Can’t see a rodent

I have noticed in our home that at certain places in the house I can smell an unpleasant smell that is reminiscent of mice/rats. That being said I have never seen any here, never found any half-nibbled containers and never really come across anything else suggesting that they are here.

Is this common? How do you work out whether they are present?

Set a few traps around your house, look for possible entry points such as holes under sink or wall mounted heaters.

Unless they are on a suicide mission you wont see them, thats how they survive for so long.

I couldnt find a decent mouse trap despite all the types Bunnings had, so put some Ratsack baits in places where the pets wouldnt get to them. End of problem.

I had rats in the roof when I moved into my current house, just one of many things that the Archicentre inspection failed to pick up. Another story!

Sometimes it sounded like they were having a party up there.

I bought Talon as it was claimed to dry them out. We only found one carcass and it looked mummified but the rats were gone and there were no smells.

There have been a couple of returns but Talon with a smear of peanut butter has always fixed the problem. Never a carcass or a smell.

As an aside, a few years ago a friend heard a noise outside his bedroom window and saw a family a rats on the path playing with each other. He put some Talon down but that Saturday morning he found his neighbour emptying his pool. Apparently his daughter jumped into the pool and found that there were some dead rats floating in it.

Anyway, if your neighbour has a pool, don't tell him/her that you have mice or rats.

I would offer a warning about irresposibly 'spreading Talon' where it could be ingested by kids or pets, or you could find yourself in more trouble than Gillard.

We do have young children - is there a better option than Talon?

As Uncle Arfur has stated, place the bait where it is not accessible to children or pets. It's not rocket science.

If you can smell them, you are probably smelling a nest!

Re my friend's use of Talon: 2 adults, no pets and an enclosed yard.

Snail bait use to be dangerous to pets but a lot of people were obviously not aware of this. I know it is now available as Pet Safe but I don't know if this has actually been regulated and whether the more leathal mixes are still being sold. Most people now assume that snail bait is pet safe and if brands are being sold that are not pet safe, then it is a bad situation.

There are a lot of foods that are dangerous to pets. Dogs for example should not be given a chocolate 'treat'.

Ditto what H2O said and sorry if this sounds like a lecture, but if you have ever seen a pet suffer from ingesting snail bait it is one of the cruelest ways they could die. They stop eating and their body ejects liquid and solids (if they eat) from both ends as their organs shut down, become weak and die.

I had a fabulous vet (who had police dogs among his patients) demand I phone him every 4 hours around the clock with updates as we tried to feed our dog (only a mutt) something that would cling to her insides. Many sleepless nights later we were successful, but never again.

We use baits, but put them in our roof space where there's no chance of anybody's pets getting hold of it. In the past, we've also put them behind the fridge (we don't have pets), which is a spot kids can't get to unless they're freaky super-strong mutant babies. But in the roof is my preferred spot.

The other thing you could consider is getting some vented caps for your weepholes from a hardware store or online source. They allow airflow, but prevent mice getting into the wall cavities and roof from those points. There are a few different ones, but they work like this:

I had this issue in one room of my house where you could smell a strange smell when in the room but I suspected it was coming from the ceiling plaster, probably from a nest or urine soaking into the plaster. Put the baits in your roof space because that's the most likely place they nest. They only come out to find food etc and they aren't necessarily coming into the house, they will often just come out under the tiles at night and scout outside for food but go back into the roof during the day and that's why you don't necessarily see them. Do not put baits in exposed areas where pets, kids, wildlife might find it, this stuff kills anything and it needs to be treated with respect.