What To Do About The Rats Inside Your Katy Home
Under no circumstances do you want rats in your Katy home, even if the rat can make meals as delectable as Remy from Ratatouille. This children’s movie was quite enjoyable to many, but the reality of rats being in your home, especially around food in your kitchen, is that your home's safety and health are greatly compromised.
From a health and safety perspective, rats are very dangerous. Some of their hiding places include basements, attics, under floorboards, and inside the walls of your home. These harborage areas allow rats to breed and infest your home even more if left untreated for too long.
Here are a few facts about rats and the health risks they present to humans and safety risks:
- Rats can spread salmonella and hantavirus through their saliva, droppings, and urine. The spread of these diseases and bacteria can also trigger allergies and asthma in sensitive individuals due to a protein in their urine. It is the very thing that hosts other diseases such as murine typhus, rat-bite fever, infectious jaundice, and Weil’s disease.
Rats carry disease-causing parasites such as fleas, ticks, and lice.
Rats have an incessant need to constantly chew on various items to keep their two front incisors from overgrowing. Due to this constant need, rats will chew through whatever they can, including wood, insulation, drywall, and electrical wires. When they chew through electrical wires, it puts your home at risk of electrical fires.
Rats can burrow and cause damage to sidewalks, foundations, and decks. Not to mention, their burrowing can make your yard quite unsightly.
Knowing the dangers associated with rats, it’s more reasonable to act with a sense of urgency to get them out of your home. The moment you see just one rat, you don’t want to waste any time calling pest control in Katy. Remember, the longer you let rats live in your home, the longer they have to contaminate food and surfaces in your home.
Do I Have A Rat Infestation?
Did you know that certain female rats can produce 2,000 babies in a single year? That’s roughly 22 babies per litter! On top of that, they can mate up to 500 times within six hours. While this isn’t exactly the love life of humans, it is indeed how rats can infest your home at a very rapid rate. So how do you know if you have a rat infestation in your home? Well, aside from seeing an actual rat scurry across your kitchen floor, there are other signs to look for that will let you know your home may potentially be infested.
Here’s what to look for:
Teeth Marks: As you know, rats need to chew on things to keep their teeth shaved down constantly. When in your home, you’ll likely see different areas or items in your house with gnaw marks on them. Things like furniture, electrical cords, storage containers, and even wood are all things that you may see rat teeth marks. It’s also important to note that these pests can chew through soft metals, such as aluminum or lead.
Strange Sounds: Rats aren't exactly secretive about their presence, from chewing and scratching to squeaking and rustling sounds. If you start hearing these sounds, especially if it’s coming from within your walls, you likely have a rat infestation.
Strong Smell: Rat urine has a powerful ammonia-like scent. This is because rat urine contains nitrogen. When oxygen meets the nitrogen in rat urine, it forms that strong ammonia odor. Additionally, when rats urinate in your home, they’ll leave a chalky residue when it dries due to their high calcium level.
Droppings And Smears: Many don’t know, but rats have poor eyesight, and because of that, rats are usually found scurrying against walls as established routes to and from their food sources to their nesting spots. They leave droppings, grease smears, and smudges along the walls along these routes. Rat droppings are small, dark, pellet-shaped droppings around 12mm in length and tapered at the end.
Footprints: If you think you may have a rat problem, consider looking around some of the seldom-used, duty areas of your home and looking for tiny footprints and tail marks. They’ll leave these signs as they travel.
The signs listed above are dead giveaways that your home may have a rat problem, especially if you haven’t physically seen rats but recognize some of these signs. Of course, whether you see rats in your home or think you recognize one of these signs, you want to call pest professionals to get your home inspected. At Modern Pest Control, we believe it never hurts to get your home inspected if you have pest concerns, especially rats. That reason is why we offer free, no-obligation inspections to all customers. Give us a call to schedule your free inspection.
What Causes A Rat Infestation?
You may not realize it, but rats are very similar to humans. They need food, water, and shelter to survive just as humans do, and the fact that we already have that within our homes makes it even easier for rats to come right inside and make themselves at home. Though we may not want rats in our homes, the bottom line is that if we have an infestation, it’s likely our own fault.
Rats have learned to live amongst humans; however, they can only do this because we’ve given them access. Here are a few ways you may be causing a rat infestation in your home.
Water Or Plumbing Problems: Water is one of the biggest attractors of rats, as it’s one of the very things they need to survive. Everything from leaking faucets and pipes to standing water in your home’s gutters, they'll keep coming back to it when a rat finds a water source.
Structural Damage: If your home has the slightest crack, gap, or opening, a rat will try and squeeze its way in it or gnaw its way inside. Rats have poor eyesight, but that doesn’t stop them. When looking for entry points from the exterior of your home, rats look for heat or breezes. As they crawl along with your home, if there is a gap or type of opening, it will emit an air pocket that rats can feel and immediately know it’s an entry point to go inside. Remember this: rats can range in size from six to ten inches in length and weigh up to a pound and a half; however, despite their larger size, they can fit in holes or openings as small as a quarter or the size of two fingers together.
Clutter: Rats love clutter, as it provides them places to hide and nest. So whether in your yard or on your patio or inside your home, the more clutter you have, the more attractive your home is to rats.
Leaving Food Out: You're not the only one if you leave food out without realizing it. Everything from dirty dishes in your sink or not putting your garbage can lid on securely to stored grains in your cabinets can all be factors that bring rats to your home. If you have pets, leaving their food outdoors will also bring rats.
With a few simple tidying habits and home improvement measures, you’d be surprised at how much it can do to keep rats away from your Katy home.
Here Are Six Tips For Dealing With A Rat Infestation
There is no time to waste for rats inside your home, as they spread harmful diseases and can cause property damage. There are a few things you can do on your own to remove them:
Get A Cat: Whether you’re a cat lover or not, having a cat in and around your home will help eliminate any rat infestation you may have. If you’re getting a cat specifically for rat control purposes, you want to get a barn cat or find a cat that primarily grew up outdoors, as they make the best hunters.
Sprinkle Essential Oils Around Your Home: Before you use this method if you have pets, be sure to talk to your veterinarian first. You want to go with strong, pungent scents like eucalyptus, tea tree, and peppermint oils when keeping rats away. The menthol scent in these oils covers the pheromone trails rats use to navigate their trails; plus, these scents irritate their noses. Mixing ten drops of any of the aforementioned oils with a cup of water and spraying along your home's baseboards will help keep rats out.
Seal Cracks Or Gaps In Your Home: Points of entry are how rats get inside your home. By caulking or sealing any gaps in the interior and exterior of your home, rats won’t be able to find their way inside.
Maintain A Clean Home: Everything from avoiding leaving food out to eliminating clutter in and outside your home, rats won’t see your home as a food source or a source for shelter.
Set Traps: Traps are a poison-free method to eliminate rat infestations. The only thing to consider about traps is that once you trap a rat, whether with sticky, snap, or electric traps, you will have to be the one to eradicate or dispose of the rat.
Contact Your Local Pest Professionals: Pest professionals have all the tools, products, and equipment necessary to quickly and effectively remove a rodent infestation of any size without you having to get involved in any way. It’s the safest and most effective way to remove a rat infestation.
At Modern Pest Control, we have been in the pest control industry for over 70 years and know a thing or two about rodents. When these pests have taken over your home, give us a call to safely and effectively remove them from your Katy home, and we will restore your peace.
What Does Rodent Solutions Do About Rats In My Home?
The short answer would be that rodent solutions remove rodents from your home; however, rodent solutions go much deeper than just removing them; there’s a whole process involved.
At Modern Pest Control, we understand the frustrations of rats in your home; therefore, we make our process hassle-free. It all starts with you reaching out to us to schedule your free inspection. One of our licensed technicians will come out to your home and conduct a full inspection of the interior and exterior of your home. Once your inspection is complete, we’ll take what we found during the inspection to create your home’s custom treatment plan.
We may recommend addressing sanitation issues if we find them or suggesting some home improvement tactics that will help ensure your home remains pest-free after our treatment services. We also provide pest monitoring devices designed to detect any active infestations in your home.
Keeping ongoing pest control services for your home is recommended, as the pests native to the area don’t have off-seasons. If you think you have a rat problem now, wait until the various weather and season changes to see what critters decide to make their way inside your home.
Remember, prevention is key here. Pests will stop at nothing to get inside your home, especially if conditions are conducive to their survival; they’ll never want to leave and go into hiding to prevent getting caught.
When it comes to rodents in your home, they don’t belong, no matter how conforming they may be to our homes. Rodents spread harmful diseases and bacteria and pose safety threats to the structure of our homes. For a hands-free approach to safe and effective rodent control services, call Modern Pest Control.