No, not your fault! Once, I heard a lady blaming her neighbour's large garden for drawing rats. I was in a feed store buying, yes, rat bait. Another man said he had lost 30 lbs of tomatoes to rats. I think I lost only 1lb that year though there were a LOT of rats. A neighbour has been feeding the birds all seasons lots and lots of seed and that really is a rat draw.
But when construction started on a housing development about 1/4 mile away the rats also stopped coming through a ditch to our area. I did nothing different to my place or garden but there are just no rats at all, so far, this year. I can't think of any other change than the development. They may show up again when it starts to rain and they then come looking for a dry place.
I figure that the rats are either there or they aren't. All we can do is cope somehow. I did learn not to bait the garage as they would then nest near it. Now I put it out into a garden shed instead and put stored pots in plastic garbage bags to keep them clean as rats seem not to like plastic bags but will sit in the pots if not covered.
It has been a nice holiday from them this year.
|