Hi Geekzoners,

About 6 weeks ago I heard noises in the roof space of our house. I set rat  traps (of the conventional type, spring loaded with bar that breaks rat's neck) in the attic and in the garden around the house. Initially I caught 3 medium sized rats.

After my initial success with using peanut butter, I have had no further success. The rats set off the traps without being caught. Even when I set a group of traps together, with the traps facing each other, the rats set them off and steal the bait.

So I purchased a GoodNature A24 trap, using a nut flavour paste. That has caught nothing.

I then purchased a Reolink security camera with night vision and set it up at the rear of the house. It does not appear to be that successful at recording video by motion detection caused by rats, but it has captured some clips with rats. When I look at the live feed at night I can see that there are some very big rats that the are living at the rear of the house. I very much doubt a standard rat trap would kill these big ones and they appear to be very trap wise.

I had reservations about using poison baits as I was worried about my dog catching and eating a poisoned rat, however, things are getting out of control and I am hearing more noise in the ceiling.

I have now set up bait stations with poison baits, and built a large bait station out of plyboard, as the regular bait stations aren't big enough for the very large rat I have seen. I will just be very vigilant with my dog when he goes outside and keep an eye on him (he spends most of his time indoors).

So we are waiting for the poison to work. Just in case this is not successful can any geekzoners recommend pest control firms in Kapiti for rat removal from roof space?

Anybody with experience of this issue?

Many thanks,

KiwiTim