The Easiest Way To Get Rats In Lewisville Out Of Your Home

When rats start creating problems, you have many options. You can clean your home and make sure all food is protected; rats are big rodents that need robust food options. You can address plumbing leaks in your home. Though rats can derive much of the water they require from the food they eat, they prefer to live where water is available. Once you've made your home harder for rats to live in, you can apply exclusions to seal the entry points the rats are using to enter your home. These three steps can get rats out of your home. But it's a lot of work. If you want an easier solution, Lewisville pest control can help. 

The technicians here at Adams Exterminating Company are licensed pest professionals. We know how to track rat problems, address conditions that promote rat infestations, remove rats, and apply rat control to keep relentless rats out. It is the best way to get rid of rats fast. But, why pay the money? Why not get some rat control products and do it yourself? Join us as we look at a few things you may not know about the rats in Lewisville.

How To Tell If It's Rats Infesting Your Home

Rat infestations are rarely obvious at first. While rats are big rodents, they can move quietly in your home. If you don't know the signs of rats, you may not have the ability to tell that you have rats in your home. Worse than this, you won't know that you still have rats after you've used rat control products to remove them.

Imagine this (all too common) hypothetical story. Rats make a few bumping noises in the walls and a homeowner goes to the store to get rat traps to fix the problem. He puts traps in the attic and garage and checks them routinely. Over the course of a week, he catches four rats! After that, he doesn't hear noises anymore. Problem solved. A month later, he hears noises in his walls again. He repeats the process. His efforts lead to the capture of three rats this time. The noises stop. A few weeks later, he hears noises in his attic.

A story like this can go on permanently. If the homeowner had known how to check for evidence of a continued infestation, he would have known that his traps were only catching a small portion of the rats in his home.

How do you check for rats? The easiest way is to look for droppings. Rat droppings are twice the size of mouse droppings and slightly larger than grains of rice. When droppings are fresh, they are black, shiny, and moist. If you find gray droppings that are crumbly, that is evidence of an old infestation. When you find droppings in your home, clean them up and check back later. The appearance of new droppings in that location will provide the evidence you need.

One of the ways a licensed professional is a big benefit is that a technician has specialized knowledge. With this knowledge, your technician can ensure that no rats remain in your home. That is real peace of mind.

Having Rats In Your Home Is A Serious Health Hazard

When rats remain in your home, they are allowed to continue to present a threat to you and your family. While it is rare to hear stories of rats attacking humans, there are other ways a pest can create a threat. Here are just a few of the ways rats are a serious health hazard.

• 20 to 25 percent of fires originating from an unknown source are likely rodent-related. Rodents chew on wires and gas lines.
• The droppings left by rats in your home are a source of contamination. They can directly contaminate food sources and food-storage areas. They can contaminate attic areas where items are stored. They can dry in air ducts and become airborne contaminants.
• The hair of rats can present a health risk. They rub up against dirty things as they look for food in dumpsters and crawl through sewer lines. They also leave waste products where they sleep and move over waste products as they crawl around in your home.
• Rats carry lots of ticks and fleas. These parasites are connected to a long list of diseases. Check resource pages at the CDC to learn more about rodent-related diseases.

It is best to make sure that the rat control methods you use are effective. If not, rats can grow their population, and a small group of rats will turn into an army of rats. As their population grows, so do the dangers of having rats in your home.

How Rats Find Their Way Into Your Home

Exclusion work is something you can do yourself, but there are ways rats get into homes that are unexpected. A licensed professional is familiar with many of them before showing up at your home, and if the rats in your home have found new ways to get inside, your technician can follow the evidence to figure out how the rats are getting in and take steps to keep them out. Here are a few things you may not know about how rats find their way into a home.

• Rats can climb like squirrels. They can scale a tree, run down a branch, and leap several feet to get onto your roof. If you're wondering why a rat would do this and whether or not it would be worried about getting down, you should know that rats have the ability to fall from high places without hurting themselves.
• Rats can run along telephone and electrical wires like squirrels and use wires that are connected to your home to gain higher elevation and access higher entry points.
• Rats can scale certain exteriors like Spiderman. If they can find bumps to cling onto with their claws, they can get up to gable vents and slip through louvers.
• Rats can jump 36 inches straight up. When you add to this that they can scramble up surfaces, it is quite impressive what rats can get to if they are determined.
• Rats have strong teeth that can chew through wood and scrape away at concrete. If a rat finds a small gap around your water main, it may make the gap large enough to enter. If a rat finds a safe location to chew on a piece of wood, it can tunnel into your home.
• A full-sized, adult rat can fit through a gap the width of a quarter. If a rat can get its head through, it can fit the rest of its big body through.
• Rats chew through wood skirting or wooden doors, and tunnel in the ground to get into crawl spaces. Inside a crawl space, a rat can get into a home by using its teeth.
• If your home has cellar doors, rats may target the small gap that can form at the bottom of the doors where the two doors meet. They are known to use their strong and portly bodies to push the corners of cellar doors up and squeeze through this tiny entry point.

A licensed professional offers exclusion options, provides insights into exclusions that you may need to have a contractor handle, and offers rodent control solutions for your yard that can address rodent pressures. Every job is different. Your technician considers your specific situation. During the inspection, your technician will evaluate food sources, potential entry points, routes, and other factors that lead to infestations. It is a scientific process that is best accomplished by an individual with training and experience.

Call The Pros To Safely And Effectively Get Rid Of Rats

The last point we'd like to make is that addressing a rat problem can present a safety issue. If you go into your attic to clean up rat droppings, hair, nests, and other materials, it is critical to wear a respirator, gloves, and other protective materials. You must also consider the possibility of having a confrontation with a rat. While they aren't prone to bite humans, they will if they feel scared or threatened. You must also keep in mind that you can drive rats into other areas of your home, which can create new, and potentially worse, rat problems.

A licensed professional is prepared to address rat infestations. Proper gear is used, appropriate control materials are used, and a field-tested strategy is implemented to prevent unwanted results.

If you have questions about rats or rat control that were not answered in this article or you want to request service for your Lewisville home or business, contact us. Adams Exterminating Company is a leader in pest control and our technicians have the training, licensing, certifications, and experience to give you the best rat control possible. Drop us a line on our contact page or give us a call. We look forward to meeting and exceeding your expectations with impeccable service and knowledgeable pest control.