If you’d been following my Twitter recently you’d have noticed I’ve been having a Rat problem.
I then had a problem with numerous completely useless pest control companies.
They could only catch the rat if it’s dead, remove it from the premises etc. Even though I can SEE it in the TV cabinet, they can’t take it out…they need to put down poison and glue board and come back and take it away when it’s dead.
Jeez, what’s the point in hiring them? I can do that myself. And I can’t put poison down because I have a dog..plus I don’t really want a dead rat carcass stinking it up somewhere.
So well, basically I did, I went to the hardware store and bought 2 rat-traps (Chinese style) for RM8 each, cheaper than I expected.
I got all kinds of suggestions for bait, popular ones were fish head and dried sotong. Other suggested were lap cheong, peanut butter, bread and basically anything stinky.
I dried some kinds of meat, but it didn’t work. Then I thought maybe he’s a vegetarian, because his sneaking around had him eating our cheese biscuits then our pasta. So I googled a bit and it turns out he was a Roof Rat AKA Black Rat (even though they aren’t black but dark brown) and not the large and more aggressive Norway Rat we see in the sewers. They are smaller, have larger ears, longer tails and are extremely agile.
So I had to change tactic. He was nesting in the TV cabinet and feeding in the kitchen.
He was below the white drawers above the brown platform, these rats are nocturnal so he only came out late at night to feed (and poop everywhere).
You will know you have a rat in the house if you find little brown nuggets like these all over the place.
And if you find anything (especially food stuffs) with small holes in weird places, plus you might hear some rustling sounds in the kitchen.
After a while I decided to switch baits, I put some bread with peanut butter in the middle (for some nice scent) then threw some of his favourite pasta at the back to entice him in.
I put one next to the dog food.
Make sure it’s baited well and whatever you put on the hook is strong enough to trigger the mechanism that slams the door down. The bread was folded in 4 to make sure it couldn’t be pulled off easily.
The other was put at a strategic location on top of the toaster, that’s where he found the pasta and in the cupboard above that the biscuits so he favoured that area.
And well after 1 night with this new strategy and bait in place, he was caught!
From my research I’d say he’s a juvenile male working alone, probably quite naive and not experienced with traps. So should be easy to trap, and well he was once the trap was put in the right place with the right bait (pasta & bread!).
And we don’t have much of a problem with rats generally because there is a LOT of cats around, and I mean a LOT.
And we definitely don’t have a problem with this rat any more, let’s just say he wouldn’t make much of a SCUBA diver.
LOL @ Scuba Diver! I hope it was a quick dive.
Old school Chinese rat trap ftw!
goodbye fluffy 🙁
Death by nitrogen narcosis? It needs to stay in the water longer at 5m intervals to prevent a severe case of the bends.
yk
Never thought that setting a rat trap can be so technical. 😉
Hahaha! I still think the good ol’ traditional method of “pour boiling hot water over the rodent” is more effective than watch him get his Open Water license. 😉
it was cute alive, but cuter in death.
LOL so morbid, terrible kim!
There is a kind of trap that is capable of trapping multiple rats, by using a funnel shaped door.
not sure how would that work when a rat sees another being trapped in one.
Oh man thats Ratatouille’s Remy. The rat that cooks fine french cuisine…
we all know catching a rat is only part of the deal,,disposing it off is another
The rat’s femes now… being featured in your blog… LOL
Rat is disgusting. argh…
ol skool trapper FTW! 😀
Suan: That’s not Fluffy! Fluffy is still roaming at large, RARRRR!
there are many Fluffies! Just different areas 😛
Shaolin, you need to be more hygienic, sometimes rat comes not mainly because food but the environment, try to clean up the places (saw them in your pics :P) might help
buy a cat.
let’s hope he didn’t leave any babies behind… ths thg proliferate fast!
1 big fluffy in SS3
i think there’s a rat in my house too.. haha..
i used to watch my dad using some thick glue to catch it.. =P
” let’s just say he wouldn’t make much of a SCUBA diver.”
ROTFLOL!
xes: He lasted quite long actually, persistent little fella.
Nicholas Leong: Yup, cheap and effective.
suanie: Not fluffy leh, fluffy still around..this one is bob 😛
Yoon Kit: Yah he needed to learn more about multi-level diving and making an adequate safety stop before surfacing.
C.V: I’m a technical person, can say whatever I do also can be looked at in technical terms loh.
Huai Bin: Both are equally effective, just depends how sadistic you are.
kimberlycun: So cruel 😛
Tan Yee Hou: Yah, only had one rat anyway – no need anything fancy.
stephenstreets: Nah Remy got cute pink tail, this one has a hell of an ugly tail.
kaswira: Catching it is the hard part.
michaelooi: Yah can call him legend la, not famous cos he ‘gone’ already.
andychin: Yah damn thing shits everywhere and ate all my pasta, had to catch it ASAP.
blink4blog: It’s not dirty actually, it’s pretty clean just the kitchen has stupid cheap tiles which stain and look really nasty.
jg: Don’t like cats.
winsern: Yah hope so too, think he’s a juvenile male tho, and there’s only one not a pair.
kenwooi: Glue boards are a popular solution too. Can be very messy though when the bugger struggles.
…the other Ted: Yah should have worn his regulator 😀
best and not so cruel kinda way of killing is to put the rat under the hot sun..let it die of dehydration or heat stroke! 🙂
hmmm… isn’t sweating it out under the hot sun until it dies kinda prolonging the inevitable… a quicker death will be less torturous?? hehe
yeah: Sounds more cruel to me.
Elise: Agree, quicker is more humane.
plz try to finish the all rats from whole Malaysia.because its a beautiful country, n have a attrection for all over the world.and its feel so bad n irritating when you are sitting in a restaurant for having something and cats n rats are walking in your feet.
fouzia: I wish!