Rat Poison FAQs | Pros & Cons vs Trapping

You’ll probably have several people tell you to just poison the rats, and you’ll see rat poison right next to the traps. So why not? Not like you planned on keeping them alive anyway, right? Well, most time poisoning rats has proven to be rather ineffective.

Rats are very intelligent and very observant rodents. Often, they will eat tiny pieces of food off of different angles rather than just cramming the whole thing in their mouth. This isn’t so that they look polite in front of lady rats, this is because they are actually testing it for poison. Often, they will not get the full dosage needed to kill them and will just get sick. After that terrifying experience, they are going to be way more cautious. Kind of like when you choke on a hard-shell taco, and then spend a couple months not eating them.

Once you’ve sealed up your home, trapped all the rats, and sanitized any contaminated areas; your home can finally be YOURS again. You can rest without having to worry about hearing scratching all night long, a potential fire breaking out, or having nightmares of rats in your kitchen touching YOUR favorite snack. Congratulations!

Another major reason you want to stay away from rat poison is actually on the off chance that it does kill them. If you’ve ever had an old cat or dog pass away, you know that they try to isolate themselves in a dark space. Rats, being mammals, will do the same thing. So let’s say that this particular rat is like Uncle Jimmy on thanksgiving and crams as much food in his mouth as possible, he then gets the full dose of poison and dies. This rat is then going to find a dark isolated location to pass, or even worse, he’ll fall behind a wall and in the wall. This would mean that you would be experiencing a terrible decomposition odor, while also not being able to find the source. With traps, when rats are killed they are still where the trap was located, making them easy to find and remove.