Embarrassing:Unwanted Critters

[Carroll Courtney]

I hate to say this but I have rats in the shop.I guess due to the lack of rain,having a wooded area behind the house,why now:mad::mad: I just don't know???
Over the last couple of months I notice small nuggets throughout the shop on table tops,work bench,small stack of wood and in front of the area where I keep my adult beverages:cool: and on my sweat rags.So I run down to the local HD and purchase a box of Decon,put it out and over acouple of weeks only alittle has been ate.I know that if I don't get this taken care of fast there will be hurds of these rascals all over the place.The local security(my dogs)runs in there all the time barking,but their to slow to catch them.
If you should have/had this problem before,how did you solve it,any tricks,home remedies??I promise,you will remain anonymous and this subject does kinda pertain to woodworking.Thanks for any advice---Carroll

[Keith Harrell]

The problem with poison is that they may die and you then you have to find them after a few days. Not fun.
I use traps but only have had trouble with mice which attract snakes which bother me more. Seeing a mouse out of the corner of my eye while cutting a board is one thing but seeing a snake could cause me to jump higher.
My shop is out in the woods and I don't have any food in it but the mats and cloths I use for wiping seem to attract them for nest material which is what they are looking for now.
They don't like Stevie Ray Vaughan either as I have seen them run out when I turn the volume up. No taste for Texas blues I guess.

[Wes Grass]

Rather than poison, use a mix of 3 parts oatmeal and 1 part plaster of paris. Sets up into a rock in their gut and kills them, with no poison to bother natural predators like owls and such.

[Jerome Hanby]

Install a litter box and get some cats!

[Jim Rimmer]

You are right about the drought - bugs and critters are hunting water. Near the coast you have to be ahead of the game to keep the Norwegian rats out. HD has a poison specifically for them but i don't remember the brand. They are small green cubes about 1"x1"x3/4". It makes them even thirstier, and I've been told it makes them claustrophobic but i doubt that, and they leave seeking water before they die. It has kept them out of my shop and house. look for something specifically for Norwegian roof rats.

[Sean Kinn]

See if you can identify their path....from the trail of "nuggets." Then place many traps in places along the path. I'm also against the use of poison inside of a structure because they sure make a heck of a stink while they decay inside of the wall....if they even take the poison. I'd also do a very careful inspection to see if you can spot their entry and exit point.

[Bill White]

You're overthinking. Get some mouse traps and peanut butter. Smash their little necks and throw 'em in the convenient woods. NO MERCY!
Bill

[scott vroom]

+1 on what Bill said.

[Erik France]

I've been dealing with them in my attic. Seal off any and all spots where they are getting in. #3 Steel wool works well and/or wire mesh. Trap the ones left inside. I've never liked using poison. I think a varmit that has died on that suff stinks a whole lot more than one that didn't. Those electronic traps do work. I was getting around a 50% failure rate on the spring traps I set in my attic.

[David Cefai]

There are ultrasonic devices which are meant to repel rats. I have heard mixed reports on their efficacy.

I don't know how big "rats" are in the US. If it means "mouse", ie something ~2-3" without the tail there is a glue you spread on plywood and place it strategically it is very effective.

However calling in the pros may be the most effective option.

[Lee Schierer]

You want one of these:200819 He is cute, but deadly for mice.

[Steve Ryan]

5 gal or larger bucket, much larger for bigger rats. Get a coffee can, or paint can for bigger rats. Drill it dead center of top and bottom, run a wire through it. Drill 2 holes near top of big bucket 180 degrees apart, string up coffe can in center of big bucket so it spins easily. Dump antifreeze into bott of big bucket, deeper for bigger rats. Slather the coffee can with peanut butter and make a ramp up to the edge of the big bucket. Mouse walks up ramp, smells peanut butter, jumps on. Can rotates and mouse falls and drowns/dies in/from the antifreeze, cannot jump out if floating. Antifreeze pickles the little pest so little or no smell. Easy enough to set up where only the little buggers can get into it, and it will work until full so only need to check every few days. I know a lot of car guys with less than perfect garages who use these to keep mice from chewing the wires in their winter stored cars.

[David Peterson]

I want to get some rats just so I can try Steve's idea.

[Brian Kent]

Two words: Pet Owl

[geoff wood]

a year ago i bought a new bandsaw and the day after i set it up i went into my shop to go try it for the first time. i opened the bottom wheel cover before i turned it on and it was chock full of acorns, they just came pouring out! something must have gotten in through the opening in my soffit, still havent found the critter.

[C Scott McDonald]

Interesting, I have mice this year, last year it was Black Widows so I will take the mice.

[lowell holmes]

I had some old shellac that I wanted to diapose of. I took a bit of kitty litter and put it in a plastic grocer's bag, poured in the old shellac and then put the whole mess in a trash can I keep in the shop. I was going to let the kitty litter absorb the shellac and then send the whole thing to the dump.

I forgot about it and it was there for a while.

A few weeks later, I could smell something dead. Looking for it, I determined the smell was coming from the trash can. I discovered 5 dead rats, side by side where they had been eating the kitty litter-shellac mixture.

I am not recommending anything and I wouldn't do it again.

[Keith Harrell]

Steve, I have tired the bucket with water but the antifreeze is a new a great idea.

[keith micinski]

Poison is a terrible idea. The only thing worse then a rat is a rotting dead one in the wall. There is no substitute for a barn/shop cat but these are the second greatest invention ever http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_01218411000P?sid=IDx20070921x00003a&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=01218411000P They really do work.

[John TenEyck]

Go to the local animal shelter or rescue folks and get yourself a stray cat. He, or usually better, she will kill every animal smaller than herself. No vermin in my kitty protected shop. My first rescue cat would curl-up and sleep under a bench in my shop while I was working no matter what equipment I was running. And I can't begin to tell you how many ball games that old boy and I have watched together over the years.

[Larry Frank]

I do not have rats but have the striped ground squirrels which are a near cousin. I went to the farm coop store and asked them what to do. They sold me some traps and said to put peanut butter in them with bird seed pushed into it. I get better than 20 a year with the traps. This will also work with rats.

[Jim Summers]

Traps and peanut butter have always worked for me. The one thing that seemed to have stopped them from coming into my shop was eliminating places for them to hide when coming from the outside. What I had been doing, was outside of the shop I had some cinder blocks on the ground and I would set stuff like oil drain pans, propane bottles on them to keep them out of the dirt/mud. Well, unknowingly I had created a perfect place for them to hide as they made their journey from the great outdoors to inside the shop. One day, I re-organized things outside, and now I haven't had any more mouse troubles. Might help.

Take it easy

[Phil Thien]

Keep the poisons away from the dogs. Keep ANYTHING the dog will eat away from the dog.

My neighbor put boxes of Decon all around the outside of her house because she saw some mice. Her dog ate a box of the stuff. My kid noticed the dog had green crap in its teeth, and pointed out that the dog had consumed the poison. The neighbor got a BIG bill from the vet for that one.

Get a Maine Coon cat. That will fix the rats.

[Joe Adams]

If you have dogs, be careful with using antifreeze as it will poison them as well.

[Michael Weber]

Slather the coffee can with peanut butter .
that's a new one for me but chalk up another use for the perfect food:D

[Andy Sowers]

+750 on no poison.

I live in an urban area where ~7ft fences separating lots is the norm. My IDIOT neighbor thought that it would be a good idea to put DECON bait on the top of the fence between our yards. Not only did the bait fail to control the varmits, but one day I found a shredded DECON trap in my backyard. The wind blew the mess over into MY backyard where one (or more) of my three dogs got into it.

After $750 worth of vet bills, we approached the guy... his brilliant response was he put it up there so HIS dogs wouldnt get into it. Unbelievable!

Stick with cats or traps!!

Andy

[Ronald Blue]

Not every cat can kill a rat. They have to learn how because obviously an adult rat is a lot tougher then a mouse. You also can't feed the cat if you want it to "hunt". We used to have cats that lived in the barn that kept the varmints out pretty well. They were also a bit wild themselves. I have used a poison called "just one bite" quite successfully on rats in the past. I find many in the yard dead seeking water. If there is no water source at your shop then you probably won't have much trouble with them dieing inside.

[Luc Vincent]

I used to be plagued by spiders, lizards and mice in the shop, despite having the shop sprayed professionally inside and out twice a year. I finally got one of the plug in pest control boxes, which emits a signal throughout the entire wiring system in the walls. Guess what?? No more bugs or critters! The brand I use is called Pest Offense.

[Jeff Willard]

a year ago i bought a new bandsaw and the day after i set it up i went into my shop to go try it for the first time. i opened the bottom wheel cover before i turned it on and it was chock full of acorns, they just came pouring out! something must have gotten in through the opening in my soffit, still havent found the critter.

Had a similar prollem. My basement shop shares space with all of the other things common to basements, including food storage. One day I noticed that mice had raided a bag of pecans. Set traps baited w/peanut butter-no more mice. Months later doing some cleanup, clearing out a scrap bin, I found(some of) my pecans. Dozens of them. Clever little fellows, scaling a 24" high melamine scrap box, with pecan in tow, to hide them in the bottom. Then, some time later, I found more, this time in the middle of a length of shop vac hose I had rolled up and tucked away in a corner. This got me to thinking. Sure enough, they had pecans squirreled away(pun intended)in every piece of idle hose in the shop, five or six in all. And I think I got all of my nuts back.

[Neil Brooks]

I would tend to trust a guy named Willard, on this _particular_ subject.

:D

[David Hostetler]

I must agree. Add a cat or two to the mix and the rats will leave. Before LOML and I got married I had rat issues from time to time coming up from the Bayous. Now that the family has grown we have 3 cats in the house, and not a rat to be found anywhere near our home or shop...

[Jeff Willard]

If I was really that good, I could convince them to just give 'em back.:D