Rats, specifically the Norway Rat and Roof or “Black” Rat, are common Southern California household pests. As a rat control company, we see rats in offices, apartment buildings, homes, open fields and agricultural areas. Rats can be found any place where food or water is easy to find.
Rat infestations can be among the most dangerous of rodent infestations and they require immediate, professional rat removal services from a rat control company like ours. Rats destroy property and structures, contaminate food and spread parasites.
As rats infest your space, they build nests in your insulation and wiring. This means that the attic is the most common area to find a rat infestation.
At about 16 inches long and up to 12 ounces, Norway Rats and Roof Rats can compress themselves to the size of a quarter and can enter your home through any small opening. Rats are able to breed all year long, with a female rat giving birth to up to nine litters, each averaging 6-14 young each.
How Do I Know I Need Rat Removal Services?
If you hear sounds in your attic and in your walls, especially at night, or if you start to see ½ inch to 1 inch long fecal pellets (the average single rat produces 50-60 such pellets each day), you have a rat infestation and require immediate rat control services.
Because rats defecate in the same places they eat, rats leave droppings in kitchens, pantries, and any place where you store or eat food. In addition to damage to wiring, insulation and furniture, rat infestations can lead to respiratory illness, like Hantavirus.
Knockout Pest Control rat control services eliminate your rat infestation and can help keep rats out of your home for good.
Rat Control: How Rats Get Around your House and What to Do
Because rat females do not roam around the house, glue boards and snap traps are not sufficient for rat control. For rat removal services and rat control in your commercial facility or home, Knockout Pest Control technicians use both rat traps and rodent bait for rat removal and rat control. This eliminates the female rats, the primary source of the rat infestation.
Rat Control Services & Rat Removal Services
Rat control and rat removal services can take up to a month to perform, related to how severe the infestation is. Knockout Pest Control technicians arrive weekly (4 visits in a month) for one month to monitor rat removal traps and bait.
As part of the rat removal service, our technicians follow up a few days after they set up rat traps. They remove the rats from the traps, re-bait and reset the traps. Typically, Knockout Pest Control technicians do this over the course of 2-3 weeks and then focus on rat exclusion.
Keep Rats Out: Exclusion and Prevention Methods for Rat Control
After the rat trapping and removal stages, placement of bait stations around the perimeter of your home or building is a great way to monitor and control the population outside of your home, thus helping to prevent infestation on the inside of your home. The most important step in ultimate rat control is rat exclusion that eliminates the sources of entry by using variety of materials to seal up entry points of the home.
Rat prevention via bait stations and exclusion are smart choices even for those who have not yet had a rat problem. To protect your home or business, remember to include exclusion from a rat control company in your plans.
Insulation Removal and Replacement: Rat Control Services
In severe rat infestation cases, it can become necessary to remove attic insulation because of excessive droppings, urine saturation, and nest material. If insulation is not replaced, the odors and the unsanitary environment created by the rats can linger. And this is an environment that is likely to attract more rodents.
As a rat control company, we remove and dispose of contaminated insulation, clean up all droppings, deodorize and sanitize, and replace with new insulation.