"black rats", better described as "Roof Rats" can be any shade of brown to blackish brown. http://seattletimes.com/html/homegarden/2008632463_zhom15fixit.html http://nathistoc.bio.uci.edu/mammals/Rodentia/Rattus%20rattus/IMG_saz_20111127_1920.JPG You need to clean up the bird feeders and do some rat control. Roof rats will invade houses and chew wires, destroy your insulation and generally wreck the place. Here is a link that might be useful: Rattus rattus

Reading all of your experiences I'd just like to share some of mine with pest problems. I've had an ongoing problem with mice and in the summer ants. We used to get roaches, but I think a conscious effort to only eat up to the kitchen table helped keep them away. For all who have problems with mice. My mom used to stay on me about killing the MOUSE in the house, but I read in a rodent book mice live in colonies, so killing on is like winning the battle, not the war. I find that the old fashion snap traps are the most effective, a bit brutal to the rodent, and often disgusting, but very effective if you know how to set them right. As the StripedOne said peanut butter works very well. But you can also use a piece of fat back or salt pork. Take a needle and thread/ dental floss and actually tie it in to the bait panel of the trap so the rodent can't make off with it without setting off the trap. Set it and put it in a hidden area, the critter will feel like its sneaking which will make it more likely to try and actually devour all of the bait. Then the next morning you should have a dead mouse to dispose of. The meat should still be there so you can reset the trap a few more times without having to apply more bait, like you would with peanut butter. Once after killing like 7 mice ine one night. I had my girlfriend over, and she saw one run out from behind the refrigerator, talk about embarrassing, she freaked out. I know how to catch mice, my problem is I dont want to be able to catch them cuz I dont want them in the house at all. Which is why I had hoped the Riddex things would successfully ward them off, and end my battles against pest for good. But judging from most of your tesimonies it would be a pointless endeavor to try them. Also, a bit off subject, I found a spider in a bunch of grapes I had bought today. It had started to weave a web at the center and also deposited a few eggs. I was pissed because I had already ate some of the grapes. So you guys check your fruits good before you by them.

This is a great site, although it's been a while since I looked at it. Thanks for the reminder. I love that the description of this house is "of rather plain design"! I was hoping to find my simple little house there but the emphasis seems to be far more on the fancier houses. The closest thing would be the Cottage for a Mill Hand, which is what mine originally was also - we have the same general arrangement of living room (parlor) in the front, DR behind it (although my house has no fireplaces), and kitchen in the other back corner, but a long narrow front hall back to the kitchen with a straight stair on one side instead of the square one. This is the typical design for this style house in my area; there are thousands of them, since from the early 19th century to WWI there were hundreds of factories here (primarily textiles, shoes and other leather goods, and wood products) and there was great demand for cheap, simple housing. Just as in the pictured house, my house originally had no indoor bathroom - until they were made illegal in the 1960s there was an outhouse out back, just 100 yards from a river! The exterior is very different though.

I feel your pain. We're learning that mice can get in just about anywhere at all. In the past year or 2, they've gotten into our crawl space via cracks in the mortar of our outside brick chimney, in through small (and large) tears in the netting in the foundation vents, going under the 4' foundation walls, coming in around any pipe/tube that comes in through the foundation walls that aren't completely sealed off. We were able to keep them from getting from our crawl space into our small basement, fortunately, but they are still getting into the crawlspace intermittently. We even had one stuck above the fan filter over our stove! We set traps right inside the crawlspace. (we have a small door that opens from our small basement into the crawl space). Fortunately, very few have gotten into our house recently. When we discovered they were coming in from the cracks in the chimney and hubby sealed them, they all came into the house.......the oven, the kitchen cabinets, etc.,etc. It was awful. One place they got into our house was through a small opening in the trap door that was in the closet, to access the bathroom shower plumbing. They could also squeeze under the door to the basement. I sealed the trap door, and I got one of those rubber door sweeps and put it on the bottom of the basement door. Once we heard louder chewing in the walls, so I got a rat trap. Turns out it was a red squirrel :( We discovered that it came in through the screen on the foundation vent. Hubby has spent hours in that horrible place (the crawl space..........and we have a pretty nice one compared to some!) and he's tried to close up every possible tiny hole.......but you just can't seal up everything. Do what you can, and set traps. And like was said, definitely do not use poison. Besides hurting pets and children, if they die outside after eating the poison, then anything that eats the dead mouse will be poisoned too. They could be bringing their own food with them. Hubby found a bunch of seeds in a nest in the crawl space that had to have been brought in from outside. I was out in our chicken coop the other night. I've kept the small chicken door closed because of the horrible cold. I saw a small black mouse run to that closed door, and disappear through a crack I couldn't even see! They are definitely a challenge. Good luck!