<p>Anyone ever have these?
They look like a cross between a squirrel and a rat- mid-sized, with a long thin but furry tail. They do not get into homes, btw.</p>
<p>SOMETHING is eating (rather rapidly) through our ancient (thus very woody) Ivy Wall in the back yard. Never had a problem before with rats of any kind!
Apparently two gardens in our area have lost their ivy walls to this new and mysterious phenomenon in the last few months.
Any other ideas?
Any suggestions?
Anyone ever successfully eradicate PACK/WOOD RATS in their garden??</p>
<p>Like Norway rats, roof rats eat a wide variety of foods, but they prefer fruits, nuts, berries, slugs, and snails. Roof rats are especially fond of avocados and citrus, and they often eat fruit that is still on the tree. When feeding on a mature orange, they make a small hole through which they completely remove the contents of the fruit, leaving only the hollowed-out rind hanging on the tree. They’ll often eat the rind of a lemon, leaving the flesh of the sour fruit still hanging. Their favorite habitats are attics, trees, and overgrown shrubbery or vines. Residential or industrial areas with mature landscaping provide good habitat as does riparian vegetation of riverbanks and streams. Roof rats prefer to nest in locations off the ground and rarely dig burrows for living quarters if off-the-ground sites exist.</p>
<p>Roof rats routinely travel up to 300 feet for food. They can live in the landscaping of one residence and feed at another. They often can be seen at night running along overhead utility lines or fence tops. They have an excellent sense of balance and use their long tails to steady themselves while traveling along overhead utility lines. They move faster than Norway rats and are very agile climbers, which enables them to quickly escape predators. They can live in trees or in attics and climb down to a food source. The average number of litters a female roof rat has per year depends on many factors, but generally it is 3 to 5 with 5 to 8 young in each litter.
DAMAGE</p>
<p>Rats eat and contaminate foodstuffs and animal feed. They also damage containers and packaging materials in which foods and feed are stored. Both rat species cause problems by gnawing on electrical wires and wooden structures such as doors, ledges, corners, and wall material, and they tear up insulation in walls and ceilings for nesting.</p>
<p>Norway rats can undermine building foundations and slabs with their burrowing activities and can gnaw on all types of materials, including soft metals such as copper and lead, as well as plastic and wood. If roof rats are living in the attic of a residence, they can cause considerable damage with their gnawing and nest-building activities. They also damage garden crops and ornamental plantings.</p>
<p>mpm,
I think these are a third type of rat, not Norway or Roof- neither of those will damage or eat a wall of ivy!
(Just to be safe, I am having a house inspection.)</p>
<p>Apparently Wood Rats, also called Pack Rats, gnaw on woody branches, eat the bark, and use the sticks to make nests… It is amazing: in just two weeks, a 20 foot long and 6 foot high section has virtually disappeared!</p>
<p>They loved the little critters and trapped them and took them some place else; then I brought a cat for them from Cyprus and that worked some. I thought they just needed some exterminators, but what do I know. They then had to work on their home for termites and in the process the little devils moved away…exterminate them!</p>
<p>They began by eating the bark off my sister’s favorite lemon tree and it went from that to being inside etc. etc.</p>
<p>oooh, so they DO go inside… UH OH- no signs of that. Just losing the wall of ivy, serious damage to $$$$$value of the garden!!!</p>
<p>Am super-allergic to cats, have dogs that are not used to cats SIGH</p>
<p>Critter service is coming (not soon enough)- will help set the traps (peanut butter, I hear), and come back to check and remove the full ones…
But it sounds awfully slow, given how fast they are working to eat the hedge…</p>
<p>Looking for more solutions on how to GET RID of them RIGHT NOW!</p>
<p>p.s. I hear SNAKES eat rats, just not sure if they eat WOOD/PACK type of rats… Anyone ever introduce snakes to their gardens to eat rats? And who knows what would happen between the dogs and the snakes… GRRRRR</p>
<p>You could try a rodent repellant and should be able to find it at a good hardware store. I used something called Shake Away for a groundhog problem and it seemed to be effective. IIRC, it was supposed to work on a variety of the little beasties.</p>
<p>Remove the ivy from your yard that is attracting them; they’ll leave if there is nothing to eat at your home. We had problem with roof rats at are Florida home; they were attracted to citrus trees in our backyard–we got rid of rats when we got rid of citrus.</p>
<p>Lizard (good screen name for this thread. maybe lizards eat rats the way snakes do!)-
Of course that is the most effective solution, but removing the ivy is not an option- integral to a very old established garden structure, involving the lots around us.
Never had this problem in 50 years, btw…</p>
<p>So, the q is how to deal with the wood rats without having to get rid of the ivy walls!</p>
<p>Put out traps. Steel cages if you want to transport them far far away, other types if you don’t mind killing them, poison if you don’t have pets or small children nearby, call a pest control company if you are too scared or lazy to do it yourself. At this very moment I have a squirrel trap on my roof. It is costing me $189 + $79 per squirrel, and then we will have to decide how and how much $$ to spend on remediation so others don’t just take their place. Sorry, not trying to change the topic from rats to squirrels. :D</p>
<p>NJres,
Now THIS is a “world” I never hoped to explore, I’ll say!
Pricing here for a professional to do this is $100 to set up traps, then $50 per rat, and they check weekly…
Do the dead bodies ward off the rats or something?? What is to stop the pillagers from just hitting another section of ivy???</p>
<p>Soo, to speed things along, I just went to HD and bought some traps, which I will put out on the wall in the ivy myself tomorrow. At the very least, I want to catch something to SHOW the pro guys whenever they find the time to come, so we all know exactly what we are dealing with! I will also learn how hard it is for me to do this myself…</p>
<p>I do have dogs and we have hummingbirds and the like, so I think poison is a bad idea for my yard.</p>
<p>p.s. I do not mind catching a few other types of rodents, if need be…</p>
<p>At 5PM I put 4 outside right under where I thought they were hanging out (I wore disposable gloves). In the morning all 4 were gone…which horrified me (really). I waited a few days then placed 4 more. Again, gone without a trace. (yuck) About a week later I noticed less damage going on in the yard. I placed 2 more out, and as expected they were gone in the morning. Within another week there was zero damage happening. </p>
<p>That lasted about a year. Then they were back. I followed what I’d done the year before, only a little more aggressively. It’s now been more than 2 years and they are nowhere near my garden.</p>
<p>If pets or kids got the baits you could end up with a bigger problem than rats. I wouldn’t put poison out in yard; doing so could be illegal too.</p>
<p>Yes, agree about the pets and kids. Luckily I had neither at the time. And those baits were gone so fast…makes me say yuck even now! The guy at the store said to put them out in the evening, probably for just the reason of keeping them away from pets/kids. In our suburban area they are not illegal to use.</p>
<p>performersmom, trust me - you would not want any snakes that can take on a woodrat. Those things are HUGE, they weigh close to a pound or even more, so you will need PYTHONS to take care of the woodrat problem! :eek:
DH traps them in a live trap that he set up inder our ivy-covered retaining wall. That’s all I can say. Luckily, we do not have too many. I do wish they would trim the darn ivy because it grows so fast I’m tired of giving it periodic “haircuts”.</p>
<p>Update;
Critter removal guy did a full inspection of the entire are outside of our house, and there are NO SIGNS OF Teeth CHEW MARKS on branches or trunks or leaves any plants of trees whatsoever.
He left one wire trap with some peanut butter, just to see what we catch.
I know I should be relieved, but—
But the disappearance of the ivy is a total mystery now…
Da Da Da Daaaaaa</p>