Hennepin County, Minneapolis Rat Control Situation:
Hi, David, Thank you very much to establish your very educational and candid website. I bought a house half a year ago and it had rats in the attic and in the crawl space. I hired a rodent removal guy to take care of the problem. I spent almost $1000 but I still had rats - he didn't seal all the entry points. Anyway, I then did a lot of research in rats. lol. According to my rodent guy, there was about 10 rats living in my attic. But his trap caught none after sealing all the holes (He thought he did but there was two crawl space vent open). He then claimed that all rats gone because they are "scared". Later I set traps myself and I caught two large roof rats (really large, almost 12 oz each I would say). After that, no more caught. In October, I hired an insulation company to remove ALL the batt insulation from my attic. There was still thousands of droppings left on the joist bays. I painstakingly vaccuum them out (me wearing face masks). Now the attic is clean. However, I could not find ANY gnaw marks on wood, nor electric wires, nor on anything else. Why is that? How could it be? This house had tens of thousands of rat droppings in the attic, thousands of droppings in the garage and thousands in the crawl space. But I am not able to spot their damage other than the droppings? I thought rats have to chew on stuffs to keep their teeth from growing too long. I hope you could help answer this question. It always bugs me if there is something unexplainable. Thanks! Guangchi from Minneapolis Area
Minneapolis Rat Control Tip of The Week
Are Rats Nocturnal?
Biologically, rats are nocturnal. These animals come out at dusk to look for food and carry out other activities, then go back into hiding at dawn. Their choice of coming out at dusk is dependent on many things that have to do with their natural behavior and biology. Right here, we will be taking you through some of these factors.
The first factor is that rats are silent animals and will prefer to operate in an environment with less noise. Their involvement with humans and special liking for staying in places close to human settlements will make them want to stay in hiding during the day time because the activities of humans during the day causes noise that they can't cope with.
Another factor that modifies rats to being nocturnal is the fact that their instinct only makes it possible for them to feel relaxed and active when there is less danger. This is nearly impossible during the day time as many of their natural predators will be active during that exact time.
Third, rats like are sneaky and will always prefer to operate in hiding without the occupants of the house knowing. The night has limited light and the occupants are most likely to be at rest during this time. This gives rats all the time and opportunities they need to carry out their rat business without any form of interruption.
However, rats are also capable of moving around during the day if they have a safe route through which they can travel. The routes are usually dark and safe even during the day when there are noises and disturbances from humans.