Rats in Gardens, could it be Drainage..?
Rats are attracted to gardens for a few reasons:
- Food sources: Gardens often have a variety of plants, fruits, vegetables, and seeds that can be appealing to rats. If you have compost, fallen fruit, or bird feeders, these can be easy food sources for rats.
- Shelter: Gardens provide rats with cover, such as dense plants, tall grass, shrubs, or garden sheds. These areas give them a place to hide from predators and nest.
- Water: Gardens may have sources of water, such as ponds, fountains, or even water left out for plants. Rats need water, and gardens are a convenient spot for them to find it.
- Warmth: During colder months, rats may come into gardens seeking warmth, especially if they can find sheltered places like sheds, greenhouses, or piles of leaves and garden debris.
- Proximity to urban areas: Gardens near homes, particularly in urban or suburban areas, may be part of the rats’ natural foraging range. If there’s food or shelter near the house, they might move in from nearby buildings or sewers.
If you’re having trouble with rats in your garden, it might help to remove food sources, keep the garden tidy, and seal any entry points to sheds or buildings.
While all of the above is completely true on many occasions rat issues in gardens can originate from defective and open drainage. A kitchen gully without a grid, a hole at the side of a Inspection Chamber or a old and dry line within the drainage system can all be the source of repeated rat issues within your garden.
Quite often Pest Controllers arrive on site and inspect the compost bin, the bird feeders, under sheds and other areas of harbourage yet walk straight past the actual source of the infestation, a open drain.
Having rats running around your garden is never nice, for lots of people their garden is a place of sanctuary and peace which often involves the feeding of birds and it is not rare for the attending pest controller to advise that the birds are not to be fed for the period of the treatment or worse still advised that the birds are no longer fed.
What has not been factored into the treatment program is the chance that the invading rats are actually entering the garden from the drainage system where they have food and water in abundance. So even when baits are placed control can not be gained from rodenticide feeding as the rats are feeding from the sewers.
Yet the attending pest controller will lay the blame at the bird feeder. While the bird feeder is a reliable food source for the rats it may not be the source for the infestation.
Quite often manhole covers and inspection chambers are covered by decking and slabs, so if you notice a burrow from either yet no obvious runs to and from maybe the source is from underground upwards rather than burrowing downwards. Again the rats may be noticed in the garden but this does not mean they are nesting within the garden.
Rats can have a large touring and foraging area, so the rats you are seeing in your garden could be surfacing from your neighbours drainage. All of these things have to be factored into our surveys as pest controllers.
My most recent forum for the BPCA (British Pest Control Association) was to address the issue with rats in gardens originating from drainage defects.