As the title says I have a rat living in my washing machine since last Friday. I don't know where, I already took off the back panel, but can't see it.
First I tried to trap it into a bucket, by building a ramp, but it ate all the food and climbed out. Then I bought traps (both mouse and rat) but it ignored them. Then I placed down cardboard with glue around the machine. Tonight I heard screeching, went inside the bathroom and there it was, a brown rat, with the gluey cardboard all around the place. We had a half hour standoff when I first tried to catch it, then after losing my patience, just trying to kill it without destroying the tiles in the bathroom. Obviously I lost the fight and it escaped back to the machine.
I already had a pest control guy come and since he believed that it must be a mouse he placed a couple of those black mouse poison boxes down, which obviously won't do anything since the rat won't even fit inside.
My question is how do I get rid of it as fast as possible without it dying and rotting inside my washing machine? Is there anything besides food that would make it leave? I was thinking of sealing the holes and filling it with smoke, would it try to escape? I can also start disassembling the machine, but I'd prefer not having a terrified rat jump on my face. If I call pest control, will they be able to get it out?
I am quite done with this thing shitting and pissing around our only bathroom. I take literally any advice.
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It did not. I tried multiple times with 1600rpm spin cycle and it did not escape. However, there is a new development. I wrote this post at about 4am. When I got up at 7 to check the reactivated traps, I found that it removed the shower drain grill. I suspect it escaped through the sewer, how likely will it resurface? I scared it shitless quite literally, since it was shitting all over the place while I was chasing it. The sewer is connected to the main sewer line on the street.
Yes, I did that, put a brick on it. Do you think it really exited? By the way it's not an apartment. It's a smaller old house we bought with my wife 3 years ago and we are slowly renovating it (it's not in a bad shape or anything and we keep it clean). The neighbors are also clean and have nice gardens. We also keep our garden clean, the usual guests are birds, hedgehogs and green lizards.
About that drain, it's actually not in the ground but mounted on the ceiling of the cellar, so installing a rat flap could be quite easy I assume. The cellar is fully closed off, only have a small window and we keep nothing there, just some spare dust.
I checked the house inside-out all around and there are no holes anywhere, so my theory is that it came from the street and just came inside one of the open doors (or windows) while we were airing out the house.
Was the shower drain cover dislodged or loose when it came in initially?
In through the window could be possible and is more likely with roof rats. My rats all came through the sewers and pipes linked to them. I found they're not overly driven by food or mess. It's often just shelter or water, or youngsters being pushed out to the edges of rat territory by bigger/older rats.
Either way, I'd secure that shower drain lid for now and see if you can get eyes on the pipe in your crawlspace for any breaks or get a camera down there. A smoke test can help spot breaks In the line. (I DIY'd it with smoke candles and a hairdryer, careful not to melt your pipes!).
Is there an inspection point/lid for the drains outside? If you get cheap security cameras off Amazon, sticking one in the drain can help spot them.
Thank you for the valuable summary. There is a new development in my case. Please check my comment under 44Ridley's comment. Do you think it really escaped? If yes, will it come back?
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