10-10-2011, 10:59 AM
@sistersue: I can't speak for Hawaii, but back at home on the mainland where I grew up, we had rats near our house at one point in time. I had heard that if you find their home location and travel paths you could disrupt them with the use of moth balls. We found some holes under the fence/bushes and places around the food source we knew the rats visited. It seemed to work, they didn't like the moth balls and took off.
I am dealing with a similar situation here in Hawaii as I type. We used to have a lot of outdoor cats around our house, but as the renters near us moved out and took their cats, we find ourselves in a serious rat issue (and I used to curse the outdoor cats - live an learn). We have rats coming in from under the post-n-pier elevated portion of the house. They wake us up at night - no way a mouse could chew that loud. We've opted not to use poison up to this point as we're afraid the rats will eat the poison and then shack up in the walls and die. Does anyone know whether that's what the rats do? Do they shack up in the walls until their nocturnal time comes? We may get an outside spayed cat from the animal shelter - worried about fleas there with our inside dogs going out to potty. That's the flip side, since all the outside cats gone, our dogs haven't had any fleas. What a conundrum.
Tomorrow I plan to take the day off from work and wage war against the rats - see where they are coming in and try and screen those off. I sure hope Algernon isn't one of the rat pack.
Any advice from the gallery would be appreciated.
Cheers!
I am dealing with a similar situation here in Hawaii as I type. We used to have a lot of outdoor cats around our house, but as the renters near us moved out and took their cats, we find ourselves in a serious rat issue (and I used to curse the outdoor cats - live an learn). We have rats coming in from under the post-n-pier elevated portion of the house. They wake us up at night - no way a mouse could chew that loud. We've opted not to use poison up to this point as we're afraid the rats will eat the poison and then shack up in the walls and die. Does anyone know whether that's what the rats do? Do they shack up in the walls until their nocturnal time comes? We may get an outside spayed cat from the animal shelter - worried about fleas there with our inside dogs going out to potty. That's the flip side, since all the outside cats gone, our dogs haven't had any fleas. What a conundrum.
Tomorrow I plan to take the day off from work and wage war against the rats - see where they are coming in and try and screen those off. I sure hope Algernon isn't one of the rat pack.
Any advice from the gallery would be appreciated.
Cheers!