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The Best Way To Keep Roof Rats Out Of Your Home

Roof rats have every reason in the world to enter the home. Inside, they are safe from predators, are warm and have shelter, and they can find a lot of food. This is why it’s important to know how to remove these incentives from your home and lower the odds of a roof rat infestation.

Keep food out of their reach

Roof rats have an excellent sense of smell, which allows them to detect if there are any accessible food sources in the home. To address this, you will have to make sure that all the food in the home is in sealed containers. It may seem like a lot of work, but it’s definitely worth it, since it will prevent a lot of other pest infestations as well. You will also have to keep pet food sealed, and your garbage in lidded containers, since roof rats will eat both.

Pest-proof the walls of your home

Over time, cracks, gaps and various openings may develop in the exterior wall of the home, and if these openings are larger than a quarter of an inch, roof rats can use them to gain access to the building. As part of the prevention process, you or a pest control specialist must inspect the exterior walls, find these openings and seal them.

Make your home unsuitable for roof rats

Roof rats love clutter and they love unsanitary conditions. To make your home more unsuitable for rats, you will have to keep the clutter to a minimum and make sure that there are no unsanitary areas in your home. For example, you may keep your home sparkling clean, but you only clean your garage very rarely, and clutter has built up inside it over the years. The garage will be very attractive to rats, and from the garage they will venture inside the home.

What to do if roof rats already gained access

Once roof rats are already in the home, it’s time to move fast and get the infestation under control. At this stage, it’s important to work with a pest control company, because the infestation has to be removed 100%. If even one or two rats are left behind, the odds of reinfestation are great.

For more information about the methods that you can use to keep your home free of roof rats, or if you currently have a roof rat infestation in your home, contact us today.