HELP RATS! Rats getting in around drain!

[Dotdotblue]

Help!,

I have had a problem with rats getting into my extension and scaring the other half!

I have dug a trench along the edge (see pictures below) and there seems to be a large gaping hole around where the rain water down pipe goes underneath the extension. Im not a builder or anything but im guessing this has been bodged by whoever built this?? (Extension was already there when bought house).

How would you recommend fixing something like that?

Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome! Like i said i am no builder..

Cheers

 

[Dereekoo]

Rat poison

 

[HERTS P&D]

When you have decking, you also have rats.

Andy

 

[Dotdotblue]

Yeah Andy you are right. I have been told this by the pest control guy. Unfortunately that decking in the picture is my neighbours

 

[CBW]

When you have decking, you also have rats.

Andy

Not heard of that before, any reason why?

 

[HERTS P&D]

People normally drop a lot of food on decking, especially when its BBQ time and the rats find a nice place to shelter.

Andy

 

[Dereekoo]

Not heard of that before, any reason why?

Cos rats can scurry around with impunity although if rats are not present in the area they don't suddenly appear cos of decking but they say you are never more than 1.5m from a rat.

 

[HERTS P&D]

Yeah Andy you are right. I have been told this by the pest control guy. Unfortunately that decking in the picture is my neighbours

Did the neighbours allow you access?
The next best thing to do is fill any holes with chicken wire and broken glass. You can also mix rat poison with peanut butter- rats love it!

Andy

 

[JohnD]

some people have a Rat Table ("bird table") which they fill with Rat Food that is spilled in the ground to provide the rats with daily meals. Rats also need constant availability of water (I once found a bad nest next to a garden tap with a long term drip) and they love the roomy shelter provided by decking.

The drain in the pic is quite likely leaking.

If you have access under or beside it, put down several small dishes of rat poison, and replenish them daily until they stop getting empty. Cover them to prevent other wildlife or pets getting access. I use bright red plastic flowerpot saucers, they are easy to check with a small torch. Once the rats seem to have gone, check and replenish the saucers at least monthly. When you have an active infestation you need to do it daily.

 

[Dotdotblue]

Yeah andy the neighbour let us access to it.

There is evidence that we had mice at some point that we only recently found out when cleaning underneath some cupboards. The pest control guy rekons the rats probably ate the mice.. im thinking chickenwire might not stop any possible mice entering?

Surely something like this when it was built should have been blocked off and sealed around the drain ?

JohnD the neighbour has a water fountain and bird bath in her garden so theyll have plenty of water sources.

 

[rds60h]

Get a bottle of Peppermint Oil off of E-Bay then soak 5 or 6 Cotton Balls with the oil and leave the Cotton Balls in areas where you know the rats use, repeat again after about a week and that should be the end of having rats. Apparently it is not safe to use the Peppermint Oil if you have cats.

 

[sxturbo]

If a soil pipe was once where the extension is and has been moved it's highly likely that this hasn't been capped correctly.

Pest controllers I've found are absolutely useless. Answer to everything is just put poison down, very little looking into the actual problem.

I would highly recommend a full drain survey by a reputable company as a starting point.

If your blocking any holes, use cement with crushed glass mixed in, stops them digging through.

I had issues with rats in my last place.

They were in the walls, the loft, the downstairs bathroom.

Pest control was useless.

The drain survey guy I used was more clued up than the pest control guy. That's where I found the old soil pipe, had to dig up the concrete screed to access the old soil pipe. Turned out the builder thought that the floor insulation was sufficient protection against rats rather than blocking the drain properly.

 

[Dotdotblue]

Hey Sxturbo,

We had a drain survey done expceting there to be a break in the pipe somewhere but they were all ok.

My next best guess is that they crawled up the soil pipe and chewed through the pan connector to the toilet in the extension but this is buried under some cupboards in the extension so ill be checking that next and installing a rat gate on the main soil line so no more can crawl up it.

I found some holes outside the extension right behind where the toilet is so im guessing they have come out of the back of the toilet and then burrowed down and out or out of the hole in the picture above.

 

[Dotdotblue]

By the way JohnD, There is a pressure release valve for my boiler down the side of the extension that is dripping water.. this is the next thing on my to do list of things to fix.

 

[notenoughcash]

short term fix is expander foam. apparently they hate chewing through it