San Francisco County, San Francisco Rat Control Situation:
I found you my doing a web search and happen to see that you used everything I have used, but I have not had the success you have had!!! Please David I hope you can help me. I live in San Francisco in the Oakland area on the cities eastside. I live in a gentrified neighborhood where they are tearing down abandoned homes and this is when the rat problem seemed to start. I started having a rat problem about 2010. Our street once upon a time had at least 8 feral cats, but now you hardly see any now. We at one time had zero rat problems. I have always owned cats but when my cat died in 2007 I switched to dogs. Now the male dog I have is a good ratter. I've seen him stomp rats to death. However, the problem is superseding his ability and on any given night I will see rats running around my kitchen 2 or 3 around the same times. I also think I have roof rats as I see rats upstairs that look and act different than the rats downstairs. So I'll sit and wait with my BB gun and hope I will hit one, which is rare. They almost seem to be able to read our minds and anticipate our next tactic. I have tried the Vector rat traps, baiting them with peanut butter, marshmallows chicken grease and they will eat the bait of and leave the trap untripped. I bought the cage traps, baited with dog food and the first few times did catch some but then the dilemma was I couldn't kill them like that, so resorted to poison and at first was killing them great then I started finding their droppings with the green in it and they were still running around. They soon learned to avoid the cages and poison. I brought a zapper; it was great for the mice I caught , but zero rat has been caught!! They also got into my basement by digging along the sewer line. My son has a red tailed boa ,which we thought about putting there, but it's too risky he would escape somewhere. I tried electronics and that just doesn't work at all! These ghetto rats are SUPER SMART. i went to a professional exterminator and he was telling me that this was probably one rat doing this and that some of the things I was telling him they do just wasn't true so i didn't use his exterminating services ,but, did buy the poisons from his retail store and place it as he instructed w/o relief of this problem. They steal too. When all their food sources were dried up, they came in my living room and nawed a rat head sized hole in the stiff plastic bag and stole 1/2 of a 1# bag of hard ginger candy and took it somewhere. There wasn't a trace. I stored my dog's food in a lidded tupperware container and they knawed right through that. My camera is missing, which was on my kitchen table,. Yesterday I was looking for my dish towel and they had put it under the kitchen sink as they had [artially pulled it through the kick plate., They stole paper $5 money from my son's table and it was found inside a hole in the wall. I found where they chewed through mortar so remortared those areas only for them to do again. They are destroying my home and my peace and I am almost ready to just burn this house down (figurative speech). I see them outside like squirrels looking at us and I've called the city and they have done nothing! Is my house possessed by rat demons or is this a living earthly rat infestation that can be eradicated? Can you please give me some advice and direction, please?? Thank you, Ellen
My response: I have had rats steal my camera in the past too. I think it's probably a living earthly rat infestation. You need to find out how they are getting into your house, and seal those holes shut.
San Francisco Rat Control Tip of The Week
What Are Some Symptoms Of Rat Diseases In Humans?
Although rat-transmitted infections can have different causes, they usually have common symptoms. The difference in each infected person will depend on the type of condition, mode of transmission, and the urgency with which treatment has been sought.
From the moment we confirm the presence of rats in our home, it is essential to get rid of these rodents before they start filling the house with unpleasant smells and dangerous secretions full of bacteria and infections that are harmful to our health.
Common Symptoms
Some of these common symptoms can be general malaise, fever, dizziness, nausea, headache, chills, and muscle pain, among others. However, depending on the type of infection or disease, bacteria, or virus, the symptoms can be even more severe and need more drastic treatment.
Among the most common diseases caused by rats, we have:- Tularemia: an infection that can cause excessive sweating, eye irritation, joint stiffness, skin rash, and weight loss.
- Leptospirosis: an illness whose symptoms include nausea, fever, body pain, and irritation. This infection can become complicated, causing Weil's disease, meningitis, and pulmonary hemorrhage.
- Hantavirus: an infection whose most common symptoms vary from fever, chills, dizziness, pain throughout the body, and digestive problems.
- Bubonic Plague: known as the Black Death, it is a high-risk bacterial disease that can cause death. It has symptoms such as coughing up blood, diarrhea, vomiting, and delirium.
- Salmonellosis: an infectious disease whose symptoms include vomiting, cramps, diarrhea, dehydration, and blood in the stool.
- Typhus: a high-risk infectious disease that includes body pain, rash, cough, and vomiting amongst its symptoms.
Each of these infectious diseases can be contracted in different ways, either through direct contact with some contaminated element, through an open cut that has come into contact with rat secretions, or through a rodent bite. The latter could be one of the most worrisome, since this way it is much easier for the infection to enter the body.
