EEEEEEEEEEEKKK! RATS!

Tips on Winning the Battle Against Rats

by Teresa Hendrix

Apparently, Spring 2025 started out with a bumper crop of rats around here. The four-legged kind.

Prompted by a lengthy discussion on Facebook about Windsor's recent rat population explosion, here are some hyperlocal tips in the ongoing battle of humans v. rats.

1: Rats are wherever humans are.

Windsor (CALIFORNIA!) is actually a great town for wildlife. Including rats. Creeks criss-cross the town, and have water in them most of the year. Rats, raccoons, possums/opossums, skunk, fox, deer, squirrels, mice, neighborhood and feral cats use the creeks to roam very efficiently. And also get food.

We do have a lot of people with bird feeders - which the squirrels and rats love too. We do have coyotes - and also mountain lions up in Shiloh and Foothill parks. This year was the second in a row with abundant rainfall. More wildlife survived 2023 to have more babies in 2024, and now even more in 2025. Normal rain years mean plenty of food for wildlife.

2: NO RAT POISON!

Please do NOT use RAT POISON! Kills rats, but also any cats, dogs, or toddlers who accidentally try eating it. It also poisons up the food chain: coyotes, foxes, owls, osprey, hawks, falcons, crows and ravens will eat rats and mice and keep their populations in check!

If you poison the rats, an owl or hawk or coyote will nab one while it's slow and woozy or just newly dead. When the raptor or coyote eats it, they die. Vulture eats them, vulture dies. It messes up the whole predator system.

3: Do you like cats? Or dogs? Or Owls?

Try attracting owls to your yard. (All kinds of owl houses you can order online - or go to Tractor Supply or other ag supply store). Or, consider getting a cat. There are even dogs for the job: Rat Terriers and Jack Russell Terriers were bred to keep rats and mice out of food storage areas.

If you DO have pets already, DON'T leave their food and water bowls outside. Rats love scurrying in and drinking from pet water dishes and eating anything left in their bowls. (So do raccoons.) Keep pet food and water bowls inside at night. Try to eliminate any water sources in your yard. Rats are attracted to water, too.

4: Say Yes to Humane Traps. They Work.

DO try spring or wire traps - aka "humane rat traps." For mice and small rats, go get the water bucket trap at Home Depot (works like a charm). For big rats, go get wire traps at the hardware store or any ag supply store. In the suburbs, set them along the horizontal board along wooden fence tops, and use gloves while you hold and bait the trap - don't put any human scent on them, or the bait. (Ditto when setting any mouse traps.)

The downside is you have to be a pioneer in the morning and take a shovel and break a big rat neck. Then dispose of the carcass. Wear leather gloves and farmer shoes/workboots and don't get bit. Don't let your teenage daughter talk you into saving the rat by taking it out in the country and letting it go! They just come back. Or you give them to your country neighbors.

Remember, If you are trapping rats: Please TRY NOT to catch the possums/opossums, and skunk, as they actually love eating harmful bugs and also small annoying vermin (mice, voles, etc.) Did you know skunks will dig into underground wasp and yellowjacket nests to eat larvae and juveniles? Fun fact.

Skunks and opossums/possums are good for your yard and the neighborhood! They probably live along a nearby creek, or possibly a low-traffic neighbor's yard. (No children or animals living there/visiting). One more good reason to avoid a glue trap: Baby skunks and possums/opossums (along with neighborhood cats and kittens) are prone to getting stuck on glue/sticky traps. You will need to take the cute little critters to a wildlife rescue (like Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue) if you get one caught in a glue trap!

Or, you may accidentally catch a skunk or a possum in a humane/wire trap. But all you have to do is open the trap and let them go. No blood, no foul. Maybe call Sonoma County Animal Control and ask for help/advice letting a skunk go, though. Never caught one/had to do that...But yes: if you wind up with a cat, a possum, or a skunk in your humane trap...LET IT GO! (Just wear gloves and good shoes while you're doing it.)

5: Police Your Garbage and Your Produce!

Keep your garbage can lids closed tightly!!!! Don't leave trash lying around in garbage bags - rats just chew right through. (Mice, too.) If you've got a garden with nice tomatoes, etc., the rats and possums and skunks will eat the produce. Put traps around your garden -- and also chicken wire or other small-mesh "caging" wire around your produce and plants if the rats get really bold.

Pick up any fallen fruit in your yard and throw away right away - in your compost bin. Keep the compost bin lid tightly closed.

Businesses should keep their big garbage bins closed and follow the same advice. Businesses with indoor PET FOOD should set traps around the pet food to catch rats!

If you see rats inside a business, that's a real problem. Tell the manager, and/or also call the County Health Department tip lines. To report a public health concern or tip in Sonoma County, you can call the Sonoma County Health Services main line at (707) 565-4700 or email DHSDIR@sonoma-county.org

No business wants rats! I have never seen rats or rat poop inside ANY businesses in Windsor (CALIFORNIA!) Businesses that have garden centers with frequently opening automatic doors, and also stock food and pet food indoors, would be very vulnerable to this. Restaurants are always at war with rats - as are any business with food, really. Best advice is to keep garbage bins closed, with no garbage bags left outside the garbage dumpsters. Set traps for rats, and be ever-vigilant for scat indoors.

6: Get Professional Help.

IF you follow these tips, and still have an abundance of rats, DO call the Marin Sonoma Mosquito and Vector Control District. They are great.Their services are free; it is a local (two-county) tax-funded agency. (*Side note: they will also come and remove yellow jacket nests, in-ground or other locations in your yard.*)

7: It's a Neverending Battle.

To keep rats away, you will need to continue to follow ALL the tips above. Always and forever.

8: It could be worse.

Coyotes and bears also love our garbage. We do not (yet) have enough hungry Black Bears in the hills around Windsor (CALIFORNIA!) to tempt bears into town for trash grazing. In Tahoe, and down south in Monrovia and Pasadena (east LA, right next to the mountans), the bears have learned about trashcans. And love them.

In Monrovia, starting in the ealy 20-teens, their arrival (sometimes in family packs) and trash can sampling has become sort of an annual spring event.The Monrovia PD Web Page has some additional tips about sanitizing your trash cans routinely to get rid of food smells that attract bears. (And rats.) Fun fact: Bears are attracted by the smell of Sunscreen. MPD recommends NOT leaving sunscreen or other scented items outside at night.

Windsor (CALIFORNIA!) doesn't yet have a problem with coyotes coming into town at night to raid trash cans. Or eating rats feasting on our trash cans. San Francisco does. The City now has a couple hundred of them doing that, in very stable family packs. Fun facts about the Coyotes of San Francisco.

Tips brought to you by the Windsor Garden Club.

The illustrations below are from the coastal science journal Hakai Magazine, and an award-winning article titled "In Defense of Rats." Author J.B. MacKinnon won an award from the Society of Environmental Journalists for the article.

Text by J.B. MacKinnon

Illustrations by Sarah Gilman