Well, Rob, welcome to the club! :)
I forgot about the sticky traps, I have them too. I will set them up tonight.

The problem with with rat traps is that a rat will not get in twice. You either catch it or forget about those traps..
After loosing one like you, I now drill a hole in the wooden base for the rope which is keeping the traps attached to something heavy like a brick.

At the moment, after all your great suggestions (thank you!), I will have in my arsenal the following:
-spring rat traps
-sticky rat traps
-motion sensing light
-copper mesh (to make the small organza like bags)
-motion sensing camera

That’s  A LOT of effort and $$ just to eat them figs, I would say!

Hi greenfig,
Why not stay basic ?
Step one : Sacrifice a shirt and cover each ripening fig .

For the next use gloves to dispose so that the rodents don't smell your human odor :
Step two: Take half volume of wheat flour and half volume of lime. keep dry and mix them and dispose .

Step three: lay castor oil plant pellets - sold as a fertilizer .

Step four : buy live catch traps .

Step six : take a t-shirt and after wearing it a day, put it on the tree - for human odor.

Step 0 : find out what the critter is, so using a cam is the way to go or the live-catch traps. For me it is squirrels . Just be sure it is not kids ...
Step 0.1 : can you cage the tree ?

How big is the tree ? Is it in pot ? Is it far from your windows ?
I'm almost happy to just have to fight ants, birds and rodents - for now.

I have the same problem with visiting night creatures, for the past five years. They usually start being active in mid- July until fall. Not much that can be done I have covered with netting and hopsack but they eat right through. I did check with a tractor supply store, and was told there is nothing over the counter that will hurt them. I usually take a plant inside the garage over night to keep safe, in order to taste.

Phil

Igor, if you are growing them on the ground in pots, maybe you can build yourself a growing bench/table using legs made out of either PVC or the steel tubing used for cyclone fencing.  I don't believe rats can climb these.  If rats are the culprit, elevated 2' should be enough.  If racoons are a culprit, go higher, maybe 3.5'-4'.

Thanks, Harvey.

Yes, the figs are in the 7 gal pots.
The culprit are the rats at night and squirrels during the daytime. The elevation structure might work against the rats but not for the squirrels (although the squirrels are easier to deal with). 
I might have to go with the mixture of different methods mentioned above. The traps are a must to diminish a constant rodent inflow. 

A friend in San Luis Obispo has a dachshund that thinks he's a large dog and catches a lot of ground squirrels and gophers.  Don't you have fencing to keep out coyotes?

Yes, I do have the fence but if I get a dog, my wife will choose to live on the other side :)
I love the dogs, will have to work on this.
Many of my neighbors have dogs which makes my lawn a safe heaven for vermin.

Could be one of these. My boys are doing a good job keeping them away from my fig trees  

And this is how it is done:
 

As I see it, the expense of all this high tech drama is not justified for one or two figs.  Electric Fences, movement sensors in whatever fashion they come.  All expensive.  You could grow a lot more figs for the price of this stuff!

@HarveyC, we do have fencing to keep out the coyotes, but it doesn't mean a thing to the possums or racoons or rats, and an evil minded coyote could jump a 6' fence easy.  We don't have "pets" because Bob Cats can not only leap, they can climb.  You chose your drama.

I prefer poison.

Suzi

Just to report a few good things.

I finally managed to eat a few ripe figs last night!
I found that the guys who were doing the damage were mostly rats and possibly one little possum.

After doing some reading, I came to a conclusion that the night creatures  mostly do not like the light at night so I got a few 
motion sensing lights:
http://www.amazon.com/TSSS®-Wireless-Motion-Sensor-Garden/dp/B00EN72WAM/ref=pd_sim_lg_71?ie=UTF8&refRID=18Q8AV83A29PPXNNM7T6

I placed them around the pots and on top of the larger pots. The nice things about them is that they lit the area slightly all the time but when activated, the light becomes very bright for about 20 sec. The bad guys do not come close because there is light already but when a brave one makes an effort, he is blinded with a few beams.

I will get a few more those lights and hang around my yard just in case. They look quite decent. 
I setup several rat traps too but nobody has triggered them yet.

i think rats are attacking my figs. i got a four pound bucket of poison from amazon, smeared each cube with peanut butter n left them out. they have been carried away, hopefully to be shared  with family n friends. got a haveahart coming too, so i can ID the culpret.

note that i won't release anything i catch far away to bother someone else. i think that's unethical. i'll kill what i catch.

meanwhile, i made    cylinders of 1/2'' hardware cloth that's 2' high. that seems to work.

My security camera revealed that birds were getting into my fig cage, creeping under the lip of the netting at ground level and flying out of a hole below an iron wrought fence. For the last few days they have been devouring my best Negronne figs. I have shored up and tightened the netting, I hope this keeps them out. Persnickety little critters. At least I am now sure of the culprit. There are no four legged creatures left in my neighborhood thanks to the Kania 2000.