Rat trapping: how to trap a rat

The first thing you have to realise is that catching Albany rats is different to catching all other animals. You can snare a raccoon but you cannot snare a New York rat. You also cannot just grab a rat by its tail like you can with an opossum. The cage traps that are generally used almost all other animals will not catch rats, they are too smart and too wary. The initial step is the crucial one, you must make sure beyond any doubt that the building you're trying to clear is completely sealed up so no more rats can get in and the ones that are already in are trapped. The object of trapping them inside the New York building is they get hungry pretty quick and a baited trap will smell pretty inviting.



Once your Albany house is sealed you are ready to start laying traps but what kind of traps. The only kind that actually work are snap traps, these are the old-fashioned wood-based trap. Many professionals also agree the best bait to use on the pan is a smear of peanut butter. Snap traps are lethal but they killed instantly and for that reason they are the only recommended trap, over the years many new design traps have been put on the market but the advice is that the original snap trap is still by far the best.

Where you locate the traps is pretty important but not critical because as the animals become more more hungry they will come further and further out of the dark recesses. That said the best place to lay traps for Albany rats is on a flat, solid surface. Lay your traps along the beams closest to the outer edge of the roof, the places you have to crawl to get to, those are the ideal places.

I know you're wondering why cage traps and relocation are not recommended. It has to do with the nature of the animal, if you trap a rat and remove it to a new environment the Albany rat most assuredly die, it will either be killed by predator or starve to death as it doesn't know where the food is where you release it. There is another type of trap out there which some New York store clerks will say works, and it does, once, these things are called glue traps. They are a rectangular plastic container about a half-inch deep full of glue, they work by the animal walking into them and getting stuck, one very nasty way to die but because the animal dies slowly it warns all of its friends so they avoid the traps after you catch the first one.

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