San Francisco County, San Francisco Rat Control Situation:
I found you my doing a web search and happen to see that you used everything I have used, but I have not had the success you have had!!! Please David I hope you can help me. I live in San Francisco in the Oakland area on the cities eastside. I live in a gentrified neighborhood where they are tearing down abandoned homes and this is when the rat problem seemed to start. I started having a rat problem about 2010. Our street once upon a time had at least 8 feral cats, but now you hardly see any now. We at one time had zero rat problems. I have always owned cats but when my cat died in 2007 I switched to dogs. Now the male dog I have is a good ratter. I've seen him stomp rats to death. However, the problem is superseding his ability and on any given night I will see rats running around my kitchen 2 or 3 around the same times. I also think I have roof rats as I see rats upstairs that look and act different than the rats downstairs. So I'll sit and wait with my BB gun and hope I will hit one, which is rare. They almost seem to be able to read our minds and anticipate our next tactic. I have tried the Vector rat traps, baiting them with peanut butter, marshmallows chicken grease and they will eat the bait of and leave the trap untripped. I bought the cage traps, baited with dog food and the first few times did catch some but then the dilemma was I couldn't kill them like that, so resorted to poison and at first was killing them great then I started finding their droppings with the green in it and they were still running around. They soon learned to avoid the cages and poison. I brought a zapper; it was great for the mice I caught , but zero rat has been caught!! They also got into my basement by digging along the sewer line. My son has a red tailed boa ,which we thought about putting there, but it's too risky he would escape somewhere. I tried electronics and that just doesn't work at all! These ghetto rats are SUPER SMART. i went to a professional exterminator and he was telling me that this was probably one rat doing this and that some of the things I was telling him they do just wasn't true so i didn't use his exterminating services ,but, did buy the poisons from his retail store and place it as he instructed w/o relief of this problem. They steal too. When all their food sources were dried up, they came in my living room and nawed a rat head sized hole in the stiff plastic bag and stole 1/2 of a 1# bag of hard ginger candy and took it somewhere. There wasn't a trace. I stored my dog's food in a lidded tupperware container and they knawed right through that. My camera is missing, which was on my kitchen table,. Yesterday I was looking for my dish towel and they had put it under the kitchen sink as they had [artially pulled it through the kick plate., They stole paper $5 money from my son's table and it was found inside a hole in the wall. I found where they chewed through mortar so remortared those areas only for them to do again. They are destroying my home and my peace and I am almost ready to just burn this house down (figurative speech). I see them outside like squirrels looking at us and I've called the city and they have done nothing! Is my house possessed by rat demons or is this a living earthly rat infestation that can be eradicated? Can you please give me some advice and direction, please?? Thank you, Ellen
My response: I have had rats steal my camera in the past too. I think it's probably a living earthly rat infestation. You need to find out how they are getting into your house, and seal those holes shut.
San Francisco Rat Control Tip of The Week
Tips To Get Rid Of Rats In The Attic
It's normal for you to have that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you keep hearing that scurrying sound coming from your attic because of the indecent activities of rats. To put an end to this weird feeling, you need to get rid of the rats living in your attic.
Have you been wanting to do this but you don't know how to go about it? Right here, we will be sharing some tips on how to get rid of rats in the attic. With the following tips, you will be able to do as you please and keep your attic free from rats.
When it comes to getting rid of rats in your attic, the first thing you need to do is to inspect your house in order for you to know exactly how the rats got into your attic. Being a very flexible animal with an ability to sneak around and pass through openings as small as a quarter of an inch, rats can enter into your attic through different openings. What this implies is that you need to inspect your attic properly to know how they got in.
The second step you need to take is to inspect your attic to know the extent to which the rats have damaged your attic. Rats in the attic are capable of chewing your wires and tearing the insulation in the roofing for their nests.
After inspecting the attic, the next thing you need to do is seal up all the entry holes that you were able to find while inspecting the attic. This should be done with durable materials that rats can't chew. Materials like this include steel screens and metal.
Lastly, you need to trap or kill the rats using either a snap trap or a one-way exclusion funnel. Do not use rat poisons to get rid of the rats in your attic. It will only create more environmental problems instead of reducing them.
