Chased a rat out of the house at 4am.
We dont usually have rats inside. It must have wandered in during the day. Theres a lot of them outside.
It was big like a squirrel. If it had a fluffy tail you would want to pet it.
We have a few smaller rats in our garden. They sometimes go after compost food scraps or our vegetable garden (though with the vegwtables hard to know if it is the rats, mice, birds, rabbits, or martens)
Does anyone know if rats are bad to have in the garden or if they control other pests or something and we just need to keep them from getting inside?
Depending where you are, you might have a legal responsibility to control them. Even if you don't, I would seriously consider getting some traps because they could become a serious issue if left to multiply. The fact one got in the house should be an alarm bell.
My neighbour throws bird seed around and when I work from home I always see rats in their garden. I've told them and it carries on. I think it is extremely unfair to me the other neighbours to knowingly have rats and essentially encourage them by continuing to feed them.
Traps and any potential improvements to the compost rig should be high on the list based on what you have described.
Edit, I've merged yours and OPs writing in my tired mind, but the general point is the same.
No they haven't gotten near the main house and never inside of our shed either (only mice and I think we have trapped and killed the whole nest because the mice slowly got smaller in the traps and now we haven't had any for 6 months or more)
I will probably do traps because changing the compost up would probably cost hundreds of euros that we can't afford right now with our renovation, we have an open compost now, but only uncooked veggie scraps go on it and coffee grounds. Also maybe getting rid of most of the places they can live (we have a pile of scrap iron from our renovation that our german shepherd is convinced something is living in) might help push them further away from the house.
If they aren't causing you any problems, they're fine. If you haven't looked at them too closely, you might not even be dealing with rats, but some kind of mouse.
You generally don't want to have rats around. They are scavengers and can cause a lot of destruction. We have rats that come up from the greenbelt behind us. They will try to burrow and nest everywhere. And their nests are absolutely disgusting and can carry diseases because they poop everywhere. We had one chew through the insulation and get into our garage. Thankfully it didn't nest in there but it took me days to clean all the shit off everything.
As far as your garden is concerned you can try planting some lavender. It is a natural deterrent for them.
Some dog breeds are great at getting rid of them too. My small dog is quick and can corner them easily. And my German shepherd will grab them off the fence or out of the pool. I also let our small dog sniff around in the garage about once a week to check all the small cracks or places they can get in.