Rats and mice come indoors around April in this part of Victoria, as the nights cool and the paddocks dry off. Roof rats run the fence lines, overhanging branches and power lines, then get in at an eaves gap or a lifted tile. Norway rats work at ground level: subfloor vents, broken drains, the gap under a roller door. A house mouse needs a hole about the width of a biro. The droppings tell us which one you have before anything gets set.
Baiting on its own is a treadmill. Leave the entry points open and the next lot moves in as soon as the first lot is gone, which means paying for the same job every autumn. We set lockable stations where there are kids or pets, use traps inside roof voids so a poisoned rat does not die somewhere you cannot reach, and write up the gaps that need sealing: eaves, weep holes, vents, pipe penetrations. Norlane and Corio carry a lot of 1950s and 60s housing where the subfloor vents have rusted through, and that is usually the way in.
