There's a rat in my kitchen - what do I do?

silverharp · 08-01-2014 07:09PM

listen to this song, possible suggestions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS0fXQN6zrI

john the one · 08-01-2014 07:17PM

If you could trim the rats hairs you could make a tash from it

The Th!ng · 08-01-2014 07:19PM

Essential reading.

http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/rw.aspx

Berteee · 08-01-2014 07:24PM

catallus wrote: »

I'd honestly rather a live rat running around than a dead rat in the wall.

I think you's want a dose of the 1960's. I grew up running them out of the kitchen with a pitch fork. And if you caught one there'd be ****e all over the place.

Berteee · 08-01-2014 07:31PM

The Th!ng wrote: »

Essential reading.

http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/rw.aspx

Could you summarise that please?

The Th!ng · 08-01-2014 07:35PM

BigJohn1963 wrote: »

Could you summarise that please?

Atmospheric tale of terror about rats by HP Lovecraft - a master of the macabre.

feargale · 26-01-2014 06:11PM

Can rats swim?

gctest50 · 26-01-2014 06:22PM

yip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ian-1-RcPY

SamAK · 26-01-2014 06:23PM

feargale wrote: »

Why water?

As far as I am aware, that blue-block rat poison dehydrates the arse off them, then they drink water and begin to bloat. Possibly leading to some sort of small explosion. And a bad-mutha****a of a smell in your wall.

handbagmad wrote: »

Get a jack Russell dog. Great little fellas for catching rats n mice.

Agreed, my JR is a legend, there's a rat in the attic room where I have to sleep occasionally when I go home visiting, and Basil (yeah, Basil), stays up half the night, wired to the moon, giving the wall the thousand yard stare and occasionally patrolling the perimeter. Plus, he's a damn good hot water bottle

I love dogs! Especially small, pest-control varieties.

juniord · 26-01-2014 06:23PM

feargale wrote: »

Can rats swim?

yes

evolving_doors · 26-01-2014 06:28PM

If you put down fine white pepper he will sneeze so hard that he'll bash his head off the ground and kill himself....I tried this before and it worked..

maguic24 · 26-01-2014 06:34PM

WikiHow wrote: »

Cats are no good for killing big rats.

You obviously haven't met my cat. He likes to bring me presents now and again, which I don't appreciate!!

maguic24 · 26-01-2014 06:36PM

Get a honey badger OP! Honey badger don't care, honey badger don't give a sh*t!

Rhyme · 26-01-2014 06:41PM

Get Geldof.

siblers · 26-01-2014 06:42PM

Ficheall wrote: »

So... there appears to be a rat in my kitchen.

I'm renting a terraced house. One of the adjoining houses has a couple of dogs, a back yard full of dog**** and bags of rubbish. There was a lot of activity in the house next door this morning, whether the tenants decided to do a spring clean or whether they've gone and the landlord has embarked upon the unenviable quest of cleaning up after them. I suspect they disturbed the rat and that that's why it's ended up in my house - though I'm not long back after Christmas, so I suppose it's possible that they were here before.

The house is oddly built - the kitchen is more like an almost detached pantry stuck on the back as an afterthought. It doesn't appear to be terribly well finished behind the presses and the cooker etc. from what I can tell, and I presume it's shoddily connected to the kitchen of the house next door. The door from the kitchen to the rest of the house is closed at all times, so hopefully they won't be able to get in any further.

The previous tenant informed me that they had rats during the summer and that they had the exterminator in. I had assumed it was due to a combination of the heat and the mess next door, though I suppose this is not necessarily the case.

TL;DR - there's a rat in my kitchen.

What should I do?

I have no qualms about the rat(s) dying, though I don't want their rotting corpses to stink up the place.

I saved a spider from the bath this evening - I feel karma has let me down here.

I'm going to just bin all the food I have in the kitchen now (not much in it anyway - a perk of living alone) so that there's nothing to draw them back. It can't be the warmth they're coming for - it's a whopping ten degrees in here now and the kitchen's even colder. Suppose I should hoover the floor for crumbs too.... sigh...

For every one rat you see there's another 5 or 6 you can't see. Not trying to alarm you or anything. Rats reproduce like crazy, you'll either have to hire pest control or start putting down poison and traps.

SilverScreen · 26-01-2014 06:42PM

Ficheall wrote: »

TL;DR - there's a rat in my kitchen.

What should I do?

Get some cats. Feed the rats to the cats and the cats to the rats and get the cat-skins for nothing.

branie · 26-01-2014 10:59PM

Call the Pied Piper

feargale · 26-01-2014 11:59PM

branie wrote: »

Call the Pied Piper

But send the children to Gaeltacht summer college for the duration of his visit.

Ficheall · 27-01-2014 12:04AM

The OP has long since been eaten - nothing remained but his jam-covered toes.

There's a rat in my kitchen - what do I do?

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