I need to help with a Quote for a housing complex. About 70 units.
Rats and Skunks are burrowing under the steps and side walks.
With the skunks I was suggesting a camera or two to see when the young start to leave the step and forage with mom. When all animals are active 1 1/2 inch welded wire and one way doors should keep the skunks from that location.
With the rats I am hoping that they will not be able to squeeze through 1 1/2 inch wire screen and pest proof by digging down from the side walk about a foot and out about a foot. It would be nice if the rats would all expire, but they have been bombarded with poison and traps for ever. ( if it was going to be a permanent solution it would have worked by now )
The rats have made a fool out of every company so far. My name to be added to the list shortly.
I think I can have success with the skunks. The rats not so much
Any info will be appreciated.

thanks Bob

Bob, I wouldn't count on rats not being able to squeeze through an inch and a half wire. If it was me, I would try to find out what

has all been used so far to get rid of those rats. We have at least a half a dozen different looking traps for rats. My personal

favorite is the normal squirrel cage with a buffet of rat food. The rats don't seem to get scared when their buddies are locked in a

jail full of delicacies. If you use something that the rats have not seen before, there is usually two or three days of them getting

used to something new and then the cages start filling.

Thanks Paul.....That was suppose to be half inch by one inch.
Rats have kicked my arse more than I would like to admit. I tend to over think rather than keep it simple. It's possible that these rat veterans aren't phobic professor rats at all. I hope you are right.

Bob, If all else fails try scaled down weasel boxes, lots of luck with rats in old weasel boxes and a victor. I make my boxes out of old beat up barn board, their drawn to it around here. You can chicken proof them as well for farm jobs, then use the boxes during the season.

TDHP When you catch a rat or two do the boxes go through a dry spell ?

Thanks for the help.

Bob, it's been my experience that female skunks in general and female skunks with young in particular, don't go anywhere. They will dig back into the den or just dig a new den, two feet away from the end of the wire. They have a very small range and it is best to trap and remove them.

They seldom just go away.

Normally switch out the traps and spray them down after multiple catches by habit, haven't encountered a dry spell per say because I run 12 to 15 traps per farm job. For rats I use nutella and peanut oil, along with the same grain they feed on when raiding the chicken feed. I'm not a fan of cages for rats some people swear by them not me the boxes are my choice of rat traps, you can have 2 to 4 traps in one set. 1x stock is very cheap and half the time you can salvage the materials for free. Considering you're dealing with 70 units, I'm sure you'll have an interesting project on your hands, Good luck

TDHP, don't you ever have rats get trap shy from seeing all their dead relatives? That's the reason I like the cages. I used to do a

pretty good job with Conibears in runways too until the survivors wouldn't go anywhere near them.

They say rats can squeeze through a hole the size of a quarter. Obviously not one of the larger ones...


Maybe they are resistant to the older anti coagulants. Some of the newer stuff might work better. I've had good luck with final blox.

I hate trapping them.

I've heard tracking powder works well, but I've never tried it.

I place a separator between the boxes that hold multiple sets, I'm sure they get to know a trap but I just don't go and stick a trap in a corner and call it day, every trap I set is placed in a nook and cranny and distinctive runs where they are active, some boxes are completely covered with hay to grain bags with only the holes exposed. I've had traps go untouched but 10 feet away from the trap that was missed had rats in it, also had nothing for a night or two and had a half dozen the following day. I'm not a rat biologist but this method is very effective and for me working with boxes blows cages out of the water and keeps money in my pockets when dealing with rat jobs. The jobs that took longer than usual were monitored with a cam and sometimes found they just weren't there or found a different food source.

Eaten, we've never used tracking powder but Bell Labs makes two and Liphatech makes one. I wonder how the zinc phosphide would work

on voles?

SGS At the present we were thinking of doing a welded wire exclusion of the step and the entire length of side walk. This would be expensive and any rat that is not dispatched as well as the skunks will simply trans locate probably to a step and side walk in the same complex.
This is unacceptable !
The reason we are trying to persue a exclusion is that the complex manager suggested this method ( agreeing with one of the powers seemed like the smart thing to do. )
We are trying to fix something that is broken. No other company has been able to fix it yet.

All the major companies seem to be copy cats. They all have the same active ingredient in the same bait box for rats and they scatter around a few cages for skunks.

But this complex still has both.

I think it will all boil down to money. After these people recover from a fainting spell from the quote that they requested they will start to like their rats a lot more.

Bob, this thing has gotten so interesting that I did some on-line checking on rat poisons. There seem to be nine or so different

poisons used in the manufacture of pellets, blocks, powder, gel, etc. I had no idea there were that many. Sure glad they didn't ask

about it on our pest control tests. ( They only two that I can pronounce are Warfarin and Zinc Phosphide )

If they want to pay for the exclusion, I think it will help keep out the new skunks that show up but it will probably not work with the current residents.

I have several complexes and a few mobile home parks that I trap on a yearly/as needed basis. One I've done for nine years now. I do think exclusion has it's place in these situations but periodic trapping is a must.

You can maybe set yourself apart from the crowd by offering a trapping/exclusion program that will actually drop the population to a level they can live with.

And I'm talking the skunks here. With my limited experience on rat infestations, poison doesn't sound like a bad idea but I wonder if dead rats are going to become a food source for the skunks and if the poison will kill the skunks.

Dead skunks all over the complex might not impress the customer.

Just some thoughts.

Steve brings up an excellent question. Traveling poison. I know that the poison made nowadays is much more species specific. I just

wonder if a skunk ate a poisoned rat what the outcome would be.

Haven't used poison in quite a long time, the rat jobs I maintain are on farms so poison is out of the question. Too many negatives using poison, not too many folks want to pay someone to come and remove and repair the hole(s) if a few don't make it out of the building.

Paul tracking powder in my experience works well on mice, rats do not clean as often so the success is not quite as high. In earth burrows there is always residual moisture . The tracking powder seems to stay put and not brush off and cling to the animal as well as it could. A dry bottle neck has some of the best results for rodents.


Secondary poisoning for many rodenticides is very low for most common products. The manufacturer can forward all info on their products.