Eliminate Outdoor Rodent Food Sources
Rats will eat anything they can get nutrition from. If you have a garden, a compost pile can be a food source for rats. Keep garbage bins sealed tightly as rats will eat garbage. For pet owners, keep your pets droppings picked up, as rodents can eat pet feces for nutrition. Any fallen vegetation, such as from fruit trees or a garden, must be picked up daily to make sure a growing rat colony cannot find a food source.
What Are The Primary Entry Points For Roof Rats
Your home may offer several inviting entryways for roof rats. Attic and roof vents can lead straight into your home. Gaps in the coverage, no matter how small, may be just enough for a roof rat to squeeze through. Chimneys and drainage pipes are another entry point. Roof damage, like missing or broken shingles, makes it easier for rodents to enter your home.
Are Roof Rats Harmful
Any rat can become aggressive when threatened. They might bite you or pursue you. You could contract an illness like rat-bite fever if a roof rat bites you. Rat-bite fever symptoms might appear anywhere in a matter of days or weeks after the incident. Its important to recognize the symptoms because they can be present even after the bite has previously healed:
- Joint and muscle aches.
Note that some infections caused by rats can kill people if not handled appropriately. They can infect people through their feces and urine. Although roof rats are yet to be linked to the Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, you must still exercise caution when wiping up urine and excrement because you might have mistaken your rat infestation for something else. When people breathe air that has been around rat saliva, feces, or urine, they can contract the hantavirus.
Furthermore, fleas that previously fed on rats can make you sick. Diseases like tularemia and plague can be spread when a flea attacks a roof rat and afterward bites you.
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How To Get Rid Of Rats
Knowing what poisons kill rats instantly and the best traps to get rid of rats are only the first step in eliminating an infestation. Even a dead rat can create problems in your home, as the body will attract other pests. Even the smell can linger terribly in the air and make it hard to enjoy the comfort of your own home.
Likewise, you cant necessarily just leave out traps with baits and expect them to get the job done. Rats are extremely cautious creatures that dont trust new things in their environments. Theyre remarkably intelligent and capable of social learning, which manifests in many ways. If you want to solve your rat infestation, youll want to ascertain the species of rat youre dealing with so you can pick suitable traps.
After you get rid of the rats, youll need to figure out how rats entered your home in the first place. Even the largest rats can invade your home through a hole the size of a quarter, so unassuming cracks and gaps in the foundation can present invasion points. Without taking the right steps to exclude future rat invasion, you might end up fighting another rat infestation before you know it.
But before you begin sealing entry points and leaving traps, you should have a plan for the entire extermination process. Besides killing rats and preventing them from returning to your home, you need to be prepared to deal with the corpses and the smell they leave behind.
Signs Of An Infestation Of Roof Rats
You wont always see roof rats because they are nocturnal and forage for food at night. However, you need to know the signs of infestation that can alert you to their presence. Once found, you can take the proper control measures.
One of the most obvious signs of an infestation is roof rat droppings. Roof rat droppings are smaller than those of Norway rats. The droppings are about 0.5 in long with pointed ends. Other signs of a roof rat infestation include:
- Gnawing or scratching noises in the attic or walls
- Gnaw marks around the homes roof or eaves
- Spotting them running on tree limbs, power lines, roofs, patios, and in fruit trees
- Hollowed-out fruit if you have fruit trees
- Gnawing damage to electrical wires in the home
- Pets showing signs of stress and agitation
- Grease trails and marks as they travel regular routes through the home
- Nests found in the insulation of your home
Once inside, the roof rat population can grow rapidly. A female can have a litter of five to eight babies. In warm, tropical regions, roof rats breed year-round, and females can have up to three litters a year.
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Signs Of A Roof Rat Infestation
There are a number of ways to tell if you have a roof rat infestation including:
- Footprints or track marks, found in the mud or between places of safety including trees, bushes and sheds.
- Rat droppings, which are long, cylindrical and usually grey or black in colour
- Damage to wires, pipes, furniture, timber and food coverings
- Various sounds in the attic and walls, including gnawing, scratching and digging noises
- Dirty grey smear marks left where they cross over solid objects such as walls and timber
- Visual sightings, often as they feed.
How To Get Rid Of Rats In Your Home & Yard The Ultimate Guide For 2022
Rats have lived in close proximity to people since humanity established the first city, and theyve flourished with the rise of urbanization. Each continent has its own indigenous rats and rodents, but different species have spread with trade and migration and adapted to life around the world. Thats all well and good when they stay in nature, but when rats get too comfortable in your home and yard it can have serious consequences.
The same things that have made rats so successful in spreading around the world make them difficult, dangerous pests in the home. Depending on the species, they can eat just about anything and theyre not as timid as other household pests, which can make rats dangerous to pets. Theyve grown resistant to disease and parasites that can hitch a ride on a rat and end up in your home. Some types of rats have a love of shiny, metallic things that can lead them to tear car engines apart and cause thousands of dollars worth of damage. To avoid the health and property risks that rats can pose to your home, youll need to understand what youre dealing with and how to handle an infestation. But in many cases, the best solution is to reach out to a professional rat exterminator.
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Remove And Prevent Roof Rats
Rats on your property are never ideal, especially when they’re inside your home. The noise of their scurrying can keep you up at night and they leave debris and feces wherever they travel.
Roof rats are one of the two most popular species of rats in the United States. As their name suggests, they like high places around your property but can also invade your home. Read this guide to learn more about how to identify and control roof rats.
Finding Roof Rats In The Attic
Roof rats live outdoors where they feed on seeds and plants. But once fall rolls around and those seeds and plants go away, roof rats begin to seek new food sources. As they travel through neighborhoods looking for food, they also find nesting spots.
Roof rats are excellent climbers and can make their way uninvited into your home by traveling through construction gaps leading to your attic, which is where they are often found nesting. They also show impressive balance, using fences and power lines to travel from house to house, wreaking havoc in neighborhoods.
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When Are Roof Rats Most Active In Attics
You will hear roof rat activity throughout your attic mainly at night. Roof rat chewing and scurrying is heard overhead, and makes a good night sleep unattainable. If you find you hear noise during the day, you are dealing with a larger number of rats.
Roof rats move into attics when the weather starts to cool, and they will occupy your attic in the cooler fall and winter months.
The average life span of a roof rat is 1 year due to predators and pest control. It is thought that a roof rat could live up to 4 years max.
The roof rat breeding season is mainly in the Spring and Summer. The average roof rat litter consists of 4-6 babies. Roof rats will have litters up to 6 times each year. Many homeowners with roof rat problems complain that it is a never-ending issuethis is due to the roof rats’ prolific reproduction and the well-marked pathways they establish in a home that suites them. Excluding roof rats from you home can be very difficult. Sealing holes will not deter a roof rat from coming back in! They will make more holes if necessary.
Make Sure Ivy Tree Limbs Are Trimmed
Roof rats use their climbing skills to make their nests above ground, out of sight from predators. If you have ivy trees located close to your home, its important to make sure youre maintaining them and trimming them on a consistent basis, as ivy trees are a common home for roof rats.
Even if theres an ivy is several yards from your home, you should consider trimming since roof rats nest in ivy and are extremely agile. Roof rats are not only known for their climbing, but they can also jump up to four feet from branches to rooftops.
Their skills were also noted by the University of California, who reported that rats, especially roof rats, have an exceptional sense of balance. They found that they will use branches, nearby wiring or cables to make it to your roof and into your attic if they feel the need to. Its well known that rats will travel long distances, going above and beyond, just to get food and shelter.
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How To Help Prevent Roof Rats
Even though roof rats prefer to feed on seeds and plants, they arent ones to turn down a free meal for the taking. And your yard is probably stocked with an all-you-can-eat buffet and you may not even be aware. Use the steps below to learn how to get rid of rats in the attic naturally and help prevent your yard from becoming a roof rat restaurant.
- Feed Your Pets Inside
- A roof rat wont turn its nose up to pet food. If you can avoid it, dont feed your dogs and cats outside where roof rats can easily steal a meal. Both you and your pets will appreciate it.
Slice Onion And Garlic
The smell of onions and garlic is not just unpleasant to humans, it also works the same way on rats. Place slices of onions outside their holes anywhere youve seen them. It will push them away and they wont want to return.
Keep in mind that you will have to replace the onions with fresh ones as they will rot within a couple of days. Throw away the old ones, as they can be toxic to kids and pets.
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Techniques To Encourage Roof Rats To Stay Out Of Your Home
If you can find the main entry holes, you can close them 30 days after your strobe light installation Seal any holes that may serve as entry points. However, you want to leave a small opening for the roof rats to see inside your previously occupied attic/crawl space. This way, whenever a roof rat ventures back to your house, a view of the strobe light is a reminder that this is one place they do not want to go.
Making an effort to alter or undo the first signs of nest building is encouraged for roof rats. Roof rats will keep their home turf to a 200 foot area. If you have a nest in your house or on your property, they won’t be traveling much farther than those 200 feet for resources. Eliminating the sources of food, water, and their efforts in building a nest will decrease your probability of having roof rats back. Using the Evictor® Strobe Light will ensure your home is rodent-free for years to come.
WARNING: REMOVING ANY ROOF RAT FECES/URINE/CONTAMINATED MATERIAL MAY PUT YOU AT RISK OF POTENTIAL BIOHAZARDS. BE SURE YOU HAVE AN UNDERSTANDING OF THESE RISKS OR CONTACT A SPECIALIST.
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If youve ever been in a home or commercial building and noticed that your roof is full of little black rats, youve likely wondered how to get rid of them. Roof rats are nocturnal creatures, intelligent, and destructive. Fortunately, getting rid of these pests is fairly easy. Read on to learn how to get rid of these nasty creatures. Theres nothing worse than having to face these little creatures on a daily basis.
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Store Food In Tightly Closed Containers And Seal Garbage
The truth is, once the rats in the attic find out where you keep your food, its game over. If youre under the impression that you have a rat problem in your home, its important to invest in rodent-proof containers to keep your food safe.
Most of the boxes and containers that our food comes packaged in are no match for rats. The cardboard or flimsy plastic can easily be chewed through and compromised by rats. Theres nothing worse than opening your pantry, only to find out that rats have chewed small holes through the groceries you had just bought.
Whether you store your food on the counter, in the pantry, or in various cabinets around your kitchen, its important to make sure youre keeping it safe in rodent-proof containers that keep your food fresh, while keeping rats away.
Once your food is safe, its also a good idea to seal your garbage can to stop rats from going through the trash inside your home.
Once your food is safe and secure, its also smart to seal the garbage cans outside of your home. Not sure how to keep rats out of trash cans? Fortunately, its not that difficult.
Most trash cans are already made out of strong material to keep the bad smell in, and pests out. But still, its important to make sure the lid is sealed shut while it is sat outside your home.
Here are a few ways you can make sure that your trash cans stay rodent-free:
How To Get Rid Of Rats Naturally & Without Harming Pets
If you need to get rid of rats naturally, you have a variety of options to choose from. While fumigating a home with poison gases is the easiest way to kill rats in your house, its an extreme step that often isnt necessary. Instead of destroying their nests, you can make your home uninviting.
Identify areas of rat activity, which feces, paw prints, and dirt from their oily bodies will identify and place traps in these areas. If you find that rats are leaving traces of their presence in the pantry or the trash, then you know where theyre getting their food. You should take steps to make sure the rats have access to as little food as possible in your home, which will encourage them to take the bait in your snap traps.
The harder it is for rats to find other food sources, the more likely theyll be to walk into snap traps or eat a natural rat killer such as Ecoclear RatX. If you find and seal the holes that rats use to get into your home, the less likely an infestation will continue. If you dont want to use chemical baits and poisons, then you should experiment with different natural baits such as peanut butter, bacon, and berries. You can even try to make your own natural rat poisons and see what kind of results you get.
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Entering Through Gaps Around Windows
Rats have no problems entering through gaps or cracks around windows. Solve this problem by sealing any openings and checking your screens for damages.
The best way to keep rats out of your home is by getting in touch with Griffin Pest Solutions! Our expert team can get and keep rodents out so you can spend time in your home worry-free. Contact our pest control experts today to keep pesky pests out of your space no ifs, ants, or bugs!
Be Careful With Poisons
Bait stations are protected places for rats to feed without being accessible to non-target animals.
Dont wire poison bait blocks directly to tree branches. That could lead to accidental poisoning of cats and birds.
Make sure your home is sealed before putting out poison bait so the rats dont enter the house and die, creating a stench it might be hard to get rid of.
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