How To Identify And Get Rid Of A Rat Infestation On Your Wilmington Property

Nobody likes to think about a rat infestation in their home, but if you want to keep a happy and healthy house, then you have to think about rat prevention. Having lots of rats in and around your home can spread disease, destroy property, and generally disrupt your life. That's why rats need to be high on your Wilmington pest control priority list. 

How To Tell If It's Rats Scurrying Around Your Property

Sometimes it can be hard to tell whether it's rats or some other rodent scurrying around your property. All rodents have a lot in common. They have to chew hard objects to grind down their teeth. They're generally small (at least in North America). And they all nest in tight burrows in the most convenient locations like underground, in trees, or in your home. This can translate into nesting in your attic, chimney, crawlspace, and even under the hood of your car. 

It's often easy to tell the difference between rat and squirrel infestations because of the location and contents of their nests. Squirrels like to nest high up and chock their dens full of nuts and seeds, while rats burrow and will store just about anything for food. 

It can be a bit harder to distinguish a rat infestation from a mouse infestation. You may have to actually see one of the rodents to tell. Rats and mice are easy to tell apart if you take a look at them. Rats are larger and have proportionately smaller ears and hairless tails. Mice, meanwhile, have furry tails and are much tinier than rats. 

Rats In Your Home Is A Serious Health Hazard

A rat infestation is nothing to take lightly. Rats can infect you with serious diseases, do severe property damage, and introduce other infestations onto your property. 

The biggest threat that rats pose is to your health. Diseases rats carry range from bacterial infections like salmonellosis and listeriosis to illnesses like hantavirus. They can also indirectly expose you to other illnesses like Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever by introducing external parasites like ticks and fleas to your property. 

Rats are just as big a threat to your property as they are to your health. Rats, like all rodents, have to constantly chew on hard items in order to grind down their incessantly growing teeth. This translates into them chewing on everything from hard plastics to plumbing and even electrical wiring. This chewing behavior doesn't just directly destroy the things that rats chew on. It can also lead to house fires if rats chew through live wires that subsequently fall on something flammable. 

How Rats Find Their Way Into Your Home

Rats can get into your home through all kinds of avenues. They can use holes that already exist from other damage. They can use legitimate openings like air vents and condensation pipes. They can even chew their own holes into crawl spaces if they have to.

Rats have lots of reasons to want to get into your home, so reducing some of the main attractants is vital for rat control on your property. Make sure you're covering all your garbage and keeping all of your pantry foods stored in airtight containers. Also, seal up as many holes and openings as you can to reduce the ease with which rats can enter your home. 

The Most Effective Way To Get Rid Of Rats

It's not easy to completely get rid of rats. That's why Delmar Pest Control is here. We know exactly how to safely and effectively eliminate all of the rats on your property so that you never have to worry about them again.