How to eliminate outdoor rats?
We’ve been having rats in our back yard for 3yrs now and it’s costing a tremendous amount of money to repair the damage they’ve done and to kill them off. My neighbor has fruit trees, so there is nothing we can do to prevent the food source as he won’t cut them down. His newest one, planted right under 4yrs ago in his backyard (which is our problem tree) is planted only 4feet away from our fence. The rats eat in his yard and take shelter in ours. We can’t eliminate their shelters as they’ve used our hot tub (3 motors have been replaced already due to chewing wires), our BBQ pit (has been replaced twice, but begging husband not to replace it again as we just noticed yesterday this new one has gone to sh$t as well) and our shed since we need it to house our lawn tools. The hot tub & BBQ pit is in our screen patio so of course constant replacing of the screen is needed…as you can see I’m just FED up! My daughter can’t go in the backyard anymore (scared of her touching something contaminated) and since I’m deathly afraid of rats I can’t go in the backyard anymore without my husband being there…and since he works away 2wks out the mouth, I’m screwed! We’ve purchased every type of trap there was. The glue traps weren’t strong enough and the wood/spring traps failed on a few rats that my husband had to shoot with a pellet gun to kill them as they couldn’t get out the patio with a trap around their neck to escape. We now have the T-Rex traps and although the pellet gun has stayed in the closet now…it seems as though the rats are to smart for these traps! We’ve only killed a hand full, but there is always poop around the trap as they just walk by it. BTW, peanut butter is our main bait used. There has been this stray cat hanging around (huge, bad a$$ cat) since my dogs have passed away and I’ve been feeding it to keep it coming back for more but of course it can’t get into my patio or in my shed. I was told to NOT repel the rats from my shed or patio as they will find their way into my home…which I just can NOT allow. What can I do to completely repel them from my yard. I am assuming the rats are crawling up my 6′ wooden fence to gain access to my yard as I don’t think they can go under it or between the boards (boards are pretty swollen tight). Is there anything that I can spray on my fence to prevent them from even entering my yard once? Obviously a “little spray bottle” of something won’t be enough! It needs to be a massive amount of liquid to cover the entire fence and possibly penetrate the wood.
Now that my big dogs are gone, poison is always left out under the shed, along side the hottub, inside the hottub and in the BBQ pit. We do have a boston terrier indoors that wouldn’t know what to do with a rat and adopting another or purchasing another wouldn’t be an option right now in our lives. Over feeding the cat isn’t something I thought about, so maybe I will cut it down half a can instead of a whole can. I do know the cat is a hunter & fighter because since the cat has been around we haven’t had any visits from our ole friend the opossum…we’ve only seen the shreds of fur left over from there meeting 
. The rat population is down (going from killing 3-5 per night to 3-5 in a week) so I am guessing that is because of the cat as well but the cat doesn’t come every night…which makes sense if something else is feeding it. I’m just at my wits end. The pest control supply stores we’ve visited of course push their products on us just to make a sale and all have different opinions
Lar – It is an orange tree and it does produce year round. We have placed pieces of the orange (the newly fallen ones) on the traps and it didn’t seem to work as well as the peanut butter. We haven’t smeared juices on the poison blocks and I think that’s a great idea! My husband described the rats to the local pest shop and we were told it was Norway rats…although I’m not sold on that. They don’t always look the same..some very long & skinny, some short & fat, some brownish, some grayish, some very dark…but of course I don’t stick around to examine their features that well. I get a glance and haul A$$.
If it was my issue I’d be damn good with that pellet gun, might even have a laser sight on it! How about hot wiring the fence? That should stop most of them.
put out the warifin ( it makes them bleed out ) blocks, get some long trim nails & nail them to the fence boards. They eat they die. Buy a new one every month & nail them up & throw a few in your garage, & on the roof.
You could put out poison… but since they have a ready source of food you would likely have to poison the fruit that falls (which could be eaten by something else)… so I am not sure that is a good option.
Traps really only work well in confined spaces where they are hard to avoid (as you’ve noticed rats are darn smart for their size).
The cat won’t be compelled to kill rats if it has plenty of food… and you probably aren’t the only person feeding it.
If I were you (and since you have had dogs in the past) I’d go out and adopt a terrier of some kind. Terriers (most) were bred specifically for hunting vermin like rats. Even something the size of a Cairn Terrier will make quick work of the rats.
Hawkeye mentioned rat terriers, they’ll do a number on rats. A friend of mine had rats in the garage and she “borrowed” a rat terrier from a friend and closed it up in the garage while they had coffee. When they opened the garage door an hour later it had killed 4 big rats. If you don’t want to own another dog, advertise on Craigslist and see if you could rent or borrow one for a week or two–maybe someone needs a dog-sitter while they’re on vacation.
Large adult rats are too big for even a “bad-as*ed” cat to tackle, but rat terriers will make short work of them. You may have to pull up a floorboard or two in the shed, so the terrier can get busy where the rats live. They’re like a fox in a henhouse, they’ll keep killing until they don’t find any more rats.
If you do get a rat terrier, go around your house foundation and make sure there aren’t any gaps that escapees could move to. Make sure any openings for vents are covered with 1/4″ hardware cloth to keep them out.
You are killing a lot of rats. What you are using is good. It will take some time to kill all the rats.
Putting some dog and cat hair around the car and black pepper and the other places will help. Rats do not like to be around dog and cat scents.
Ammonia is noted to repel rats, if you can take the smell.
you didn’t mention what type of fruit they are feeding on..hopefully there is not fruit out year round. In the period when there is no fruit on the trees, get the same type of fruit from the market to bait the snap traps with. The baits can be hit or miss when there is an alternative food source, though smearing the fruit juices on the blocks may make them more attractive to the rats. I wouldn’t use warafin, Norway rats (though you may be dealing with the black rat) have become resistant to it and the newer generation anticoagulants work better. Definitely do not want to place any baits, or traps out in the open for non target animals to get into. Rats have evolved living around man and their pets so they will not be bothered by placing out cat / dog hair.
Maria: There is other alternatives but it would involve having to hire a pro…they can place what is called a tracking powder placed in a secure location they are running in which the rodents walk through it and it adheres to their fur, when they later groom themselves they ingest the dust and in turn kills them. This product is more hazardous to be around than the bait blocks..there is also a liquid toxin they can place out, once again in a very secure spot like under the hot tub area, if they are not taking the bait (food) they may take the water.
You may need the dead rodent to know for sure , but the tail of the Norway rat will not extend past the head if folded back over the body, their nose will be blunt …roof rats (black rat) the tail will be past the nose of the rat when folded over and it’s nose is more pointed. Although the roof rat is also called the black rat, it will come in a variety of shades and colors.