Rats in the Attic...

Yes

 

Hantavirus is carried by Deer Mice not rats

 

I good story about rat smell my brother had a dead rat in his glove box he had it in there for three weeks one day I went in his truck and I asked him wat that smell was he was like I don't know then I look around in his truck and opened his glove box he never uses it so he never checked in there and there was a dead rat the with worms it climbed up the air conditon

 

They have the traps they walk it snaps and kills them and you throw the whole thing away.
Also there is a poison that dries up the red blood cells so as long as you don't disturb the carcass they will not stink. I use to work at a Plant Nursery and we used the stuff all the time because they would eat the grass seed.

 

This is what I was talking about ^^^^

 

Incorrect. Only some kinds of mice and rats can give people hantaviruses that cause HPS. In North America, they are the deer mouse, the white-footed mouse, the rice rat, and the cotton rat.

http://www.ehso.com/ehshome/hantavirus_faqs.htm

 

So you worked around festering rat carcasses? Are you sure it was poison and not some dead mouse you found on a bag of seed?

 

I stand corrected .

In my area , it is only carried by deer mice.

 

When i was in the Navy i returned to my barracks room to "that smell" . After a short search Ilooked up and thought uhoh, looked in the false ceiling and lifted the tile right next to the rat. It stunk so bad i vomited as i fell off the chair. Poison if you want though.

My thoughts are try to secure areas you know they arent , get many traps and place them where they do go. TIE WRAP traps to tops of 2x4 even. You can get a lot of traps for $30-50 , reuse them even. Sticky traps for floppy fun if you want.

Once you think you are done, further secure areas they were as you are sure they are vacated. Do that in and outside.

extra credit:
get a nice pellet gun or pistol , .22 or .25 caliber. Those pieces of plywood you used to secure areas can make a good back stop.

 

x2 on the pellet gun. If you use rat traps, chances are strong that you will be awakened in the middle of the night by a rat that is only caught in the trap and far from dead. Flopping around making a lot of noise. Go ahead and plan on it and know how you're going to dispose of this injured rat. GL

 

unless you have a cat, poison. . . . and by that i mean don't put it out if you have a cat. they'll eat the mice and kick the bucket. . .or just threw up a lot and didn't do shit for about 12 hrs.

 

You might try some moth balls. When I was a kid we had squirrels in our attic and my parents were told to use them and it indeed worked. Dont know about with rats though. As I can remember something about the scent they dont like so it drives them away.

 

Warfarin = dead motherf*&^%n rats

 

Do this first ^. If the landlord says the rats are your fault, call an exterminator, keep the receipt for your move out and final walk through to prove you did something about the rats, or at least tried to.

 

throw a stray cat in the attic?

 

Snap Rat Trap is the way to go. Killed a squirrel in my attic this past fall. Watch your fingers, these things scare me more than my table saw

 

A buddy of mine in Florida has an attic full of snakes. The cable guy found them when he was running a new cable up there. He came down damn fast and wouldent go back in.

 

Buy a few blocks of cheese and those water dispensers, also get a wheel or a ball that they can exercise with. Something like this:

 

Golf Balls!