Rat problem in new house
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Hi all,
My first post following a grim discovery. My wife and I moved into our new house in October 2018 and found out we had a mouse problem. We live trapped about 20 and moved them a good couple of miles away into a hedgerow (they were wood mice). We've now discovered that we also have rats and they are creating such a racket above our bedroom that we've moved into the spare room. They have cleverly set up home in the cavity part of a small area of flat roof so we can't get into it really.
Having had a good look around the loft there is quite a lot of bat, mouse and rat poo and when I moved some of the insulation there was bucket loads of the stuff. There were also several sonic deterrents (clearly not working very well) and a couple of old rat bait trays so it's clear that this problem existed before we bought the house.
I've just checked our HomeBuyer report - Survey and Valuation and the surveyor did access the loft and stated "My inspection of the roof spaces was restricted by the presence of timber boarding and insulation material.". If they had gone up and looked properly they would have found droppings in several places and there are a lot and some are clearly very old so I suspect they just poked their head up there. There was no ladder available when we viewed the property so we didn't check the loft but thought it'd be fine as we were having a survey (lesson learned!).
Based on other threads I've seen it sounds like I don't have any option to take up the matter with the previous owners but I might have the option of pursuing the matter with the surveyor. Can anyone offer any advice please?
I've put some traps up in the loft (baited but not set yet as I believe you have to allow the rats to get used to taking bait of them first for a few days) but having just been up and had a better look under the insulation I think the problem needs professionals so I'll be calling the council tomorrow for advice on dealing with the problem - I think we'll need to rip out the old insulation as it's full of poo and rat wee, find any entrance holes and block them up, deal with the resident rats and then re-insulate the whole loft. All of this is going to cost a pretty penny I imagine and that's money we don't really have after a recent house move :-( https://homeprofy.com/how-to-tell-how-many-rats-are-in-your-house/
Thanks in advance for any help.