What are some natural ways to deter roof rats?

[crazyforlatin]

Solar lights? Ultrasound? Peppermint? 
Probably too late for a natural method as they have burrowed into the subfloor. 
But we're trying various methods.
 

[Carol in Cal.]

 

Snakes.

[PrincessMommy]

how about some kind of sonic light flashing repeller.

The one I have is solar  but it stakes into the ground.  I wonder if they have something you can mount on your roof?   Actually, the one I have you don't necessarily need to use the staking part.  But, you'd need to figure out a way to adhere it to the roof without damaging the roof.  

 

Edited August 26, 2020 by PrincessMommy

[crazyforlatin]

Just now, PrincessMommy said:

how about some kind of sonic light flashing repeller.

The one I have is solar  but it stakes into the ground.  I wonder if they have something you can mount on your roof?  

 

Does it really work? I've seen them on amazon and am tempted to try one.

I call them roof rats, but they are just ordinary rats that seem capable to climbing up roofs and trees and waiting until the coast is clear. They've quickly established residency underneath the house. 

[crazyforlatin]

4 hours ago, Carol in Cal. said:

 

Snakes.

That would be quite a sight. The neighbor has a cat, which made me think we could never have wild rats. But they probably skipped her place and came over to ours. I just found out that this town (it's not too far from you) has a rat infestation problem.

[PrincessMommy]

5 minutes ago, crazyforlatin said:

Does it really work? I've seen them on amazon and am tempted to try one.

I call them roof rats, but they are just ordinary rats that seem capable to climbing up roofs and trees and waiting until the coast is clear. They've quickly established residency underneath the house. 

It seems to keep the groundhog and rabbits away from that area of my yard.  My 20yr old son can hear the sonic so he keeps turning it off.  😒  My only complaint is that it will work on animals I dont mind in my yard (like birds and my dog).  

I bought one to test out. I am planning on buying another one for the front yard this year.

Edited August 26, 2020 by PrincessMommy

[PrincessMommy]

1 minute ago, crazyforlatin said:

That would be quite a sight. The neighbor has a cat, which made me think we could never have wild rats. But they probably skipped her place and came over to ours. I just found out that this town (it's not too far from you) has a rat infestation problem.

Do you have a bird feeder?   I thought I saw a rat here at my house about a month ago.  I read online that they love bird seed.  So I've had to stop feeding my birds 😞  

[crazyforlatin]

Just now, PrincessMommy said:

It seems to work at the groundhog and rabbits away from that area of my yard.  My 20yr old son can hear the sonic so he keeps turning it off.  😒  My only complaint is that it will work on animals I dont mind in my yard (like birds and my dog).  

I bought one to test out. I am planning on buying another one for the front yard this year.

I did read about some people being bothered about the sound. We don't get rabbits or groundhog, just rats and gophers. I'm going to try one out. That's too bad about the birds, that we do have a lot. The rat problem seems to be a neighborhood problem where people need to actively trim back bushes and low hanging branches. I'm beginning to see those houses with nonexistent foliage cemented yard in a different light. 

[crazyforlatin]

3 minutes ago, PrincessMommy said:

Do you have a bird feeder?   I thought I saw a rat here at my house about a month ago.  I read online that they love bird seed.  So I've had to stop feeding my birds 😞  

No, but an orange tree, and they love oranges so we're about to remove all of them. 

[Carol in Cal.]

2 hours ago, crazyforlatin said:

That would be quite a sight. The neighbor has a cat, which made me think we could never have wild rats. But they probably skipped her place and came over to ours. I just found out that this town (it's not too far from you) has a rat infestation problem.

I was just kidding!

[Zinnias]

We had these in our old house.  We had to exclude by making sure every entry pointinto the house was stuffed with steel wool and sometimes spray foam insulation.  Our house has settling issues, so we redid this every 6 months, which *mostly* kept them at bay, but not completely.  We had traps everywhere in that house, and outside, we had those black boxes that you mostly see at commercial places.  They worked pretty well.  

[lewelma]

Live traps? Then you can move them to the yard of your least favorite person. 🙂