rats can still be very persistent and may intrude into your home or attic space if they are looking for a place to live.
There are certain steps you can take in order to make your property less rat friendly and prevent a rat problem. Here’s how to keep rats away from your home.
Do a monthly visual home inspection of the exterior of your home.
You don’t have to be a home inspector to perform a visual inspection like this. You are just looking for things on your home that look out of place or different than they were before. Rats typically enter from somewhere around the foundation of the home. Keep an eye out for areas around pipes they may have been chewed away. Look inside the basement for floor drain lids that may have been flipped up or knocked off the drain. The floor drains in basements are very common places for rats to enter the home.
Keep an ear out for noises that you hear in the home.
You will often hear the rats in the walls or ceilings before you will see them inside the living space.
Watch for droppings in the corners of rooms, under sinks, on shelves, or in kitchen drawers.
Be sure to keep all pet food in heavy duty plastic sealed containers.
Rats can zero in on a food source from very far away. It is especially important to keep decorations sealed in containers for reason that many decorations are made with real candy or scented wax
Keep shrubs neatly trimmed and at least 2 feet away from the home.
This provides cover for rats and other wildlife to move around the property undetected.
Make sure that the trees surrounding the home are not within 10 feet of the roof.
Not only can the trees themselves cause damage to the home, but they are often highways for roof rats traveling on and off the roof. Roof rats can still climb up siding, brick, gutter downspouts, and many other areas so simply cutting down trees will not solve the problem. However, it will help to eliminate the easy access to the roof.
Keep all bird and deer feeders at least 20 feet away from the home;
this will attract rats among many other nuisance wild animals.
After feeding your four-legged family members, be sure to put their food away when they are done.
We receive a lot of complaints about rats coming up through drains and eating pet food at night. Rats will be attracted to the smell of the pet food inside and outside the home.
Keeping a very clean and clutter free home will help to keep rats away.
Clutter is a rat’s best friend. In cluttered homes rats can sometimes travel from one room to another undetected due to the large amount of clutter. Cleaning the home on a regular basis is a must for keeping rats away. Be sure to clean under couches, refrigerators, and other areas where food can end up. Rats also leave scent trails that other rats can follow. Cleaning the home regularly will help to reduce scent trails that rats leave behind.
Keep piles of firewood at least 20 feet away from home.
This makes great habitat for rats and other animals on your property.
Follow these preventative tips to help keep rats away from your home. Unfortunately, even with all of the above, rats can still be very persistent and may intrude into your home or attic space if they are looking for a place to live. If you suspect you have rats in your attic, walls, basement, crawl space, on your roof, or in your soffit call the experts at Animal Remover for fast, effective, and humane rat removal, exclusion, and control.
For more information please visit our rat removal and control page.
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