Get rid of rat infestation: what to do if you see rats’ evidence on your property?
Rats are considered one of the most destructive pests in the world. They can chew through electrical wires and increase the risk of house fire and electrocution in your building. They can also destroy your documents and heirlooms, contaminate your home with their urine and droppings, and gnaw at home furniture, consequently turning your home into a mess. Once you notice evidence of rat infestation on your property, it’s wise to start researching rat infestation removal strategies.
Now, join me as I help you decide whether to opt for Do-It-Yourself (DIY) methods of rodent control or hire a professional exterminator to help remove rodent infestation(s).
How Do You Know if You Have a Rat Infestation?
The nocturnal and shy nature of rodents (especially rats) makes it less likely for homeowners or tenants to encounter the pest themselves. Rats can easily find entry points into your property and they can be everywhere in your home without your knowledge. If you have a rat infestation at your home, you may notice the signs before you ever see an actual rat.
Look for these signs of rat infestation if you think you might have a rat in your building:
- Strange smells come from hidden areas in your building.
- Small, dark, pellet-shaped droppings along main rat pathways.
- Grease smears and smudges along the walls.
- Squeaking, scurrying, running noises, and other strange sounds in the walls.
- Piles of droppings around food packages, behind the stove, in your drawers or cupboards, in your basement or attic, under the sink, and in the corner of the building.
- Signs of chewing on food packages, ductwork, containers, or leftovers.
- Nesting materials like fabric, shredded paper, or dried plant matter in hidden parts of the home.
How to Get Rid of a Rat Infestation on Your Own
You can try many DIY methods to get rid of rats in your house and prevent their return. These Do-It-Yourself methods are particularly effective when you’re dealing with only one or two rats.
Here are simple steps to follow to get rid of a rat infestation on your property:
Step 1: Identify all infested areas
Look for evidence of a rat infestation in your building or property. Inspect every possible place where rats live and look for signs of rats. DIY rodent inspection usually involves checking under your stove, behind the fridge, under kitchen or washroom sinks, basement, and under your stairs to get concrete evidence of an infestation.
You should also check the burrows around your building and rat droppings in the corner of the building. Look for holes and gnaw marks on garbage cans (wood or plastic) and rub marks on walls and grass for signs of runaways. If you can perform a thorough home inspection, you’ll get to be convinced if you have a rat infestation or your building is free from rats.
Step 2: Clean up your space
Clean up every area around your building where rats could hide, sleep, nest, and reproduce. Keeping your facility clean always will help expose and eliminate all possible rat hiding places, making your home unhabitable for them. Wash away their droppings and track marks, and get rid of the clutter in and around your building. Get rid of weeds, shrubs, and bushes around your building, and let your pipes and drains remain neat always.
Step 3: Starve them
You can make your building inhospitable to rats by cutting off access to their food sources. Rats usually get their food from unsealed food, pet food, and water left out overnight open trash or compost containers. Managing your garbage well, fixing leaks, and keeping all food in tightly sealed containers are all excellent DIY ways to prevent rats on your property.
However, once you cut off all access to rats’ food sources in your building, rats will naturally exit your area for somewhere else where they can obtain food and water to survive.
Step 4: Shut them out (please call us for right instruction)
Rats get into your home through holes, burrows, or gaps in your interior or exterior walls. Once you’re able to eliminate them from your house, it’s time to prevent their return:
- Identify all entry points for rats in your home and block them (please call us for right instruction)
- Seal any gaps in your walls, cracks, and small holes with caulk or roofing cement (please call us for right instruction)
- Fill large gaps with mortar or ready-mix cement (please call us for right instruction)
- Cover every large hole in your building with metal lath or screening and seal with mortar or cement (please call us for right instruction)
Doing all these right way would help shut rats out of your building for good.
Step 5: Eliminate them
The best and safe method for wiping out rats is rodent snap trap setting. However, you must take extra caution and follow your pest control company guidelines (please call us for free recommendations) while applying snap traps to kill rats.
Why you should not poison rats:
If a poisoned rat(s) dies in the walls, residents of this property will have a strong smell for few weeks, and fly issue as well.
You should also note rodent baits and poisons contain potent chemicals that make them unsafe for indoor and outdoor use.
A snap trap is an easy way to kill rats instantly. You may also consider baiting the snap traps with what rats love to eat to lure them to the pitfalls and humanely get rid of them.
Tips: prevent disappearing snap trap by tightening it to something. In this case rat can not “take and go” trap and stock in the walls. You can also use an empty shoe box. Make two not very big holes in the box on both sides, and place a snap trap into the shoe box, close it.
Why You Shouldn’t Deal With a Rat Infestation on Your Own
Do-It-Yourself methods don’t fully resolve the problem of rat infestation. Below are a few reasons why DIY methods of rat control should not be encouraged:
- Rats are prolific breeders
DIY methods may work well when you’re trying to eliminate only one or two rats in your house. However, rats reproduce quickly under favourable conditions like having access to constant food and water. So if you don’t take the necessary steps to contain and control a rat infestation as soon as possible, your house may end up a dwelling site for a population of rats in weeks.
Once you have rat populations in your building, it’s beyond what your traps and baits can handle for you. The solution to getting rid of rat populations immediately involves the most qualified pest control professional.
- DIY is potentially dangerous
Rats can carry pathogens that transmit diseases to humans through their urine and droppings. Rats’ common diseases include Hantavirus, rat bite fever, and plague, among others. Therefore, you shouldn’t try to deal with rat problems yourself if you don’t want to put yourself and your family at risk of contracting dangerous diseases that these uninvited guests spread. Instead, ask for professional exterminator services to help take care of the rodent infestation(s) at your home.
- DIY effectiveness issue
Many homeowners or property owners enter any pest control local store to get just any bait or trap to handle a rat infestation. Unfortunately, they have no proper knowledge of which bait or trap to use to get rid of rats at their homes.
Sometimes, they may be lucky to try some baits and traps that work for rodent control, but this solution is often short-lived or a mere coincidence. Without addressing the rat entry points and controlling rodent activity in your building, your rat problem will likely continue. A professional exterminator can help with this issue and offer you a permanent solution to ending your rat problems.
- DIY is potentially costly
If you rely solely on DIY remedies and treatment methods to get rid of the rat population, you may end up spending more money and time in the long run with a failed attempt at proper control. Most times, many of these DIY control methods don’t fully resolve rat infestation problems. For instance, many do-it-yourself chemical rat removal methods contain warfarin, which is quite ineffective. Sometimes, these chemicals even worsen the rat infestation situation as these rats start becoming suspicious.
Rats are annoying, and controlling them could be challenging. You need to leave your rat problems to a professional exterminator who knows how to determine the most cost-effective way to get the rats out of your building forever.
What is the Most Effective Way to Get Rid of Rats Permanently?
The best way to control rat infestation, prevent rats on your property, and get rid of the rat population once and for all is to contact a rodent control company like Provincial Pest Control. Pest control companies usually have professional pest control experts as staff.
These people know the proper way to kill the rats and recommend a customized treatment plan to keep rats from coming back. In addition, they would help to correctly identify the source of the infestation and use cost-effective procedures to deal with rat problems.
Provincial Pest Control (PPC) is a pest control company specializing in the safe removal of rats, other rodents, and pests in general. At Provincial Pest Control (PPC), we boast the most qualified technicians and exterminators in Toronto and Ottawa who know everything about rats, rodent infestation, and rodent control.
We offer free pest inspection, click here and treatment on the same day. We provide a thorough inspection of the interior, exterior perimeter, and attic to help identify rodent entry points. We will work with you until rats are gone for good and educate you on the most effective way to prevent rats on your property.
