How to get Rats out of your Walls
Rats are naturally drawn to many of the crawlspaces within our homes for a series of reasons. Our homes are often stocked with safe areas for rats to be, they come with easy access to food, as well as, warmth. Once rats find their way into the walls, it can be very difficult to get them out. As a rat could easily climb into your wall through any hole roughly the size of a coin, it can be tough to know where rats may be getting in and out of your home. If you’ve identified a rat infestation, here are some of the easiest ways that you can get them out of your walls so that you can prevent the chance for disease and other issues affecting you in the future.
The main evidence of rats:
Runs along your flooring/outside: rats typically use the same route to get around and through your home many times over. This can leave running marks along your drywall, countertops, wooden floors and more. If you start to see pathways beginning to form or even the look of footprints, this could be a sign that you have rats. You may even notice that some of these runs will end with some of your food missing.
Droppings
Rats will often leave droppings across your home that may appear like small dark seeds. The oldest rat droppings can be more dried and faded where is newer ones can be black and shiny. It’s likely that you will spot the signs of these droppings around a vent or nearby hole.
Nests
If rats are extremely active in your home, it’s likely that they could start to take items like fabric or cardboard boxes that they will use as a nest. Nests can often form under boxes or furniture and it’s likely that if you notice a strange smell, this could be the result of a rat nest.
How you can remove rats from your walls:
Work within your air ducts first
Air ducts are some of the most common places for rats to invade your home and then die off. When a rat dies in a heating or cooling vent, this can often lead to a stench that makes its way throughout your home.
Investigate heating and cooling vents
A quick investigation of your heating and cooling system will help to make sure that your vents can stay clear and you can remove any rats from the area. Be sure to switch off your central cooling or heating system and remove the grates to remove rats.
Setting traps
While your heating and cooling system is still off, you should consider placing a rat trap in each vent. Using a rat trap with foods like cheese, peanut butter, chocolate or sticky dates is useful as these foods are difficult to remove from the trap and also extremely enticing for rats.
Check traps often
Checking your traps every morning with a flashlight in the vents can let you see if you’ve caught any rats. If there is a rat in a trap, make sure that you are putting on rubber gloves and placing it in a sealed bag before you throw it away. Rats can carry disease which could be dangerous for yourself as well as for your garbage collector.
Reset and return
Make sure you reset and return any traps that you have removed with rats in them.
Close up areas rats could get in
To prevent the chance that rats could continue to get into your home, seal up any of the small holes that they could enter through. Do an inspection of your home and make sure that you cover up these areas with strong materials such as chicken wire.
If you want to remove rats with confidence you may want to enlist the help of a professional. Contact a professional exterminator today to get rats out of your walls for good.