Savvy wrote:Gaz, what happened to the rat?
I laid down traps and poison at about 3pm the day after trapping it in my living room (it had made a right mess of the room and I heard it rustling when I entered).
I didn't dare to leave work till gone 8.30pm that night...
Got some chips and ate them from the bag then plucked up the courage to check the living room. The trap had not sprung and I couldn't tell whether the poison had been eaten, I was jumpy and so just closed the door again and sat in my kitchen till midnight when I thought it was about time I'd better do something (try to flush it out to the passageway, then out the front door was my plan!).
So I started to jab under the sofa with a broom handle to scare it, but eventually the handle hit something 'soft' - it looked dead. I hooked it out and it looked like it hadn't long been dead at all. I'm not sure if it was the poison or whether it had simply starved (as suggested above by Alib). Safely disposed off; the great clean-up began...
I'm still not sure whether he got in through the open back door last weekend, or an opening leading to the understairs 'meter' cupboard or an opening leading to the back of my kitchen sink; it looks like he ran beneath the floorboards between these two points. Needless to say, I've now got spring traps blocking the possible sink rat-run, a spring-trap in the cupboard and I'm keeping all doors closed - and so far, no new signs of any rats (although my ears have become super-sensitive at night which makes me jumpy!).
Once again, thanks for the advice and support, guys. Fingers crossed I don't ever have to deal with a rat ever again - it was not a pleasant experience at all!
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is that he is still 'trapped' in my living room, evidently hungry and there are no signs of other rats in the flat... The bad news is that the bugger has been running all over the room, knocking things over and leaving little presents 