard or a thin piece of wood. Getting into it, the rat sticks to them and eventually dies from starvation.
Electronic traps are the most humane way to control rodents. Rats falling into it instantly die from an electrical discharge. Thanks to the built-in indicator, the owner of the apartment learns about the presence of a pest in the trap and quickly disposes of the remains of the animal in the trash can.
A typical industrial rat trap is a small cage with a spring-loaded door that opens upward. When opened, the door is secured with a guard, the lower part of which is located inside the cage and has a loop. The bait is hung on a loop.
When the rat gets into the cage and begins to pull the bait, the guard moves, releases the door, and it slams shut.
This principle of operation has proven to be the most effective for live traps, and therefore the vast majority of rat traps work this way.
A cage trap allows you to catch a rat very quickly: sometimes the pest is caught on the very first night after installing the rat trap in the house. To get this result, a rat trap is installed where the pest has previously been seen, or where the animals constantly leave traces of their activity - chewed food, wool, excrement.
It is advisable not to enter the room where the trap is installed, so that the animal gets out of the shelter as soon as possible and becomes interested in the bait.
A standard live trap in the form of a cage costs about 400-500 rubles.
Electric rat traps are highly effective and easy to use, but they have a serious drawback - on average, such devices are much more expensive than a standard rat trap-squeeze (and some models cost tens of times more).
In general, such a device is well suited for those who want to kill all rodents in the room without blood and without the use of poison. Read more about electric rat traps in a separate article: Using electric rat traps to control rodents
Edged weapons and blunt trauma
This method can only be used if you are sure that your actions will kill the rat the first time. Otherwise, you will have to cause the animal terrible suffering before death.
There are cases when people finished off wounded animals with a precise blow to the head with a hammer or any other heavy object. For example, if a cat played with a hamster and caused him serious injuries, after which he will no longer be able to live normally. In the case of a rat, you need to aim well and put as much force into the blow as possible. Such an act is quite difficult emotionally. After all, if you cannot kill the animal right away, you will have to beat it to death. And this is very difficult for the psyche .
Don't listen to those who advise putting the rat in a bag and hitting it against the wall. Rodents are not so fragile that they would die from a strong blow to concrete or wood. Most likely, you will not have enough strength (neither moral nor physical) to hit the bag so that the animal instantly dies, and it will lose consciousness. And when he wakes up, he will experience hellish pain from broken bones and internal bleeding.
Useful tips for rodent control
In order for the fight against rats to be successful and after a certain period of time you do not have to start all over again, it is important to follow simple rules.
Let's look at the main recommendations.
- Check all walls for cracks and holes in the walls. Otherwise your war will be endless.
- Maintain exemplary order in your home. Rats are carriers of dirt and infections, so the place to stay is selected accordingly. If your apartment is always kept in order, animals will simply have nothing to do here.
- Clear out cluttered areas of space and throw unnecessary things into the trash.
- Do not leave dirty dishes in the sink for a long time.
- Block uninvited guests' access to drinking water and food supplies. Remove all vegetables from the refrigerator, and purchase glass containers for storing cereals.
Broken spine
Before you begin these methods, first decide for yourself whether you can do this with your own hands. And you will have to do far from pleasant things, namely break the animal’s spine. This is perhaps the most brutal method to kill a rat described in this article. We do not recommend using it .
Carefully pick up the rat and place it on some lumpy or uneven surface so that the animal can cling to it with its paws. This will allow access to his spine.
To carry out the “operation”, find a long and round object at home. Scissors, ballpoint pens, screwdrivers, metal rods, and so on may be suitable. Then take the rat by the tail, press the object on the neck, in the area that is slightly closer to the head, and quickly pull the tail back. If you did everything correctly, you should hear a peculiar sound of a broken bone. With such a sound, the rat's spine broke at the base of its tail. After this, the rodent will die, however, not immediately. Rats, like lizards, can live without a tail, but unlike these green animals, they cannot regrow it. You can read about the structure and features of a rat’s tail here.
If you tear out a rodent's tail, it will be alive for some time and will experience terrible pain from a broken spine, then paralysis will set in, and in this state the animal will die for a long time and painfully.
Therefore, it’s up to you to decide whether to torture the rodent for all its harm to you and humanity, or to show mercy and choose a different method of killing. Or maybe it’s better to just release the animal into the forest , away from people’s homes, because then you will have a big plus for your karma.
Traps
Perhaps one of the most common means is a rat trap. However, experience shows that it is just ineffective. Of course, it all depends on how close it is to the rodent travel routes. How to kill a rat or catch it with a rat trap?
Before deciding how to catch pests, you should watch them, spot the places where they are frequent guests and where they most often go. Only then can you catch the rats. Bait is of great importance. These rodents are distinguished by their developed intelligence, they are careful and avoid all suspicious places. Therefore, to increase the likelihood of a successful outcome in catching rats, you should take care of a good “treat”.
Folk remedies to scare away rats
- Cat or dog of a hunting breed. Ratcatching cats are the most obvious and historically established method. The smell of a cat alone can scare away nasty aliens. It is enough to spread out lumps of cat hair, litter from the cat’s litter box, or even food from the mustache’s bowl. Also, dogs of some breeds catch rats: dachshunds, terriers, Italian greyhounds.
- The smell of a predator. Place feathers of birds of prey in possible habitats: owls, eagle, falcon. A piece of fox or wolf fur will also work.
Protective aromatherapy. Place a few drops of eucalyptus, mint or bay laurel essential oil on a cotton pad. Dried stems with leaves of these plants are also suitable.
- Allspice. Sprinkle ground black pepper in areas where rodents may appear.
- Onions are also hated by rats because of their smell and are harmful to their digestion. Place sliced onions near baseboards and in basements and attics.
- Ash. Rats will never live in a house built on ashes. You can scatter ash around the house and area, thereby driving away unwanted guests.