[gongoozler]

Originally Posted by jblum315

Seems to be mostly about gators, not rats

How do we get those gators to eat the rats? One guy on Bellivista (SE 80th) said he had three rats in his backyard last night!

[rubicon]

Forr over three years I had what turned out to be a stray cat dig into my garbage. The critter especially went bokers when the garbage contained chicken bones. I sprayed that bag with so many different compounds and while it slowed the critter down it didn't sop him.

This spring/summer has been the worse for rodents sightings I have witnessed since moving here in 2006. I had my pest control guy set traps. Between those traps and the big birds haven't seen a rodent near my house in better than two months.

For those of you who park your vehicles in your driveway on a regular basis beware. i have had two different people tell me rodents nested in their vehicles

[oot]

Originally Posted by mrfixit

......Just as a FYI........IF you pour or spray a little household non-sudsy AMMONIA around the bags ON YOUR CONCRETE the "critters" simply will NOT mess with your garbage. Has worked for me for over 50 years...have NEVER had my garbage "torn-up" by the hungry varmints....( EXCEPT for the ONE-time I ran out of ammonia )

I'm not in the villages yet, but I hate to leave the trash at the curb overnight because of those ugly rats. We store our trash in plastic cans with lids and every garbage day before I leave for work I grab the bags and toss them out to the curb.

Its pretty dark when I leave for work..... and one day when I opened the lid to grab the trash I heard a THUMP. Sure enough - there was a rat on the bag and it fell to the bottom of the can. It ate a hole in the lid to get to the chicken bones.

Thank God I grabbed the bag instead of the rat. Now - I just toss the can to the curb.

I wonder of the ammonia thing would work if you sprayed the outside of the can?

[Posh 08]

Originally Posted by oot

I'm not in the villages yet, but I hate to leave the trash at the curb overnight because of those ugly rats. We store our trash in plastic cans with lids and every garbage day before I leave for work I grab the bags and toss them out to the curb.

Its pretty dark when I leave for work..... and one day when I opened the lid to grab the trash I heard a THUMP. Sure enough - there was a rat on the bag and it fell to the bottom of the can. It ate a hole in the lid to get to the chicken bones.

Thank God I grabbed the bag instead of the rat. Now - I just toss the can to the curb.

I wonder of the ammonia thing would work if you sprayed the outside of the can?

Set aside a small area in your freezer. When you have solid food waste that can't go down the disposer like chicken bones, steak bones, corn cobs etc. put them in plastic bags and freeze. Trash day put them in the trash bag. No bad smells, no cats, no rats or pests.

[faithfulfrank]

At our Florida home just south of you good folks I have never seen one rat....ever. In fact, I thought you were talking about squirrels, who ARE a problem at times.

We leave our bagged garbage out the night before as the pick up is around 6am.

There is a community just north of us, south of you, who have green steel can-like things in the ground, so you only see the top. You step on a lever and the top hinges open to put your garbage bag into the underground can. It is not unsightly, as you only see the small green top. No cans to see or haul.

I would think these would be quite expensive to buy and install.....but they seem to work in that community.

Just interesting the small differences between our 55+ communities....

Frank