Help! Rodent in the attic! And my room!

[DaveSur]

I used the kind of trap that you're thinking about in Florida. We had a couple of fruit rats that lived in our attic. Baited it with peanut butter, jelly and apple slices. Caught them both (one at a time) and released them miles from where we lived.
The trap works well.

[3thumbs]

Get a couple of cats. Mean ones!

[billwmeyer]

Poison

Poison is the way to go. Decon works well, but is a bit slower IMO. If there is a farm store in your area, get some stuff called one bite. Again don't have water sitting out. It works quickly, and you won't have the smell of a dead critter in your house.

Bill

[Red88chevy]

Last year we could hear something in the wall chewing on things. Put some posion in the attic and a couple days later one of the rooms had the worse smell in the world, like an elephant died behind the wall. After another day of smelling it, it got so bad my wife was ready for me to start tearing the sheetrock off the walls. Got online and read many people's advice which included drilling holes in the wall between every stud to try and determine which section of the wall it was in. Didn't help much at first but finally when I got ready to drill holes in the wall over the doorway I could tell the smell was worse close to one part of the ceiling. Nothing smelled in the attic, but saw a few flies in one area, snooped around and found a tiny mouse had crawed under the attic insulation and died. Long story to say I'll never use posion in the house again and will be glad to deal with glue traps or snap traps.

[rnelson0]

Don't rely on traps alone. They learn once they see their brother with his little neck snapped to avoid the traps...

We used traps and along with your advice - check the traps regularly and remove any corpses. Sure, they will learn quick, but you can slow this down by removing the "evidence"!

[Alex Franke]

Well, the guy came out to inspect the house today, and in a corner of a crawlspace accessible through a closet, he discovered a few leaves and a pile of nuts. So he's guessing it's a squirrel that's been shacking up with us. Maybe more -- but at least a squirrel.

We still haven't been able to trap him. I can't imagine how he might have gotten out of the bedroom... there must be another way out or else he's quite good at hiding.

BTW, the wife was happy it was "only squirrels". Personally, I see squirrels as rats with a good PR manager.

[atomdawg]

Hopefully it isn't "flying squirrels"

These cute little monsters got into my neighbor's house and colonized it...especially the 1960s drop ceiling in the kitchen. He knew he had a problem...only didn't know how bad until one morning while he was having breakfast, one of the ceiling tiles caved in and dropped to the floor under the weight of accumulated feces and urine...depositing (ha ha) several stunned flying squirrels on the floor of the kitchen.....took about a year to get rid of the big eyed buggers.

This is a bit sick but: I was in Lowes and noticed last year they were clearing out electronic rat traps...figured must be a joke. Bought one...takes several C batteries and must use a capacitor to develop a deadly charge -there is a warning on the box not to kill yourselve while using the thing. We had some rodent in the airspace between floor and ceiling which we were using for an air return for air conditioning. (200 yr old house)

I set this thing in that space and woke up two nights later in a panic at 2 am hearing surging snapping electricity...in a rythmic pattern. Figured end of the world somewhere in the house. Nope, remembered the trap after my heart attack. This thing was zapping some poor mouse ten times overkill. The next time it happened I woke up and smiled and went back to bed. There probably is a special place for me below ground!