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
Are rats hibernating creatures?
Rats are nocturnal:
Rats sleep a lot even without cold conditions. The average rat will sleep between 12 to 15 hours a day and in colder conditions they will often seek warmth so that they can sleep safely for this amount of time. Because rats often walk around at night, detecting them can be somewhat difficult. Making sure that you can detect them often means checking into areas where they could nest or remaining somewhat attuned to what is going on in the night time when they are most active.
Rats breed throughout the year:
Even in the wintertime rats are continuing to breed, make their nests, and live without any issues. They don't hibernate during winter. Instead, rats will continue to breed. Most rats are able to wean a litter in about one month and leave the babies to fend for themselves after that period of time.
Rats will seek spaces to live:
Even though they don't hibernate, rats will seek warm and safe conditions. This means that in the wintertime it's likely that they will be looking for space inside your home where they can spend time sheltering throughout the winter. Spotting areas were rats can get into your home can be important to preventing an infestation.
Food gets scarce in winter:
If you are in an area where the climate gets cold this can lead many rats to find an area where they can access food much easier. Rather than getting stuck with very little food supply over several months, they can detect food that's in your home and then stay close to it.
