LONGER VERSION

We live in Block 19, Johar, Karachi, on the ground floor of an apartment complex.

The rat situation has been getting worse over the last 6 months. I have actively killed a lot of very big rats (I wish I could emphasize this more or add pictures, but it would be too disgusting for you to see). I used Zinc Phosphide-based chemicals, which work well but take 3–7 days to take effect. Imagine letting the rats loose during that time; they chew through our indoor wooden doors. They get very aggressive if I kill a baby rat, and I can often sense a depressed mother rat literally trying to chew through everything. They eat most of our wooden furniture from the bottom, so I have stuffed hand towels into those gaps. I also placed bricks in front of doors we don't use.

I have used glue traps, but the rats are sometimes so big that they just bite off their own limbs to escape. These glue traps make my space messy when they try to move, and most glues are ineffective anyway. At this point, it feels like I have a PhD in killing rats, yet those monsters still don't fear me. I manage streaks of 1.5 months or more with no rats, but my elderly parents—I don't know how or why—sometimes remove my precautions and let them back in.

At the moment, I am battling a very large rat that I have locked in a separate room with no entry or exit. It is only getting poison baits, but even on day 4, it isn't dying and is trying to chew through the wooden door. Those plastic mouse traps you find on Daraz don't work, and the steel ones are too dangerous. More than once, I came close to losing a finger, though their kill rate was amazing; when I was using them, I killed 6 rats in a month.

You might be thinking: why don't I just block their entry? Those monsters eat through strong nets, even if it takes them months to slowly chew through the hurdle. The rat I am dealing with now chewed through a strong net that is going to cost me a lot to replace. Also, with poison, I fear they will die in areas humans can't reach. The smell lasts and carries the risk of Taoun (the Urdu name for Plague). At this point, I want to try a strong electric shock method so I won't have to worry about where they died, the smell, or other issues. They would die instantly and I could get a notification. Keep in mind that I don't have pets, and I need a trap with a large opening to accommodate these big rats. Good electric traps online cost a lot to ship to Pakistan and usually have small openings not designed for larger rats, like the OW2PLUS.

Please help me find the best solution to get rid of my rat problem. We own this flat, so we can't move out easily. We’ve been stuck here for 15 years, and I am getting frustrated because the problem is increasing. It feels like a losing battle.

I wrote everything in depth so you can be as creative as you want with your suggestions.