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Rats - Following On From Pastafreak

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jourdain2 | 22:24 Thu 16th Jan 2025 | Home & Garden
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We live next door to a row of 6 Housing Association dwellings.  The Septic Tank for their 6 houses is situated immediately behind our garage.  They have no access to it through high fencing, nor do we.  This is, of course, a safe paradise for rats.

Over the years when we have spotted rats, we have spent quite a lot of money on putting down poison on their runs into their Ritz Hotel enclosure.

After Xmas I went into our garage to discover that they have migrated and burrowed underground, to come up in our garage behind our new oil boiler and freezer - there is aggregate scattered everywhere and you can see the tunnel entrance.  2Kkg of spuds had disappeared (I later found them with knawed marks).  So I bought a plastic lidded box for veg..

I am, however left with rats (aided and abetted by housing association) in my garage.  It has cost about £15 to kill this lot, but the wiring on the boiler is now at risk.

I have rung the Housing association, but the person concerned is always in a meeting and doesn't ring back.

Any advice please? They are not my rats, the H.A. is to blame.  No-one here can reach them.

 

 

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Are not the Local Authority interested ?   They're a danger to Public Health surely ?

Lordy that's awful. 

So glad I live on an upper floor...not that that deters rats.

I would write a good old fashioned letter at this stage. Make it quite formal and insist on them taking immediate action. 
Meanwhile report it to environmental health.

can you enlist a few neighbours to report it too?

Do you think it's the septic tank to blame or the waste ground?

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I think it's the fact that they are safe inside 4 wooden walls, which protect them from the worst of the weather. No predators can reach them.

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Thanks for the advice. I think that probably I'll try 1 more phone call and then resort to a formal letter asking that they take steps to control the rats, perhaps putting down poison regularly. The neighbours say no-one from the H. Ass. has been near it for 2 years.

It might be worth contacting your local councillor as well.

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That's a good idea, Barmaid, I'll find out who it is.

I find this odd. They may not be'your' rats but do rats belong to anyone? It may be your view that they belong to the ha, but I would think they would have a different view. 

Our local council don't want to know,they only gave me name of private company, so good luck

"They are not my rats"...good luck with proving the ownership. I'm with bednobs here.

I get what Bednobs means about "my/your" rats.  However, I suspect that the septic tank is in this fenced off area and it is probably very overgrown in there.  Additionally, there will probably also be an accumulation of rubbish.  The septic tank itself will probably also give off warmth.  If the area is not kept tidy and maintained, it becomes a "rat hotel" (I had precisely this problem with a property I moved into in 2017).  Rats breed with alarming regularity - we have the devil's own job of keeping on top of them here (although the cats are very good at catching the baby ones).

The potential lack of maintenance is probably contributing to this problem and the HA needs to deal with the issue on their land.  Obviously Jourdain will need to deal with it on her land, but unless a joint concerted effort is made the problem will not go away.

^however, the rats have "migrated" to the garage, possibly attracted by food and even more warmth from the boiler. I can see that the HA will regard them as not their problem. Although I agree that a joint effort at eradication is the best/only solution.

Gingebee makes a good point, Jourdain.  Remove any food from the garage.  The compound area is their hotel and your garage is currently the buffet.  A plastic lidded box will not work, they will chew through that no problem.  

I would also get a professional pest controller in.

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I actually managed a short phone call to the lady concernedin this and she is 'activating a process' which will eventually sent out an assessor and environmental control person, who may set traps etc. .  This is all very well, but it needs to be ongoing.

I think I've killed them all for now, but what about the damage to our garage floor and the need for re-establishment of aggregate around the edges.  Then it probably needs liquid concrete pouring in.  I can't do this, neither can Mr. J2 (currently in hospital).  If we have to get someone in it will cost us again - and ssomeone else is housing the rats which have caused us damage.  This surely can't be right.

Over the 10 years we have lived here, we must have spent well over a couple of hundred pounds on rat poison, because no-one  else  (Housing Association is responsibly party) has been doing anything.

Surely it is their turn to sort it out and make good the damage caused by rats from their property?

 

 

Surely

 

 

Jourdain, much as it might anger you, you will never prove that.  If the cost is going to be high, consider a claim on your house insurance.  Whilst the HA might have not helped the problem, you will never prove it was their fault.  

Surely rats are wild animals and are not domestic pets which are being allowed by negligence to wander to other people's properties? I once had rats wandering along the river behind our house and then settling under my shed. I got rat controllers involved and paid for it myself. It's said that everybody in the UK is permanently within a few metres of a  rat. I'm not sure that you can blame everyone close to your boundary as being responsible for rats on your property. I hope the Council can help you. Good luck.

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Thanks all.  Looks as if I am going to have to gird the loins etc.. It's just that with Mr. Jr at Death's door a few weeks ago and still in hospital.......I've had enough.  They are really not my rats!!!!

You have my sympathy, jourdain.

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Thanks, Atheist.  Today my neighbour told me that his minature dachsies can get in there and his last dog died from rat poison! I've guaranteed that I didn't chuck any into the enclosure and stuck to the boiler area (they were the ones I wanted after all)but I'm now so worried that the rats may have dragged some back............

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