Rats cause structural and aesthetic damage to the interior and exterior of homes. They contaminate food and carry diseases, risking your and your family’s health. It is crucial to address a rat problem as soon as you notice rat activity.The roof rat is becoming one of the most well-known rodents for destruction.
Roof rats are known to carry diseases, fleas, and ticks. More than 30 diseases can be spread by roof rats, including hantavirus, infectious jaundice, salmonellosis, tularemia, and food poisoning. The spread occurs when they urinate in your water, chew food in your pantry, or leave droppings on your countertops and appliances. They can also transmit diseases to any pets you have.
Professional Roof Rat Control
If you determine that your property has a rat problem, it’s time to call in professional help. With the reproductive prowess of these animals sitting like a ticking time bomb in your home, a comprehensive rat control program is necessary.
When approaching a rat removal plan, the key to long-term success is to consider the entire rat population. A few rat traps won’t solve the problem. A comprehensive plan will include careful inspection, trapping, removal, exclusion, prevention, and clean up. The goal is to exterminate the current infestation, prevent future issues, and reclaim a sanitary environment. Here’s a breakdown of the thorough process:
Rodent Inspection
The process starts with an inspection from a professional. Our Wildlife Service Technician will look for signs of rats in your home. Although there might not be any rats visible, the professionals at Critter Control know what to look for and where. During the inspection, we’ll identify all current and potential entry points. It is imperative to seal any entry point because rats can follow odor trails from other rats.
With that confirmation, a professional rat control program can begin.
Roof Rat Trapping
If you have a rat infestation currently in your home, the first step is to trap and remove the rodents.
Generally, trapping is considered the most effective and safe way to control rats. The size of the infestation will determine how many traps, what types of traps, and what rat bait will be placed around your property. Typically, snap traps are the first choice. That’s because these traps can be used several times.
The trapping and removal stage usually takes between 5 to 14 days. But if you are dealing with a well-established colony, then the professionals might extend this timeline. With an especially large colony, other control measures including tamper-resistant bait stations may be required around the perimeter of your structure.
Due to the very cautious nature of these rodents, trapping won’t happen overnight. But with time, this is an effective way to remove any rats currently in your home.
Rat Exclusions
Even if you successfully remove every rat in your home, other rats will likely return to the same comfortable spot. That’s why it’s absolutely essential to seal up all entry points of a quarter-inch or larger.
A few common entry points include foundation cracks, loose-fitting screens, holes for pipes, chimneys, and loose soffits. If there isn’t a readily available hole, Norway rats and roof rats are likely to gnaw through materials like plastic sheeting, wood, and caulking to break into your home.
Rats can gain entry through such a small opening. But Critter Control Wildlife Service Technicians have the experience and training to find all current and potential entry points. Once the weak points are identified, a whole home exclusion is necessary to prevent future rat problems.
The professionals will use sealants, wire mesh, and other rat-proofing structures to safeguard your home.
Clean Up
Rats make a mess in your home. They destroy insulation by using it for nesting materials, creating rat runs through it, and soiling it with urine and feces. Rats can bring many diseases into your home.
Rats contaminate any food they get into. A few diseases commonly transmitted through indirect contact with rats include leptospirosis, salmonellosis, tularemia, plague, and rat-bite fever. Finally, ectoparasites like mites and fleas can infest your home after hitching a ride on a rat.
Of course, no one wants to pick up a rat-related disease. The first step to avoiding any potential health hazards is to call in professional help to eliminate the rat infestation.
Once the animals are removed, it’s time to apply sanitization agents to the contaminated area. The Wildlife Service Technician will thoroughly disinfect where necessary. Additionally, all dead rats will be removed. With that, you can breathe easier in your own home.
Although improved sanitation is the first order of business, it’s not the only part of the cleanup process. Beyond sanitation, our specialists will put everything back in order. For example, let’s say that the rat colony tore up the insulation in your attic. In that case, our team would replace that installation to help you get everything back to normal.
Recurring Rodent Control Solutions
The rodent removal steps above will give your home a much-needed reset. However, the pheromone trails left behind can lead a new infestation of rats directly to your door.
Since rats can chew through most home materials, they can make new entry points into your home. Rat repellants and improved sanitation can go a long way to preventing the return of rodents.
The uncanny ability of rodents to find a happy home is a challenge for homeowners. But that doesn’t mean you’ll need to repeat the entire process again. Instead, regularly scheduled appointments can ensure that your home never sees another large-scale rat infestation.
A professional service that regularly monitors your home for rat problems can spot any future problems before things get out of hand. Although rats are incredibly resourceful critters, they are no match for a careful rodent control plan.
We can help you get rid of roof rat problems. Call today: 1.800.274.8837
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The most common roof rat is the black rat. It has smooth hair, large ears, a pointy nose, and a tail longer than its body. While its body is black, its belly is gray. The Alexandrine rat appears gray, but its fur is agouti, meaning there is more than one color on each strand of hair. You may also see brown and yellow blends of fur. The fruit rat is agouti on its back but white on its belly.
No matter the subspecies, roof rats, including their tail, are usually no longer than 16 inches long.
Roof rats got their name because they are excellent climbers. They are often seen on roofs, attics, trees, walls, trusses, and beams. Roof rats are usually part of a colony. If they can’t find a way to shelter up high, they will build nests in wood piles, basements, clutter, or shrubs. They prefer to have a roof of some kind over their heads.
Roof rats came to America on cargo ships, some say primarily from Malaysia. Others claim they arrived when the colonists settled in Jamestown. They prefer to live in warmer climates, including tropical and subtropical. They are mostly found along coasts and Southern states and in Hawaii.
Are roof rats known to enter homes or yards?
As their name implies, roof rats commonly gain entry to buildings through the roof. They often use overhead trees or utility lines to locate and access points of entry. Roof rat problems also occur when the pests invade yards to look for food. In suburban areas, residents frequently encounter roof rats feeding in garbage cans, dumpsters, and gardens. The presence of roof rats in the yard or garden does not always mean that the nest is located on the property, as these pests can travel as many as several hundred feet during a single night of foraging.
Do roof rats harm people or property?
Arguably the most problematic of all pest animals, roof rats can destroy grain supplies, spread disease, and damage the attics and rooftops of buildings. They often invade attics in the winter and spring to escape the cold or to nest and raise their young. Roof rats are strong animals that can damage the shingles, fascia board, soffits, and vents of the structures they enter. Once inside, they commonly destroy insulation, ductwork, wiring, and drywall with their urine, feces, and constant gnawing. Water damage can also become a problem at the entry point.
Typically, roof rats build nests in attics and inside the walls of your home. That means colonies of roof rats can live closer to you and your family than you’d like. Seeing a roof rat, dead or alive, is a sign of an infestation. There is rarely only one rat living in a location.
If a roof rat is in your attic, you will likely see shredded insulation and drywall, chewed electrical wires, and nests plugging vents and ducts, all creating fire hazards. Other signs include the following:
- Droppings. Roof rat droppings or feces are usually about ½” long and have pointy ends. If the droppings are moist and soft, they are fresh. They are old if they are hard and dry or easy to crumble. Both are unsanitary. Adult roof rats can leave fifty or more droppings every day.
- Gnaw marks. Roof rats, like other rodents, have teeth that continually grow throughout their lifetime. The larger their teeth get, the more painful. Roof rats will chew and gnaw on any material to keep their teeth short to avoid this pain. They can chew through wood, plastic, vinyl, fabric, etc. It is likely due to rat activity if you see gnaw marks on furniture, baseboards, wires, or anything else.
- Odor. Roof rats leave a strong, musky odor in areas where they are active. Much of the odor results from urine trails, which they leave everywhere they go. The stronger the smell, the larger the infestation.
- Sounds. Roof rats make distinctive noises when active at night. Squeaking, squealing, chirping, chattering, purring, and grunting are a few of the sounds a roof rat can make. The noises become incredibly annoying when you try to fall asleep, and your local rat colony is just beginning its nesting and feeding activities for the night.
Roof rat safety should not be taken lightly, as the rodents are known to carry a variety of parasites and diseases that can be transmitted to pets and humans. Common diseases spread by roof rats include plague, typhus, rat-bite fever, jaundice, trichinosis, and salmonellosis. Effective roof rat control starts with good housekeeping and proper sanitation, which are designed to eliminate the sources of food and shelter that attract the pests in the first place.
Individuals have access to a variety of traps and toxic baits when it comes to removing rats from homes. Snap, electric, live-capture traps, and glue boards are popular means of rodent control in homes and garages where rat populations are small in number.
Effective use of roof rat traps includes proper size, bait, placement, and timing. The standard Critter Control rat trapping process takes between five to fourteen days. If the rat infestation is large, it can take longer. Once the rat population is controlled, we seal the house and disinfect the area. Rats can gnaw through virtually any material on your house. A recurring rat control plan will control any potential rat infestations.