How you garden shouldn't have an effect on your rat population. Rats to perfectly well in the urban areas without a speck of green and are very rare in the rural areas with lots of green. Rats benefit from human made structures and human provided food.

You need to find where they are entering the garage and seal it up. It may seem hard but thats the only way you will win the battle.

That will keep them out but the population needs food so there must be a source (garbage, cat/dog food, birdseed) somewhere nearby. If you are in an urban or suburban area then the trash and litter from others will freed them plenty and the outside population will always be there. If you have log or brush piles in the garden for wildlife then yes, those could provide shelter for rats so it would be good to remove them but rats still need food (and they don't eat your flowers). Remove all piles of anything from around your garage will help reduce the shelter they have but sealing the holes up is really the only way (unless you see your whole neighborhood joining together to keep all garbage tightly sealed and properly placed in garbage cans and not leaving any birdseed out or cat food or anything?)

I am in typical suburbia. Yes, I know they create tunnels to get into the garage. Nothing new about that.

Brenda, welcome to ATP.

Brenda!

Rita feeds the birds as do I, so far no rats for me, just a lot of voles and mice.

Thing is I live not far from the water of Long Island sound. Lots of rocks and jetties down there at waters edge. Loaded with rats. Every once in a while some of the rats wander and end up in my garden.

Then they find food and a nice place to hang out, unfortunately it is your place Rita!

True, nicely mulched garden beds and that garage they love to hang out in. I always have rat poison bars out in the garage. Things like dogs or cats can't get in to the garage so I know it is rats or mice eating that poison. In fact it is not unusual to find a dead one in the garage.

We have squirrels running around above the ceiling. Wondering if there's any chance they'll move out on their own. Geez!

LindaTX8 said:We have squirrels running around above the ceiling. Wondering if there's any chance they'll move out on their own. Geez!

I don't think so Linda, my sisters neighbor had to set live traps to catch a family in their attic.

to ATP Brenda!

Newyorkrita

Years ago when our house boarded along side of a cow farm, we had field mice that would come in. It got so bad with them they would eat right through the plastic cover to the lard jar. One time I got some cookies out of the top cabinets to give to the kids, and my son hay someone ate part of my cookie, I told him no, and to go ahead and eat the rest, then later is when I found the lard jar lid eaten through. I made my son throw up the cookie...LOL

We sold our problem of the mice coming into the house by our pet rat, whom I brought home from the university. One day they had a rat left over from an experiment so I brought it home for my son. The rat had a ball he would ride around the house and I guess the smell of him, the field mice never wanted to come back again...LOL

I don't know if a pet rat would be very good again field rats or not.... don't think I would want to try and find out...

Hope you are able to get rid of them soon and for good.

Love the quote from Virgil, Tee!
My mice always find the bird seed. I have to put it in the closed-in verandah where the cats lord it. People mainly use native pythons here (like Carpet Pythons) by actively encouraging their residency. They are quite effective in a barn or a shed.

Love the quote from Virgil, Tee!
My mice always find the bird seed. I have to put it in the closed-in verandah where the cats lord it. People mainly use native pythons here (like Carpet Pythons) by actively encouraging their residency. They are quite effective in a barn or a shed.

Thanks, Glen. I can imagine they would be. What size are the pythons? I think of them as rather fearsome creatures.

Tee, they can be quite big but you can have them at any size in residence (usually 5-8ft). They become use to people but mainly stay in the rafters when at rest. Country people will often take you and show you their carpet snake.

Yikes! I don't know about a snake that's taller than I am. It's interesting to hear that they become accustomed to being around humans. Do you know how often they eat? As I recall, it isn't every day but I could be wrong about that.

Yes, a couple of big juicy rats would mean a nice snooze for a few days.

Sharing my house with a python would take some getting used to, but it seems very practical to have them in a home with a rodent problem.

I think I would rather have a cat (outside) I have allergies!

My mother had a lot of mice and this was after her cat died. I was out on a quiet morning cleaning her birdbath and I saw the man next door pour out 4 dish pans of dog food and then he went to work. After the 4 dogs ate half of the food they were full and went to sleep. Then I kept watching and saw grackles and crows taking dog food and drop it into my mothers birdbath. Gravy-train, no wonder the water was red.
Then when they were done the mice would come out from under the house and help their self and run back under the house. This was their food source! Back and forth they went!

I have always had a bird feeder and have never had mice or rats, I also do not have a dog or cat so there is no food source there. It could be your neighbors, do they put out dog or cat food? Are their garbage cans secure? The garbage cans can also attract raccoon's and foxes even in the city and they are rabid. This is very bad.

It is possible that my feeder attracts a few mice but there always seems to be a stray cat some where in the neighborhood. If there was no cats I might have a problem and I would get my own cat.

The city has given us new trash cans that mice and animals cannot get into because the lid is heavy and stays down. Here is a similar can. http://www.bearicuda.com/critt...

My girlfriend has a wild ferret that lives under her house. She hasn't had a mice problem since he moved in. She does put out a little cat food every day to keep him there, but not enough to really feed him. Of course, she also has other wild critters that are not welcome, but that's another story.

When I was in college, I lived at the beach. The apartment house was totally infested with roaches. I bought a gecko and moved him into my apartment. I was the only tenant that didn't have roaches. Most of the time I never saw him. However, I was often startled when I would pull a book out of the bookcase and come face-to-face with him.

I've always had what I called a "working cat". Kind of like a barn cat. The cat is not a pet and rarely gets fed by me. He has to hunt to eat and lives outside. The result is that I don't have varmint problems, except to have to remove some of the gifts he leaves at the back door.

Scamp lives out in the woodshed and works the whole property. My biggest worry about him is that one of the predators that are common up here will view him as lunch and I'll lose him.

Smiles,
Lyn

I call my barn cats 'walk-ons' - they just show up and set up residency. I too feed them enough to have them stick around but not enough so they get lazy. I currently have two walk-ons and one in/out house cat. All three seem to be pretty good hunters. I think nothing of leaving for the weekend, and they are always still here when we return.