Hi lipstick,

Forget something.

Had to do it hun, sorry

I thought you were having a premature senior moment...I didn't want to scare you

omg..lips, you poor thing. I would die..DIE!  The puniest little mouse freaks me..and believe me when I say that I have my table lined up with weapons ready for the little bugger.  I would have to move if it was a rat.
You know the other night when we were talking about the mice, I got scared just talking about them.  I shut off LCB, to do something more pleasant, play my favorite slot for a while, to stop thinking about it...I was finally relaxing, getting into the game.  It was the night it was raining, so we always get those freaken centipedes, because my house is over 300 years old..they come out in the dampness.
So here I am playing away, VERY RELAXED, and one of those freaken centipede started flying past my feet, up my blanket, almost up to my computer.  I almost s**t my pants, and threw the computer on the floor. grabbed the remote and started beating on my bed..I don't know where that freaken thing is..but if I don't find it..I will have to find another place to sleep.  My heart was racing so fast I thought I was going to have a heart attack.  You should have seen me, I was paralyzed..I am telling you..BUGS are my biggest.  I have so many bug stories.  Anyway..I ripped the bed apart, and got that stinking bug, and squashed him to bits.  I didn't get relaxed again for hours..lousy night of slots.  Freaken stinking little bug got me so uptight. With its twenty million legs...I'd rather get stuck in a cage with a bear.  Maybe even a rat :

hey lips....i'm not much of a nature lover, but my boyfriend is ALWAYS feeding the birds....he won't feed them during the fall and winter though...he claims that it will mess up there migration and since they are being fed, they won't go where ever it is they go in the winters, thus causing them to die!!!  funny story about the mice though,  here's a thought....get an outdoor cat....after fooling us into thinking he was so lovable and cute we ended up getting this kitten, as soon as we got home the demons were let loose..lol, so we put him outdoors, in the last few months he's left 3 mice, 8 moles and 2 birds at our doorstep  and we're still counting...at least he turned out to be good for something!!!!!

haha...funny, well at least you didn't have 2 bluejays attacking your head on the way to the mailbox....i had no idea a cute little bird could be soooo evil, turns out there was a baby jay in the front yard that was still learning to fly and apparently they are VERY protective of their young!!

Cute little fuzzy mice that come in cute little fuzzy colors don't bother me...its disease carrying mice and RATS that make me crazy!

Lips

Good morning Lips,
 Sorry to hear of your troubles and sounds like you have some work to do. Rats have been with Humans since the very beginning of time and will very likely outlast us here on this earth. They are intelligent, resilient and as omnivores can live almost anywhere under almost any conditions. That said... it is preferred not to have to share the bedroom with them (unless you are married to one, a totally different breed).

It was nice of your neighbors to help with the plywood, unfortunately Rats have no problems gnawing through Plywood, particularly if it is blocking access to their nests and babies. Also your crawl space to can be a bypass that gives them access as you stated.
You have two things you can do right now to make your home less attractive as a living quarters. One will even help you save money on your energy bills.

The first part is kind of common sense and pre-emptive. take out the trash regularly, use Metal type trash cans for outside storage, keep lids on tightly, do not store foodstuffs in the garage (50lb bags of dogfood etc.)

The second is doing what we call in the energy field as "Air Sealing" your home. From an energy standpoint this is a good thing as a house or building "breathes" with air infiltrating at lower levels and exfiltrating at upper levels (stack effect) and when doing so carrying the conditioned air you paid for away replacing it with new air that needs conditioned to bring it to your comfort level. If we slow how often that complete change occurs (Air Change per hour) then we slow how often your furnace/cooler needs to consume power to condition...

What does this have to do with rats? Simple, Air sealing is just what it sounds like, finding holes in your home with direct communication to outdoors and sealing them up.
Now I use fancy expensive tools to do my airsealing effectively, a "blower door" ( a large fan mounted in a doorway that creates a slight suction throughout the entire house. When a draft is discovered, it is sealed.) Thermal cameras that can see what is happening behind walls and ceilings, Pressure manometers that determine where the Negative (infiltration) and Positive (exfiltration) zones are in the home... yada yada yada.

Lets take care of your rats. make a trip to your local Home Depot/ Lowes type store. Purchase Steel wool (comes in a bulk package) and two or three big cans of "Great Stuff foam (also a good pair of rubber gloves, that foam gets on you it will stay on you for a long long time). Steel your nerves and head off down to the basement/ furnace room. It is easiest to start at one corner of the home. Now moving your eyes slowly look from floor to ceiling for any cracks or openings , holes larger than a 1/4 inch. when one is found, rip off a small hunk of steel wool, stuff it into the hole and then give a good squirt of the foam. the foam will expand filling it entirely and is not something the rats find tasty, while the steel woll resists their burrowing efforts and is  locked in place with the foam. Do the walk, sealing as you go enterly around your basement.

Some places to pay special attention to is where you see the framing joists (wood used to holed up your home) pay attention as there may be small openings above or below where this wood is "plated". Pipe and Plumbing chases. if you see any pipe that enters your home find where it comes in and stuff steel wool around it, then foam it.
 (For energy, a similar crawl through your attic/cockloft space  foaming and sealing as you go).

 Now we get to your crawlspace and furnace room.
First thing is to figure what purpose that crawl space serves. While we just spent all this time "air sealing" there is one place you want to ensure there is plenty of fresh air entering your home, and that is your furnace. Unless it is an all electric home your furnace needs air to burn the fuel properly to heat your home. in many cases this is one of the purposes for the crawl space. That and access to plumbing fixtures/electric
 conduits.
In the furnace room Identify where the INTENDED air comes from, Measure the opening and make sure it has a screen or mesh over it. (quarter inch opening grid style mesh works fine). seal up everything else with the same attention to detail you did for the rest of the basement. Pay attention to pipe penetrations as there are probably a few of them.  Locate the other end of the crawl space. is there a door or screen? is it in good shape? repair as neccesary. For energy I will usually go into that crawl space and insulate all the pipes and ceilings/walls of that crawl space but for now you have made your home Much harder and less attractive to rodents.

All the above you can do yourself (or bribe those helpful neighbors with promises of smile and barbecued foods).

If you would like to go even further, Dense packed blown in cellulose insulation injected into all wall cavities will complete the air sealing filling all the nooks and crannys where a rat might try to make a home. (the cellulose is treated with a borax solution that rats and other vermin do not find palatable). The cost of having this done varies from location to location but is typically between .75 - 1.50 per square foot. From a rat fighting aspect this may seem expensive but from an energy standpoint the cost of the insulation is usually recovered in lowered fuel consumption savings in the First heating season.

Now here is a little secret. You can get someone to come to your house with all those expensive toys in many places here in the us and canada (and yes in areas of UK and europe as well) by scheduling an energy audit with your local utility company. in Many cases it is free. In other cases there are contractors like myself who can do the same at a minimum charge for the audit (the cost usually directly applied as a credit when you commit to having the contractor do the airsealing/insulation work). In the case of the Freebie utility company audit, do the walk through with him, take notes as to where those infiltration points are for later seal up.

Who would have thought ratproofing a home could be considered "Green".