Advanced rat trapping techniques (AKA trap rats like a pro)

Written by Josh, owner of Smart Pest Pros, more experience than he ever thought he would have in the pest control field.

Intro

Trapping rats can make you age early, get a divorce, sell your house, buy a van and live by the river. Problem is you thought you got away from them only to find them chewing on your van’s wires. Now you have no house, no wife and no functioning van. And rats still tormenting you. There is hope, we have some proven methods to catch them no matter how smart the rat is. Before doing any trapping I highly recommend inspecting for and sealing any holes allowing them to enter your house. This includes holes going into your subarea, your attic, your garage, wall voids, etc.

Pre-Baiting

This is an industry term that doesn’t make sense when you first hear it. It doesn’t mean to add bait before the traps but that’s not too far off. This technique is simple, you place the traps you want to use in the locations with activity but instead of setting the traps you only put bait on and around them. This tricks the rats into getting used to the traps. If you want to have the most success, add a few different types of bait the first night or two to see what they prefer. You don’t need a lot of bait, just one or two pieces of each kind. Once you notice they’re eating a particular bait, replace nightly for a few nights. On night 3 or 4, you can actually set the traps with their preferred bait. It’s also a great idea to use neoprene gloves so your pheromones won’t deter them (in my experience this isn’t the most important thing though).

Trap Placement

If you sealed all the active and potential entry points correctly, this step is less important. Preventing rats from getting to their food source which is typically outside forces them to the traps (most times), making the trap placement almost irrelevant. Nevertheless, proper trap placement is a good thing. If you’re living on the edge and not sealing the holes and just trapping, trap placement is crucial. Rats are neophobic, meaning afraid of new things. They are creatures of habit. They prefer the shadows of shadows. When considering trap placement you should first look at where they are most often. If they are in a subarea or attic and you haven’t sealed the entry points, you might want to crawl around and place traps in the areas with high droppings. Rats like to feel something against their whiskers whenever possible so try to place the traps with the medal or plastic bait tray side against a solid surface (a wall, a joist in an attic, a box in a garage, etc.). Look for heavily used highways, you’ll know it by the dark rub marks and possible chewing on wood. If you find a highway place an active trap right along it, either one trap with the bait tray side against the wall or 2 traps with the bait traps opposite each other. The advantage of two traps is you have a better chance of catching them regardless of the direction they are coming. The advantage of placing them on highways is rats will often run full speed with little to no light relying on touch, muscle memory and pheromones. They may never see or detect the trap until it’s too late. Sometimes you can place multiple traps in a row to prevent them jumping. Another technique we use is the circle of death. Place 4-5 traps in a circle with the bait facing out. You can also use a sticky trap in either side if the main trap. You can zip tie or nail a trap onto a board they are suing if you can’t place the trap down. So many options - sometimes you just need to get a little creative.

Trap Selection

We prefer the Victor Pro Traps with the yellow pedal. These are nice because they have multiple options for placing bait and also a sensitive and firm setting. We virtually always use the sensitive setting but if you are placing a trap in an area with lots of vibration (like behind a dryer or washing machine), the firm setting may come in handy. If you want these traps to be more sensitive you can bend the pin slightly creating a more sensitive trigger. The other wooden traps with the metal pedal are still effective but don’t seem to have the same kill rate. The jaws style plastic traps are a great choice if you want something that’s easy to engage. I’m not a huge fan of these for most situations as we have had many instances if rats not getting caught. These traps aren’t quite as sensitive as the wooden snap traps. They do come in handy and as mentioned if setting the snap traps freaks you out, these are great. There is another option out there that’s kind of a hybrid between a snap traps and the jaws style. It has a kill bar and it’s very easy to engage. Just like the jaws style traps, these don’t seem to be as effective as the old school snap traps. They are easier to set and can be good as an alternative if the rats become afraid of the snap traps. The last widely used trap is a sticky trap aka glue board. These can be super effective but be aware that the rat slowly dies of starvation unless you do the job yourself and hasten its death. There are also electronic traps out there which we use on occasion and can be very effective these are a little pricey though so just be aware of that

Here’s an Amazon link to our preferred rat traps: https://a.co/d/5m0Bjat

Bait selection

Just like trap selection and trap placement, bait selection isn’t nearly as important if you seal the holes properly. Our bait of choice is a pre-made gel bait that comes in a tube. It’s really easy to use, lasts quite awhile and sticks to traps really good. Other great options are peanut butter, dried fruit, nuts, beef sticks and if they are already feeding on something outside or inside — USE THAT. They are already used to and like that thing whether it’s lemons or oranges or nuts or whatever. It’s always great to use their preferred food source. Whichever bait you use, be sure to put a small amount, ideally in the far edge of the pedal of the trap. If you’re using a glue board, also place a small amount of bait but this time right in the middle of the board. As mentioned in the pre-bait section above, you can experiment with different trait to see what they prefer.

Here’s an Amazon link to our preferred bait: https://a.co/d/9wXGxdq

Good luck out there!