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Dear Helpless, are you putting the wrong dead matter into your compost heap? Are you putting in cooked food? If so then that is why you have rats. You should only compost veg. peelings, grass and garden waste, maybe that is where you have been going wrong.

id imagine the rats are in the compost for the warmth it naturaly gives out as apposed to a food source . i would use humane traps that kill the rats outrite personaly as poison is a bit dangerous for other creatures .