Rat seen in the garden!

Horrified at all the random poison being put down. Does nobody care about the rest of the wildlife? Birds? Hedgehogs? Owls? Or pets? Or neighbours cats?
I’m aghast.

Yuk! Hate rats. Definitely put poison down. You can't be expected to never open your patio doors.

Hetty the rats chewed through our compost bins, which are on concrete bases.

The nest under my shed was about 18 inches across, over a 4/5 days I found 8 bodies..it was horrible, pulled the shed down and put metal one up on concrete, so for the last 2 years I have not left my patio doors open.

It was next door feeding the birds, the bits of food were dropping down on the floor, giving the rats breakfast/dinner and tea, the run was from the bottom of the bird feeder to under my shed.

Isn’t there something about never being more than a few feet from a rat as there are so many of them?
My cat regularly patrols the garage so I think she keeps them away.

At our last home we called the ‘rat man’ after watching a huge rat stroll back and forth across our patio. Not in a rush and certainly not hiding. After examining the garden we were told ratty and his friends weren’t living there but rather using us as a route from some waste ground to next door’s shed. We knew it contained bags of dried dog food, apparently a rat banquet. Initial advice was simply to talk to the neighbours. We did, they weren’t bothered, more amused, so extermination it was. It took about a month before we were declared rat free, a huge relief.

I’ve seen one occasionally, but although we’re in the outer reaches of SW London there’s a lot of wildlife around here anyway - squirrels, foxes, badgers, wood mice. I’ve never seen a rat near the house, though.
We certainly aren’t going to stop feeding the birds.

A dd had a charming and incredibly tame pet rat called Dave, so I don’t hate the species on principle.

We see the odd rat but on balance I've decided I'm not going to stop feeding the birds.Songbirds need all the help they can get with declining numbers,declining habitat and insects.I don't put loose food on a table ,just hanging feeders no mess feed and have counted 21 different species.Our neighbour however puts meat and cooked food out on her front lawn for foxes and the 'lovely ' magpies who have become a huge pest roosting in the wood behind our garden and raiding nests,killing feelings and even smashing the eggs and milk left on our doorsteps as their numbers have increased so much.Several of us have asked her not to leave cooked food as it will also increase rats but she won't stop.You could argue it's no different from feeding other birds but with roadkill plentiful corvids like magpies don't need extra food.
We did buy a rat trap but then I was horrified to hear often the rats crawl off and are dying away from it and owls have fed them to their young and poisoned them. And as we have tawny owls nearby I decided in balance to leave it.Unfortunately rats are around all over, especially with increasing litter.

How sad that people stopped feeding the birds, I would have politely but very firmly refused to stop.

Some of my neighbours had bird feeders and that was encouraging rats to come onto our property.

One of the neighbours wrote to everybody and asked that they stop feeding the birds as some of the feed was being scattered onto the ground and the rats were eating it.

All of the neighbours have stopped feeding the birds and we have seen no rats since.

DD had found rats in her garden when she moved house. The house backed onto a sort of woodland and the rats lived there but ventured into gardens for food. Neighbours were putting out bird food and other food etc. She called the environmental health and they sent the man out and he set traps and came back several times. She scrubbed her bird table and only used it as a garden decoration with a lovely metal bird sitting on it.

We had a nest of rats that lived, unbeknownst to me, under the floor of my potting shed. The very thought that I'd been less than 10cms away from the horrible things was enough for me to have the shed ripped down. Even so, they got into the house via the manhole cover that was at the bottom of our cellar steps and they were scuttling about between the cellar and living rooms space. Pest control came out and out blue cakes things all around and that finally got rid of them. I now have a compost bin and I'm so worried about rats being in there that I clobber it with a yard brush as I approach it in the hope that they'll scarper before I lift the lid.

We have had rats in the garden, on a couple of occasions, my neighbour had them in his garden shed, he caught about 4 in traps and then had the garden shed demolished......think any remaining ones have now camped in our dilapidated shed (which needs demolishing, but not happened yet !) The other day my daughter was taking pictures of the birds in the garden, and "ratty" comes along and pinches a full fat ball and proceeds to drag it under the fence...... daughter doesn't know but as soon as she was out of the house, hubby went out and put a block of rat poison under said fence.....hopefully it will do the trick, if not more poison will be purchased and distributed around the outskirts of the garden!!

I'd die if I saw a rat. With so many cats around here even a mouse is a rare sight. I think I'd be having words with the one who throws the meat out as rats will smell that a mile off.

Compost bins will encourage them as will the stupid idea of having food waste bins. A rat trap would be on my list of purchases.

trisher, the poisoned rats and mice don't always stay in the trap to die. At work, an entire brood of ducklings were lost due to a caretaker putting down a rat trap. They could get in, eat and get out - then drown in the pool, poor things!

Purpledaffodil, my enclosed compost bins and wormeries are set on concrete to prevent that problem.

Oh Purplepixie your neighbours are providing banquets for the rats-no wonder they are huge! I'd say ring pest control at the council but is anyone there? You can buy rat traps to put poison in so other animals aren't harmed. You do need to deal with it now. It could have babies and then you would be overrun.

There are rats about everywhere so I think you are overreacting. What do you expect to achieve if you call out pest control?

If they put baited traps out, you may kill a few rats. Unfortunately, you may also kill owls, foxes and household pets that feed on dead or dying rats and mice. Then, you have a vacant territory for new rats to migrate to.

I would get the drains/sewers checked and make sure airbricks are secure, then mention the problem to any bird feeding neighbours, but that's all.

I had that problem when we had compost bins. Bought some pink blocks from a hardware shop and popped a couple inside the bins. Only found one rat corpse but have never had a problem since. Was sad to get rid of the compost bins, but I still feed the birds with no unwelcome Roland type visitors.