The best outdoor rat traps

The two problems that are specific to outdoors

Weather. A snap trap left in the open rusts, and a wet trigger becomes unreliable. An electronic trap in the rain is a dead electronic trap.

Non-target animals. Outdoors, your trap is available to every cat, hedgehog, squirrel, songbird and curious dog in the neighborhood. An unprotected rat trap on a lawn is a genuine hazard, and catching someone's pet is an outcome worth designing against rather than hoping about.

Both problems have the same solution, and it is not a special trap.

The answer is a box, not a better trap

Buy a locked, tamper-resistant station — the kind sold for bait — and put snap traps inside it instead of poison.

This is the single best rodent tip on this site, and it solves everything at once:

• The box sheds rain, so the trap stays dry and the trigger stays reliable.
• It is key-locked, so a dog cannot open it and a child cannot reach in.
• The entry holes are rat-sized, which excludes almost every non-target animal larger than a rat.
• Rats actively prefer an enclosed tunnel approach, so the box improves your catch rate rather than compromising it.
• Nothing gets poisoned — not the rat's scavenger, not the neighbor's cat, not an owl. Compare with rat trap vs poison.

A top-opening station is easier to service than a side-opening one, because you can lift the lid without lying on the ground.

Where to put them in a yard

Rats run edges. Set along structure, never in open lawn:

• The base of a fence line or a retaining wall
• Along the back of a shed or a garage, in the gap against the wall
• Beside a compost bin or a log pile
• Under decking, at the point where the run enters
• Along the route between the food source and wherever they are going — between a bird feeder and a fence line, for example

Look for the rub marks: a rat run outdoors leaves a visible worn path and greasy darkening on the fence board or wall it passes.

Anchor each station. A station that can be dragged will be dragged, usually by a fox or a dog.

The self-resetting option

A gas-powered self-resetting trap mounts to a post or a tree, fires a piston when a rat enters the nose, and resets itself, dropping the carcass underneath. One CO2 canister covers a couple of dozen resets.

It is expensive, and it is the correct answer for one specific situation: continuous outdoor pressure where a daily trap round is not realistic. A yard backing onto a watercourse, an allotment, a chicken run, a property beside a restaurant bin store. In those places the cost amortizes quickly and the labor saved is the point.

It is the wrong answer for a one-off rat under the decking. Buy a station and two snap traps for that.

One consideration: carcasses fall to the ground under the trap. Site it where you will notice and clear them, and not where a dog patrols.

Pre-baiting outdoors

Same rule as indoors, and if anything more important because outdoor rats have more options.

Put the stations out with the traps inside unset, baited, for three to five nights. Let them become part of the furniture. Then set everything on the same evening.

Best rat trap bait covers what to use — outdoors, a greasy, strong-smelling bait carries further in cold air, and anything a rat can carry off should be tied on.

The part that actually ends it

Outdoor rats are a food problem before they are a trapping problem. Trapping without removing the food source is a permanent commitment.

• Bird feeders: spillage under a feeder feeds rats every night. Use a catch tray, or stop feeding for a few weeks.
• Compost: no cooked food, no meat, and a rodent-resistant bin with a hard base rather than an open heap.
• Fallen fruit: pick it up.
• Pet food and water bowls: not left out overnight.
• Trash: hard-sided cans with a fitting lid, and the lid actually on.

Rats in the yard covers this properly, including the harborage — log piles, dense ivy, gaps under sheds — that makes a yard worth living in.