Greene County, Springfield Rat Control Situation:
Hi I saw your website and hope u can help. My neighbors with the cold weather the mice have came. This has been ongoing battle for a couple months. My cat has caught almost 11 , poison killed the rest, along with traps, now it seems there are some new ones in my ceiling, they have chewed so far three holes through my ceiling, I can hear them at night running and scratching, I detest rodents but am at my wits end just when I thought I had them beat they are back in the ceiling where I cannot get to them. Should I put out another round of poison and traps or call a professional! Help at this rate I will have holes all over my ceiling and need a lot of drywall patches!! I am at my wits end can u suggest anything?
I found your website and thought you might be able to help me with a problem I've got here. I've had a lot of my stuff in storage for a few years whilst traveling, and have just returned and found that rats got into a fair bit of it. Some of it I was willing to throw away. However, there's some books that I'd like to be able to salvage which have soaked up rat urine. Or if not the urine itself, the odour of it. Do you have any suggestions? You might need to be aware that I live in Australia, so some of the chemicals or products you may recommend may not necessarily be available to me here. But whatever you recommend would be greatly appreciated anyway! My husband and I are experiencing a foul smell in the ceiling closer to our car port area. It smells the worst outside. There was a Possum in the ceiling but fortunately it fell out of the roof siding outside but I think it may have carried something up there and now there are a million flies and a bad smell up there. Can you please help.
Springfield 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.