When you’re learning how to start a vegetable garden, hardly anybody mentions rats.
Lately, I have been much interested in learning how to get rid of rats. The reason is that several weeks ago, my low-hanging almost-ripe tomatoes and bell peppers began disappearing before I could harvest them.
One day, I’d go out and find half of the fruit eaten; the next day, the thing would be eaten down to the stem.
Disgusting. Especially since my tomato harvest didn’t last long due to a combination of 100-degree weather and blight. And confounding, because I didn’t have that problem the last couple of years.
So, how did I figure it was a rat? Well, it might have been a squirrel, but I have seen rats running around next to the fence in our backyard. Our wooden fence keeps the rabbits and armadillos from visiting my garden, and the way the fruit has been nibbled on is definitely not how a bird would do it.
I suspected a couple years ago – and wonder if it still may be true now – that we had a rat’s nest under our deck.
Lovely.
In any case, after doing some online research and experimentation, I can tell you three ways that do not work when trying to eliminate a rat invasion.
1. The “Drown ‘Em In A Bucket” technique
I first heard this mentioned on a podcast, then subsequently found instructions online. You set up a bucket with a plastic water bottle attached to the top on a pole, smear nut butter on the bottle, then set up a ramp for the critter to walk up. It is supposed to be attracted by the nut butter, get on the bottle, which then rolls over and dumps the rodent into the water.
This method sounded a bit inhumane to me, but it was cheap and so I tried it.
All I ever got was a bucket of nut-butter water. The wind would blow the bottle around, and eventually the nut butter would begin to melt into the water. Besides, how on earth would a rodent smell the nut butter at such a height?
2. Electronic sound-emitting device
I tried this for two weeks. At first, I thought it was working. Then, a few days ago, I went out to check on my peppers. The two that were turning red had been completely eaten down to the stem.
Upset and desperate for an answer, I dug a little more. I discovered an online article from a university that stated that rodents are not deterred by high-pitched noise, however annoying it may be to their little ears.
The article also said that the following method does not work, either:
3. Liquid repellents
I did not buy a liquid repellent for rodents, because I had tried one for cats and dogs without success. Apparently, the old wives’ tale that rats and mice will not cross a border of baking soda is just that – an old wives’ tale.
And the repellents you find in nurseries and home improvement stores that claim to be effective? Well, somebody’s making a nice profit off of the people too lazy to return ineffective products to the store.
Right now, I have a couple of old-fashioned snap traps set up. As they instantly kill and don’t put toxins into the environment, they are a better choice for me than rat poison. But I have an idea I think will work, one that does not involve killing and will do double-duty of keeping my young son away from the temptation to play with the garden dirt or pick off green tomatoes.
A rat-proof fence.
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