A Roadtrek Rat

gonetothedogs1 wrote:
Besides the problem of unintended deaths with poison, .... A friend used poison in a fit of desperation, and had to live with the smell of dead/decomposing vermin in her walls for weeks.

In the city we dont have much "wildlife" but we do have idiots with bird feeders, garbage not in proper containers, etc so we have a thriving population of mice and rats. The most common types of poison are the anti-coagulant type. When bait is in a tamper-resistant bait station:"Although secondary poisoning is possible, it is unlikely to occur. Anticoagulant baits are manufactured with low dosages of active ingredients that range from 25 parts to 50 parts per million. A 20 lb dog would need to consume a range from 1.6 to 96 ounces of baits such as Contrac (bromadiolone) or Final (brodifacoum) to get poisoned in both primary or secondary poisonings. The chances of a pet to consume enough carcasses of a dead rat to accumulate sufficient poison for secondary poisoning would be low. It is more likely to occur with a high population of dead poisoned rats that are accessible, coupled with pets or non-targeted animals that are foraging for food due to hunger. Most pets are loved and fed well. They would need to be very hungry for them to eat many dead carcasses of rats."
And a good .edu article here is a review of scientific literature concerning secondary poisoning of wildlife in agricultural areas.
We had an infestation of mice for the first couple years we lived in our house in the city. We had a pest service come in and must have killed a hundred mice and altho I can smell viciously well there was only a couple times I could smell something, went into the basement and picked up the dead mice and got rid of them. The animals will seek water outside if all sources of water and sealed inside.