Not only rats but mice too!

I have had a really bad rat and mouse problem all this year. Started in the late spring. Rats and mice all summer and really bad come fall. Even so far thru the winter. Mostly I see them in my detached garage, once they got into my basement. And last fall I would be sitting out on my back patio and along would run mice from the garden at the side of the patio to the one nearer the house.

This is not what I had in mind when I planted my garden to attract wildlife.

So I kept putting out the bait. I would often find dead rats and mice both in my garage, I even saw live rats in there. And once I found a dead rat in my basement because I had put the bait there after I realised something had gotten into my basement. I could hear it at night.

Well at last the bait I put out early last week is untouched. Maybe I have finially gotten rid of them.

Do you have a cat?

Nope, no cat.

We live on acreage and whenever we are between cats, we get mice/rats. They really do keep the population down, especially if the cats are not over-fed. I currently have two cats, one has never seen the inside of our house and the other is in/out, but mostly out.

True. Here was a present for me. I hate it that it's a shrew because they really are beneficial unlike those nasty rats and mice.

I have shrews in the garden also. When I used to have cats my cats would often catch the shrews. Now I just hear them occasionally with those high pitched chirping that they make. Everything is heavily mulched and they live under the mulch. Probably the mice live under the mulch too.

I was so pleased what with the baits not being eatten thinking maybe they were gone. Nope. Today I checked and all that bait was gone. So I put out more. We are having a cold spell so I guess they are all looking for a warm place to live. Not that my detached garage is so warm.

Ucky. Warmer than exposed outdoors?

Yes, at least in the garage they have shelter from the wind and rain or snow. It sure is cold out today.

The rats and mice must be partying out in my garage. All baits were eaten when I checked this morning. And I had put out a lot of bait. So I put out more bait, even more than I had out prior times. At least when the rats eat, they die.

I checked my latest batch of rat baits but they were not eaten on overnight. Maybe this batch is dead. It just seems that a new batch always arrives.

I wonder if you can try to nail down what specifically might be attracting them in the first place? Although that could be anything and everything...

Yes, the garage is cluttered and dark so they like to live in there.

They reproduce so fast and productively...that's the problem! My sister used to raise mice for a time...to sell to pet shops, that is. People with pet snakes would buy them. We don't usually have problems with mice out here and there's never any rats that I know of.

Linda, that is very fortunate that you don't have any rodent problems. They sure are a pain to get rid of.

Well, today I checked this latest batch of rat baits that have been out in the garage for weeks now and they are still there left alone. Hopefully that means I wiped out the rats and mice here. Hope they stay away and don't come back.

That's what I thought about the mice that got into our garage. Then I noticed there was a bunch of sunflower seed shells under the container (hard plastic trash can) I have them stored into. Finally, I had to get a new trash can. I'm not putting that new trash can in the spot of the old one yet. I want the mice to find the trap in that spot.

If I see any signs of them I also put out rat baits.

Well, it had been months and months since I saw a rat or any of the rat baits in the garage had been eatten. But my luck ran out. Afew days ago I saw a grown rat running thru the garden. In the middle of the day yet. Now rat baits have been eatten but my garage stinks so it might have died in there.