There is something alive in my apartment

[zahc]

Several days ago, I heard some something rustling in my lab when I was up late working in my darkroom and being real quiet. Figured it could just be something settling, but I told the wife we should get mouse traps. Mouse traps are cheap and great fun.

Tonight I was actually woken up from my corpse-like sleep by noises out near the kitchen. LOUD ones. Repetitive, scraping type noises...like a zombie shuffling across the living room carpet, with soup cans tied to his ankles. Or someone out in the kitchen laying tile or something. That loud. I swept the apartment w/1911 and isolated the noise to the bathroom; it stopped when I turned the light on. It came back in about ten minutes after I went back to bed. LOUD scraping. Probably in the walls. I know a quiet apartment can magnify the apparent loudness of sounds, but this sounded more squirrel- or possum-level scraping than rat scraping. Although I'm not prepared to rule out the possibility of a wall-confined zombie.

I opened the ceiling hatch in the bathroom and looked through the ductwork; didn't see anything. I suppose I could lay some poison up there, but then what happens when my noismaker dies in the wall? I could tell the apartment about it, but for all I know they'd come tear my wall out.

[lupinus]

If it is really loud my guess is you have a rat, not a mouse. Mice IME tend to be much quieter then rats and LOUD sounds generally mean rats. If besides scraping it sounds like someone fighting an MMA title match in there, squirrels are a possibility as well.

You can head to the store and get standard rat traps and smear a little peanut butter on the trigger. Avoid glue traps and poison, neither are as good at doing what they do. Glue traps you now have a PO'd critter and poison they die wherever, double the stink if they got babies back there that will starve.

Something sinister in me makes me love this bad boy though- http://www.amazon.com/Victor-M240-Electronic-Rat-Trap/dp/B000LNX06C

[Perd Hapley]

Something sinister in me makes me love this bad boy though- http://www.amazon.com/Victor-M240-Electronic-Rat-Trap/dp/B000LNX06C

I like how Amazon asks, for every product no matter how inappropriate, whether you're ordering it as a Christmas gift.   

[vaskidmark]

If your zombie is using the walls as a passageway, you'll want to lure it outside the wall before you decapacitate it - unless you truely adore the odoure of decomposing dead undead. The story surrounding this statement of true fact is somewhat akin to the myth about sardines in the curtainrods in that both ended up driving folks from their place of abode.*

stay safe.

skidmark

* Do not believe the evil manic-depressive future ex-wife when she tells you the walls are dry so the creature will just dessicate like a mummy and to for $diety's sake quit worrying.

[lupinus]

I like how Amazon asks, for every product no matter how inappropriate, whether you're ordering it as a Christmas gift.   

who knows, for some it might be a dandy Christmas gift 

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

did i read the review right?  that thing will kill squirrels?  want!

[BobR]

I have used the small Victor trap for mice, it works like a champ. Put a little peanut butter in it and set it down. Check it the next morning and if you are lucky there will be a little bit of mouse tail sticking out of it. Take it out, open the lid and dump out the corpse.

bob

[lupinus]

did i read the review right?  that thing will kill squirrels?  want!

I imagine it would. Squirrels are just rats with fashion sense after all....and they taste better.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

i wonder if i smeared peanut butter on the electric fence.....

[MicroBalrog]

I like how Amazon asks, for every product no matter how inappropriate, whether you're ordering it as a Christmas gift.   

You'll be surprised what insane stuff people buy for each other as "Christmas" gifts.

[jackdanson]

Quote from: cassandra and sara's daddy on Today at 07:44:47 AM
did i read the review right?  that thing will kill squirrels?  want!
I imagine it would. Squirrels are just rats with fashion sense after all....and they taste better.

You don't even have to cook it.

[Tuco]

i wonder if i smeared peanut butter on the electric fence.....

Be sure to use your fingers.

[crt360]

. . . like a zombie shuffling across the living room carpet, with soup cans tied to his ankles. Or someone out in the kitchen laying tile or something.

If it's that noisy it's probably possums or raccoons.  I swear I've heard raccoons in our attic using socket wrenches and handsaws.

[S. Williamson]

If it's that noisy it's probably possums or raccoons.  I swear I've heard raccoons in our attic using socket wrenches and handsaws.

Get them out NOW, before it's too late.



A constant irritant for me at my old apartment was a gap in the outside wall near the AC unit that a couple starlings decided was perfect for their nest.    Hate starlings to this day, as they'd only make noise when I was trying to sleep.  A lot of it, too.

[Scout26]

If regular traps and glue traps don't work, you can always try killing them with fire.

 

[BlueStarLizzard]

or just nuke the appartment. it is, after all, the only way to be sure!
 

[MechAg94]

I had rats in an old townhome of mine.  The neighbor had a bunch of crap in his garage piled up which was where their home base was (found that out later, they went away after he cleaned it out).

I killed at least one with poison that I put in the attic.  I know it died by I could smell the dead smell in a couple spots in the house for a few days and about a dozen big flies appeared which I was able to spray.  I killed another in the garage.  Of all things, I stunned it with a broom.  The neighbor killed a couple more when he cleaned out his garage. 

Speaking of noises, the one that freaked me out was I thought I heard footsteps going across the room upstairs.  I grabbed my pistol and went up to check the room which I wasn't used and was full of some old furniture.  I found nothing and I realized there is no way anyone could have taken the path I heard across the middle of the room.  There was too much stuff in the way.  I realized later it must have been a rat running across between the floor and ceiling going from wood beam to sheet rock.  I heard the sheet rock impacts as footsteps. 

[MechAg94]

Also, I never could get the Victor traps to work.  I have heard that you can hang them from the ceiling so they dangle just above the floor.  This forces the rats to grab the trigger to get the peanut butter or food.  I've never tried that.  Someone else told me you need to set them up so the rat has to approach them from the right angle.  I don't know.

[280plus]

You have to set them so they snap at the slightest touch. I even use a little pb as trigger lube.  

Think hair trigger and try to achieve it with your trap. Takes a few tries and maybe a snapped finger or two but once you get it you'll have it down. I was told once to mush a piece of cracker in the PB and it will cause them to chew harder. Never tried it.

I recall one time on Broadway, NYC in the Payless Shoes store, reaching blindly behind an A/C unit and pulling out a huge set rat trap. I was very lucky that day cause I'm pretty sure that SOB would have broken a finger or two.


Now in the Phillipines they don't kill the rats because they eat the bugs. 
 

[BobR]

Now in the Phillipines they don't kill the rats because they eat the bugs.

Isn't that the truth.

I checked into a hotel in downtown Olongopo one night and there was a huge hissing cockroach squaring off to challenge me for the room. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a rat slinking along the wall and knew if I left it alone that cockroach would be gone by the time I came back from drinking and chasing LBFM's. It was. I don't know if the rat ate it or if he just left, but it was gone.

Also, my Victor mouse trap doesn't have a trigger, it just has batteries and two conductive plates that the critter steps on to get shocked. It must be the fancy one.

bob

[lupinus]

Bob-

I think they are referring to the more traditional snap trap made by the same fine rat killin folks.

And I don't know about philipno rats, but my cats ensure any large buggy critters from outside make their way in doesn't bother me for long.

[Declaration Day]

I've been at war with rats for a few years now.  They live under my neighbor's deck (he won't do anything about it) and they scamper about my backyard, usually at night.

I use the tried and true Victor snap traps.  At first I tried smearing the peanut butter on top of the trigger.  It would catch an occasional rat, but most of them learned to lick it off carefully.  Then I started putting the peanut butter on the under side of the trigger, and that did the trick.  I catch ten of the little bastards each week on average.

[AJ Dual]

Tomcat bait-blocks tossed in every non-kid and non-pet accessible location that might look good to a rodent will do the trick.

[crt360]

Get them out NOW, before it's too late.

I hear ya.  I've caught and relocated 30+ in the past two years.  I hate them.

[Matthew Carberry]

I wind cotton fluff onto the trigger then work the PB into that.  They are motivated to tug at it making it more likely to go off.

Of course, I not only oil my trap triggers, I polish the bearing surfaces.