With their cute faces and wormy tails, you’d be forgiven for thinking rats are harmless. However, rats from the wild are actually a historic health hazard. If you think back to your early school days in history class, you might remember that rats carried and infected people with the plague!
Although it’s unlikely for the modern house rat to give you the plague, the Centers for Disease Control unanimously agree that rats around the globe can spread dangerous illnesses. They carry all kinds of diseases that can then spread through their urine, feces or saliva/bites. Through rats, you could get infected with a range of diseases, from leptospirosis to salmonellosis.
Rats in the home are very common. There are many reasons why a rat might make themselves at home in your house. It could be due to a lack of food outdoors, your surrounding area having more rats than others or due to the set-up of your house. If you live in a terraced house, it’s not uncommon for rats to run through the connecting pipes.
The good news is that you can get rid of rodents quickly with these 4 tips:
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1. Use rat poison
Rat-poison is a fairly quick and effective way to ensure that pesky rats are no longer making trouble. You can purchase rat poison online or at your local hardware store. However, it is important that you choose the best rat poisons to get rid of rodents. Luckily there are online guides and blog posts that can help with this. They are often written by extermination experts, and they help by comparing and recommending several types of product so you can find the one most suitable for your needs.
But, regardless of what poison you choose and how you choose it, executing the poison is often the same. You lay out some food in an area the rat is known to have gone before, and sprinkle/pour some rat poison on top.
Once your rat eats the bait, they will die as a result of the poison. To dispose of the rat, it is a good idea to use gloves and a trash bag. This is because a rat’s corpse still carries plenty of diseases.
One thing you should be careful of is other household pets or small children accidentally ingesting the poison. If you use this method, always proceed with caution.
2. Use rat-traps
If chemicals aren’t an option, you could try rat-traps. Again, these types of traps are usually available both online and at your local hardware store. All rodent traps come with their own instructions, but they usually involve placing bait to attract the rat and trigger the trap.
A key difference is that you have the option of getting a humane trap. These kinds of traps are built like a little cage. Once the rat is caught, the idea is to let them back outside in the hopes they’ve learned a lesson!
3. Remove opportunity
Make sure to remove any food or trash lying around that might attract rats! Also, make sure to look out for nooks and crannies that rats can have access to. This might me a rat-sized hole in the skirting board, or a too-big gap around a pipe.
If you find suspicious’ ‘entry-points’ in your house, fill them out to prevent rats from entering and destroying your home.
4. Call an exterminator
As a last resort, you could always call a local exterminator. This might come with a high fee, but you can guarantee they’ll get the job done!
