Rodent
Control
Residential & Commercial Rodent Control
Rodents have a role to play in the environment around us. Although rodents are necessary for our ecosystem, it is important not to share our living space with them. Rats, mice, and other rodents cause property damage, contaminate food, and can transmit diseases. Before going through the trouble of doing any repairs to walls, attics, and other areas of your residence, you should call a professional rodent control service or rodent exterminator to inspect your home or business to implement a custom plan of action. By acting sooner, you will prevent further damage to your home or business. Delaying action may allow rodents to feel secure & safe in your home, allowing them to invade your house in larger numbers.
Proactive Rodent Control
When it comes to pest control, many businesses and homeowners tend to adopt a responsive action. What this means is that they do little or nothing to combat pests until they have a problem. In short, they cure the issue rather than preventing it. Experts in pest control believe this is the wrong way to go about fixing the problem, and that there are many benefits to being pro-active.
Ongoing pest control and maintenance are often seen as being something of an insurance policy. Many people resent paying an insurance premium as they see it as a wasted payment. However, in the face of a vehicle accident or a burglary at their home, they’re immediately gratified by the payments they made as they have adequate coverage to recoup their losses and minimize the damage.
Infestation prevention works in a similar way. You might not always be able to see the benefits of the time and money spent on creating a no-go-zone for pests, but in the face of an actual infestation, you’d be able to immediately see the benefits of your long term plan.
Consider that the cost of dealing with an actual infestation of pests could be quite sizable and that you could potentially have to close your business or accommodate your staff and customers elsewhere as a clean-up operation took place. Then consider that the alternative is an ongoing small scale operation (such as traps) with little of the same financial outlay and no disruption to your business, and it’s easy to see the better alternative.
Cleanliness
Maintaining cleanliness and order in and around the house is important. In the house, tables and chairs used for dining and eating should be wiped clean of food crumbs and other debris. Even drops of juice or milk should be cleaned up to prevent the appearance of these pests. Once they get used to having available food, they will come back again and again. This means that trash disposal, which is one of the first things that usually brings rats, mice, and cockroaches to your home, should be done properly regularly.
Make sure that garbage cans have covers and that these are secure. Trash should be put in plastic bags to contain them, and these should be sturdy enough. If there are pets in the house, their food should not be left out and accessible to raiding visitors. As the first part of rodent control, it is important to understand that they are looking for food sources and one’s house should not be a good one.
Protection/Proofing
Protecting the house from the entrance of pests is a good way to start the management of pests. Rat proofing the house can start by making sure that entrances or possible entrances are properly covered and sealed. Make sure that there are none inside the house before these are sealed up because they will thrive in a house if they are trapped in it. Rodent control should start with inspecting possible entryways for them. Pet doors, which are flimsy, need to be checked because bigger rats can push open small cat or dog doors.
Mail or letter drops are also possible ways for these pests to enter the home. Open drains and pipes that lead into the home are potential entrances and exits. Drains should be covered with a grating that can withstand being chewed, which means plastic ones may not be the best covers. Vents or exhausts should also have durable covers. Mice and rats can climb walls. Small cracks or openings in windows should be amended and sealed. Chimneys should also be included in the rodent control checklist, and these should be covered correctly to prevent pests from entering this way.
Trapping or Poisoning?
Setting traps for any rodents that may have taken residence inside the home is a good idea. On the other hand, mice and rats who do eat the poison, may not be easy to locate, dying in crevices or inaccessible places such as pipes or vents making their retrieval quite tedious or expensive while creating a lingering unpleasant stench.
For this reason, we almost always recommend traps when dealing with a current infestation. The two most popular forms of traps are live traps and kill traps. Live traps are systems in which the rodent is caught alive and released outside and away from the home. Another option is kill traps, which kill the rodent during capture. Both are viable options and their use depends on the wish of the homeowner.
Clean-up
Once you are confident that rodents have been removed you should always conduct a thorough cleaning in your house or business to prevent spreading remaining diseases. Cleaning should include removing dead rodents and nests, cleaning cabins, sheds, barns or other outbuildings and air ducts, cleaning any urine and droppings, and disinfecting areas where the rodents were.
If you are dealing with a persistent rodent infestation or an infestation of larger rodents, the safest and most effective option is hiring a trained professional like Pacific Exterminator. A trained technician will come onsite to assess the problem and recommend options for elimination, usually with a guarantee. Pest control companies offer humane options for capturing and removing larger rodents and have the expertise to handle the chemicals and tools required to perform pest extermination.
