Rat Traps
I have a rat problem.
At least, I think it's a rat problem. Every night I can hear them in the ceiling and walls, running about from spot to spot. I also hear signs of them in the kitchen and laundry, and find evidence of them afterwards.
They chewed through the plastic top of the dry dog food container, and ate some of the dry food. I found that they'd chewed the remaining two sticks of silverbeet that I had on the kitchen bench. There's a hole in one bottom corner of the kitchen, and also in a wall at the top of a partition that divides the bathroom from the laundry. And yet, they don't seem to eat the bread, which sometimes I've left out, still wrapped in plastic.
Anyway, I've decided to take steps about this. Gabby (who's mostly an "indoors" puss) sometimes tries to stalk them in the kitchen, but mostly she's given up on this. I've been afraid to set "standard" mouse traps in case the cats or Peggy get caught in them, and afraid to set baits in case they ate them.
However, recently I bought two different sorts of traps. One is a long tube with a bend in the middle at a slight angle. You put the bait at one end and when the mouse/rat runs down to that end it tips down, and a trap door at the other end closes shut and locked. The second trap it some sort of circular spring driven trap, that shuts after they enter it. I might try these in the kitchen.
I also got a set of three baits. I intend to put one in the dry food container, and two in the roof. None of my pets should be able to reach these baits in these positions (unless one of them is getting into the roof, though I doubt that), so they should be safe to deploy. I think this is reasonable - these aren't pets, like some of my friends have, but a nuisance.
We'll see - I'll place them tomorrow morning before I go to uni.