I had to think What forum to put this under, hobbies/ pastimes or general chat, as I have spent some time on this problem, How to reduce the rats in my area, particularly my garden, not in my house I must point out, I will start from when I lived in Balikpapan, we had a house invasion, we lived close to the river, so I bought at enormous expense one of those ultra sound gadgets to deter our little friends, imagine my wife and I horror to hear a noise in the kitchen to look through the glass door to see five rats dancing round our super expensive ultra sound gadget, we opened the door, the rats fled up the wall and out the gap above the door, I killed one, anyway our very nice Chinese landlady fixed all gaps, then here in Pondok Cabe, we used the sticky pad, only to be woken up by a horrendous noise as a rat stuck to the pad is rescued by its mates, then I bought some super German traps along with some super top range American traps already baited, only for the rats to eat the bait without setting the traps off, mega smart, my latest purchase is a cage type, which I set last night, this morning I excitedly rush out to see what I’ve caught, surprise, surprise, the bait has gone, to add insult to injury the little barsted crapped in the cage, my dog is more success full it caught and killed one the other day, his kill rate is a bit slow, so other than moving to a rat free area in java any suggestions on lowering the rodent population without harming the local wild life
INFORMATION AND COMMUNITY FOR EXPATS IN INDONESIA
What else, Rats again
- Thread starter Anglian
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First make sure that they dont have access to food. This includes tiny amounts such as leftovers or stuff in the sink. Get trashcans with lids that they can't get into.
The only success I had was with the cap gajah sticky mats, other traps just don't work. Yes its a tad cruel, so maybe find a way to quicken its demise.
The only success I had was with the cap gajah sticky mats, other traps just don't work. Yes its a tad cruel, so maybe find a way to quicken its demise.
Blimey the rats are bigger than the cats, they seem to be living in harmony, plus my dog hates cats, I’m considering the sticky pads again, but the rats seem to avoid them, but my dog always shows great interest in anything new, so I dont want him literally sticking his nose in, plus I’m going to have to make some modification to the cage, mind for 45,000rp you cannot expect Fort Knox, anyway I will keep at it, something to stop them breeding would be useful, I did view the cage type in Ace, but wary of Ace traps anyone bought one and tried it
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The only 'Ace traps' I'm very wary of is they don't readily accept returns.
I bought an electric timer. It didn't work so returned it next day and they said I would have to wait 1/2 hour while they tested it....I blew my fuse.
They quickly gave me a new one but not before cleanly removing it from the packaging. I saw them put my non-working timer back in the package....presumably for some other naive person to buy.
The manager then said there was a no-return policy on the 2nd one.
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Only in Indonesia I got to see and experienced rat problems. They were making a lot of sounds running on our attic - wife said those are cats running here and there. It seems there is a cat family living in our neighbour's roof. But then I become suspicious when the rats start to fight and were making those squeaky noises. Way different than when cats are fighting. So again I said to my wife I think we have rats and again she swoop the whole problem under the carpet. So our life continued ... until one day (when we came back from Aussie this year in July) I noticed a lot of .... mud traces in our toilet, the tiny metal guard for our drainage was open. After cleaning bathroom I placed a small volcanic rock on top of that metal guard and it was ok for few days. Then they came inside the toilet from the attic... got into our kitchen and tried our old breadcrumbs and old pasta.
I said that is enough, those pesky rats (I though all the time it was mice) are doomed. I gave instructions to the driver, to buy lem gajah a rat trap + Dora (poison). Lem gajah trap was used in the cupboard with a little of the already open bag of breadcrumbs, Dora was applied on top of every ac unit outside, every corner of the house in a paper self made tray from newspaper. I placed it not only in our back garden as there is no wild life there but as well behind our gas tank in the house, one tray went to the top of our water heater (on the weekend only while we go back to Bandung).
Next day morning .... a scream .... my wife noticed a rat trapped in glue in our cupboard.....so one down.
The running noises still continued on the attic together with dora disappearing slowly each day ....then slowly day by day the noises stopped completely, and their favorite dora food was left untouched. It took about one week from applying deratification process till complete quietness.
I said that is enough, those pesky rats (I though all the time it was mice) are doomed. I gave instructions to the driver, to buy lem gajah a rat trap + Dora (poison). Lem gajah trap was used in the cupboard with a little of the already open bag of breadcrumbs, Dora was applied on top of every ac unit outside, every corner of the house in a paper self made tray from newspaper. I placed it not only in our back garden as there is no wild life there but as well behind our gas tank in the house, one tray went to the top of our water heater (on the weekend only while we go back to Bandung).
Next day morning .... a scream .... my wife noticed a rat trapped in glue in our cupboard.....so one down.
The running noises still continued on the attic together with dora disappearing slowly each day ....then slowly day by day the noises stopped completely, and their favorite dora food was left untouched. It took about one week from applying deratification process till complete quietness.
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My Dora cost 7000 from supermarket and 3000 from the street. The sticky pad was a luxurious coffin like looking hard cover resembling a book in a way - rat trap - 25-35-ish k rp.
Did you have to plug the holes where the rats got in the attic? Otherwise, I would imagine it would just be a matter of time before you would have more rats? With all the rats around I would think this would be an ongoing process?
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Re: post # 10 by smallworld
Great story, well written and amusing...made my day to read it...
now if I could only find a less gruesome way to get rid of some guests in a week it would be also informative....
I am happy that you like my story.
The less gruesome way is in my opinion only poison. I have killed many mice well not me but my mouse traps during my life. All what those mouse traps are doing is "Hulk smash" action, still there can be a mess sometimes. While my uncle used one of those massive shark jaws type traps to keep rats away from basement. All of them end up in two pieces. You don't have to watch any "jaws" or "saw" movie trilogy...and you have free anatomy lesson which is great for someone who wants to be a vet, pathologist or laboratory assistant. We have used cage type traps to catch ermines. Ermines where not welcome as they killed our chicken. But we do not killed them.... they are useful animals. We release them in the nearby wood. There were some foxes ..... on the beginning we accepted the sacrifice of one chicken per month but then he become more bold so... our hunter neighbor could try out his new shotgun and keep the fox as a reward.
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Nope, we did not plugged any holes because the whole weird designed roof in the toilet have two along side gaps, long 1,5 m each gap... and the house is not mine so I didn't feel I would like to do it. Besides I think they are some sort of ventilation shafts helping our ever wet toilet to get dry. There are no windows and when you close the door it is pitch black inside.
Secondly plugging the holes may not help, rats are very smart and can find the most unusual way to get to the food.
My best practice is to leave the poison as close to the hole as possible. I got this lesson also from cementing every possible way from the beehive we have in our roof... those bees always find a new way out.
As for "ongoing process": you leave those "rat exits" open and place some poison next to it, in a way that no birds will try to eat it, no wind and rain will destroy it. Then just once a while (for eg. a month) check is the poison there or not. If not you have had some visitors refill the food and continue watching tv if the food is there it is all clear = continue watching tv.
I did watch some youtube and after seeing how people in India make bucket traps with rolling pin or how people in some developed countries use pneumatic rifle to kill rats or those hi-voltage traps..... I would opt for poison....... and ... watch tv.
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We had them in the roof- we took of the apex roof and replaced it ith a flat one- that at least stopped the clog-dancing in hob-nailed boots above our heads at night. However they are still around- we live in the kampung & have chickens, so obviously we are the go to place for spilled food snacks.
we tried the glue thingy- no results.
Hubby went down the market & bought a steel cage contraption thing- he modified it a lil bit because it didn't spring strongly enough.
Success- 2 out of 2 for the times we put it down & caught something.
But then you have a cute lil rat looking at you from behind bars... first one hubby took waaaaaay up the lane & released it- or so he tells me. 2nd one died as it chose to go in the trap while we were away for a few days.
A tip I got in the UK- if you have holes, cement them up but crush glass into the cement- rats will gnaw thru cement- but for obvious reasons they don't like to chomp on glass.
we tried the glue thingy- no results.
Hubby went down the market & bought a steel cage contraption thing- he modified it a lil bit because it didn't spring strongly enough.
Success- 2 out of 2 for the times we put it down & caught something.
But then you have a cute lil rat looking at you from behind bars... first one hubby took waaaaaay up the lane & released it- or so he tells me. 2nd one died as it chose to go in the trap while we were away for a few days.
A tip I got in the UK- if you have holes, cement them up but crush glass into the cement- rats will gnaw thru cement- but for obvious reasons they don't like to chomp on glass.
Yes they have a problem, the electric kettle I mentioned some time ago, failed to cut out when boiling, took it back had a good row, they agreed to repair it after two week got it back only for it to fail again 3 days later, not bothered with them since, not I’m afraid the best people to deal with,
Regarding the sticky pads, I caught a small rat, so I thought I would leave it, room for one more, that night horrendous noise, in the morning the sticky pad was half way across the garden and the rat was gone, there was some blood, how the rat got off the pad baffles me as it really is sticky, it must had help from its mates
Regarding rats in the roof, you don’t want those mongoose type animals, cos if they pee on your ceiling you might as well move house, the smell is unbelievably bad
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Smallworld, hubby bought a pack of Dora, but I have hidden it- we have the dogs & the last thing I want is them ingesting Dora, or a rat that has eaten it. In short it is Warfarin* & things bleed to death on the inside if they eat it.
A cruel death, so I am extremely reluctant to let him loose with it.
* given to stroke patients in very small doses to thin their blood.
