Life In Australia

Image source: ComputerHotline 

First we had a huge huntsman spider in the living room, then creepy cockroaches in the kitchen, and now we have…you’ve guessed it! Rats in the roof!

Some time ago, we noticed that there were animal droppings of some description in our roof space, where we store boxes. We notified the rental agency and they sent someone round to have a look. He thought that we could have rats and so asked us to put some rat poison - called ‘Rat Sack’ - on the floor in the roof space.

A few weeks later, we noticed that the ‘Rat Sack’ has been spilled out of its container, all over the floor. We informed the agency and they sent around a pest control man. He arrived on Monday and said that it was probably a good sign that the ‘Rat Sack’ had been scattered around as it showed that the rats had probably eaten some. He said that they only need to consume a small amount for it to be effective.

Since we could not smell anything, he said it also looked as if they hadn’t died in our roof space. He vacuumed up the droppings and put down some stronger rat bait. If the droppings re-appear, we will know that the rats are back!

I did not realise that most houses in our area have a problem with rats, because we are fairly close to the bush (a few miles away). The pest control man said that it is an ongoing problem that you have to deal with continuously. Once one bunch of rats have gone, another lot may appear, so you have to keep an eye on things and continue to put down rat poison.

The worrier in me thinks that they may squeeze under the small gap at the bottom of the door to the roof space. It would be awful to have rats in the rest of the house!