Sacramento County, Sacramento Rat Control Situation:
Hello David, I am desperate now. I have four children all under the age of thirteen. I need some help. I have an infestation of rats in my house. They were mainly in the walls and attic. One Sorry huge rat I killed that came in my house is dead. I poisoned him. I cut down my hedges because I had huge holes behind them. I filled it with dirt. The next door neighbor elevated her house and her problem ran behind my hedges. I put rat traps in the attic, poison, glue traps. Always fixing holes. I still have rats. I Heard one just last night fall down my wall. I live by woods and the rats seem out of control. Never had a problem for the thirteen years I have been living here until the neighbor elevated her house next door to me. Please any suggestions would be appreciated. I also hired orkin and it didn't help either. Very concerned, Angela in Sacramento CA
Hi David. I discovered your web site while googling "rat urine". We have had an occasional problem with rats over the past 3 years and thought we had the problem fixed last fall after a 1 year contract with a local pest control company. This past weekend we smelled a dead rat and found a small one in the crawl space. The smell dissipated and this morning we woke up to a horrible urine smell which came from the front hallway/living room (they are side by side). This is above the area where we found the dead rat, which we removed. As we don't know exactly where the smell is, we don't want to start ripping down drywall. Do you know of any good company in the Vancouver area of British Columbia that can help us with the clean-up and blocking the rats entry? Or, if not, what type of things should we be looking for when calling pest control. We are at our wits end and really believed that we had solved the problem. Thank you in advance for your advice. Robert
Hello, thanks for the informative page. I have a room addition that was built onto my house and the the rats have chewed an opening from the outside where the water pipes come in. The space they are scratching in is a wall space between the old building and new building and as of now there is no access to the attic or into the house they just have this cavity they have found. I don't want to seal up the hole with them in there. What do your recomend as the best course of action. thanks, Bill
Sacramento Rat Control Tip of The Week
Norway Rat Biology
The Norway rat is typically nocturnal. It is a good swimmer; however, unlike the related black rat, it is a poor climber. Norway rats burrow well, and regularly uncover broad tunnel systems.
Rats are equipped for creating ultrasonic vocalizations, both as grown-ups and babies. They may likewise transmit short, high frequency, socially-prompted vocalization during interaction with different rats or animals. This call most takes after a trilling sound but is undetectable to human ears. Rats can discernibly be heard through calls sounding like squeaks when they are in trouble.
These rats are omnivores. This implies they can eat both plants and animals. As predators, rats are opportunistic.
The Norway rat can breed consistently if the conditions are reasonable, and a female can deliver up to twelve litters in a year. The gestation period is just 21 days, and litters can number up to fourteen, albeit smaller litters are common. In this way, the rat population can increase rapidly. Rats have a lifespan of around three years, yet regularly live less than one year.
Norway rats live in enormous hierarchical groups, either in tunnels or subsurface places, such as sewers and basements. When food is hard to come by, the rats lower in the social order are the first to die. If a large portion of a rat populace is eliminated from a zone, the rest will expand their reproductive rate, and rapidly reestablish the old populace level. This makes it imperative to have a plan to get rid of the entire rat population on your property if an infestation occurs.
