I'm usually just a "reader" of the forum - haven't chimed in for quite a while - but as anyone who works in the veterinary field can tell you - there's not only concern with secondary poisonings (ie dogs, especially, eating the dying or dead rat) but more often the direct/inadvertent poisonings. Most rat "baits" - poisons - are in forms that are very attractive for dogs. Dogs who consume Vit D poisons are more likely to die than those who get anti-coagulant poisons - at least there's an antidote for the latter. Although our family keeps PET rats,I have no compunction about setting traps for the wild ones. You need to put the traps alongside a structure - they usually don't cross open spaces, but run along a building or fence. I second (third?) the idea of peanut butter. Sometimes we add sunflower seeds to it. Also, the hardware cloth is great - we also use it under our decking. They can fit thru any hole they can get their head through(in other words, about the size of a quarter or half dollar). I store my bird seed in a galvanized trash can with a tight lid. hope this helps - Rats are endemic in California. Now, I wish I had as easy a solution for the ground squirrels in our community garden that are acting like they are at a "all you can eat" buffet (oh wait, that's exactly what they have...) Litlbit

The yellow pear tomatoes haven't deterred the rats in my garden. If fact, that is the only tomato plant they haven't even touched. My 40 heirloom tomato plants were 6ft tall, green and gorgeous. I did a great job of killing the rooms and keeping pests away until they started ripening. Now I can't stop them from eating all my tomatoes. I made individual cages for all remaining big tomatoes to keep the rats out. The outside light just turned on and I looked out and 3 small tomatoes were gone just like that but the mini caged ones haven't been touched. I have yet to see the rodents actually steal or eat tomatoes...they are quick and work well at night that's for sure. And they steal my cherry tomatoes too but don't like Black Prince tomatoes (which is good cuz they are my favorite). But I have to come up with good game plan for next year because I lost a lot of money this year and realistically can't make mini cages for all my tomatoes. I should post a picture.

That makes sense the water is going to the sewer drain and not a sewer line! I'm surprised the concrete is the expensive part--- maybe you're in a difficult location where it would be hard to get the concrete there? In our case the expensive part is the sheer overwhelming physical labor of it all. The contractor came back today and I had done some digging above the old coal on the outside as well as inside it (in the basement) and had an unpleasant surprise (are there any pleasant surprises with this house?). Apparently, like everything else with this house, they cob-jobbed the coal chute closed by throwing bricks into it and pouring a thin slab on top. I don't know what caused the avalanche of dirt (and insulation) on the bottom inside the basement, but I do know that there is no concrete floor under it like there is in the rest of the basement! We assumed it was concrete and that the dirt avalanche could just be shoveled out. Course not. We had a lot of rain a few days ago and as I shoveled up some dirt inside the basement, expecting to see a concrete floor, instead it was just more dirt and a growing pool of water. The contractor thinks there is water coming up from the ground as well as through the wall. So that changed our plan a bit since they're going to have to excavate down outside the house to the basement floor level, pour a footer, build a cinderblock wall to properly seal off the stupid coal chute, and then do some waterproofing inside (clean out dirt, install drain in floor into sump pump which is fortunately only about a foot away, pour clean gravel on top, cover with encapsulating material). On the exterior he thinks it should just be graded away with dirt and with a hardscape/mulch/rocks/something, no plantings. The total is now up to $8500. I'm a little shocked that it's that inexpensive, for all the work they'd be doing (pouring a footer sounds like it would be exorbitantly expensive, right?). He also isn't going to be doing the concrete on the other side of the deck (under the kitchen window) since he thinks the water on that side is also coming up from the ground (sheesh) and it wouldn't do much good. So they're just going to grade the ground there with dirt. I asked him about a door at the bottom of the stairs and he said he could put up some of that encapsulating material and have it hang down over the opening, which would be better than nothing since an actual door isn't feasible. It sounds like you did more than your due diligence with getting bids and planning, so I really hope it works out for you! It's got to help somewhat, at least, if not get rid of the water 100%. If your water table is high (like it is here, apparently) then the french drains won't be 100%, but you'd probably know that by now. My husband is still digesting all this information, but if all goes well we'll be having it done early September probably. Good luck with everything!!

I realized the solution is two composters. We need one at the first floor level for kitchen waste. That would be a relatively small, inexpensive one like yimby. It is very reasonable on Amazon. Then I'd get a larger tumbler for yard waste. I'm reading reviews. I think it was 'life solutions' that got very good reviews and a decent price. Safety is a factor. Being less sure-footed now, Having to walk out to garden to the composter in winter is an invitation to slip and fall. ( it is no longer an option to just drop the kitchen garbage over the wall onto the compost heap. That was so easy!)