If you have a rat living in your home, you will want to call in a professional rat exterminator. Rats are fairly smart, and are great at warning other rats of danger and evading capture. This can make it hard to eradicate them from your home. They also can procreate and quickly infest your home if you do not get them out quickly. Knowing the signs that one or more rats are living in your home can help you know when to call in a professional. Here are a few of those signs.
Noticing Gnawing or Tooth Marks
Rats love to chew. Chewing helps them to keep their teeth short and sharp, which helps them to stay healthy and eat properly. As such, if a rat is living in your home, you may notice where they have been chewing. Wood is a favorite item of rats to gnaw on. You may see your baseboards or doors have chew marks on them. Wires are also easy for rats to chew on. Unfortunately, they may chew electrical wires behind the walls, which can lead to electrical issues. Lastly, if rats are in your main living area, you may notice food items left out on the counter have been chewed on.
Signs of Rat Droppings
Another sign that you may have rats living in your home is rat droppings. If rats are living in your home, they are going to urinate and defecate in the home. Unless there is a large build-up of rat urine, you are not likely to smell that odor, but your pets may. If your pets suddenly become interested in an area and continue to sniff in that area or even try to urinate there themselves, you may have a rat present. While you may not smell or see urine though, it is easy to see rat droppings. They are small, tiny brown droppings that start to crumble or turn gray as they age. If you notice small droppings in your home, you may have mice or rats.
You Hear Unusual Scratching Noises
The last common sign that rats may be living in your home is hearing unusual scratching noises. Rats like to hide from people. As such, they are more active in the night once you have gone to bed. You may hear them behind your walls building their nest. This presents itself as a scratching noise. If you hear any strange sounds coming from behind your walls or above or below you once you go to bed, you may have a pest infestation of some type. A professional can come out and determine what types of pests or pests may be residing in your home and work to remove them.
Eradicating rats who live in your home is important, as rats are unsanitary and can carry germs and diseases with you. Once a rat exterminator removes them from your home, they should work to figure out how they got in in the first place. Rats can eat in through cracks and crevices, so those may need to be sealed off to ensure rats cannot enter in the future.