How to Get Rid of Rats
These differences play out in everything from their appearance to their behavior. If you’ve seen a rat in your home or on your property, it’s helpful to know which type you’re dealing with as you work to eliminate and exclude this pest.
Rats Versus Mice
- Rats may grow to as large as 15 inches, while mice typically reach 5-8 inches.
- Rats have hairless, scaly tails, but mice have large, floppy ears and thin, hairy tails.
- The face of a rat features short whiskers and a blunt snout. Mice have longer whiskers and a triangular snout.
Overall, rodents comprise over 2,000 species of warm-blooded nuisance animals including rats, mice, and squirrels. These pests are found all over the globe wherever there is plentiful access to food and water. For your needs as a homeowner, let’s discuss the most common types found in the U.S.
Common Species of Rats
Norway Rat (AKA Sewer Rat or Brown Rat)
How To Identify:
- Measures 13-15 inches and carries girth at 7-18 ounces when adult
- Reddish, grayish-brown, or black with a gray underside
- Inactive during daylight hours
- Will eat nearly anything found near discarded food. Also known to eat fish, poultry, mice, birds, and small reptiles.
- Each female may produce an average of 8-12 pups per litter and 4-7 litters each year
- DIY measures may be attempted for exclusion
- Call a pest control professional if you encounter a Norway rat
Roof Rats (AKA Gray-Bellied Rat)
How To Identify:
- 7-10 inches long and 5-9 ounces
- Grayish-black to solid black fur
- Eats fruits, vegetables, seeds, and nuts
- Each female produces 5-8 pups per litter and 4-6 litters per year
- Patience and multiple placements are needed for DIY methods
- Call a pest control professional if you encounter a roof rat
Dangers of Disease
- Murine typhus
- Leptospirosis
- Trichinosis
- Salmonellosis (food poisoning)
- Ratbite fever
- Plague (more common from roof rats than Norway rats)
Pests-Proofing your RVs, Campers and Travel Trailers for Winter Storage
Read more to find out how you can protect your RVs and campers while they are in storage from pests. Some methods are surprisingly easy.
Tomcat Snap Rat Trap
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Step 1: Know the Species
Step 2: Check for Signs of Damage
- Seal holes and cracks greater than ¼ inch on the interior and exterior
- Install weatherstripping on the bottom of exterior doors
- Trim branches and limbs from trees and bushes that provide a bridge to your home
Step 3: Find Their Homes
Step 4: Build a Plan
Weather & Rats
People may be surprised to find Norway rats and roof rats living in the same structure, yet that behavior is quite common as temperatures cool later in the year.
Roof Rats
Roof rats are given to higher temperatures, which explains why they’re overwhelmingly found in coastal areas. The heat becomes a catalyst for daily activity and reproduction. As you would expect, cooler climates do not agree with roof rats and send them scurrying for shelter.
Norway Rats
The Norway rat breeds all year long across the U.S. (except near the coasts), though spring and fall are peak breeding seasons. Climate extremes in summer and winter tend to reduce reproductive activity. This holds true mainly for outdoor colonies.
Pro Tip
If you opt for a DIY method to exclude rodents, two inexpensive yet attractive options would include metal flashing and hardware cloth. Flashing can seal gutters, depriving rats of an obvious entry or exit point, and ¼-inch wire mesh offers an effective closure for vent openings.
Rotting or decaying wood
Long branches touching the exterior of the home
With statistics like these in mind, cities are bolstering the resources they’re deploying against rat infestations:
Chicago is increasing the number of city-employed rodent technicians and experimenting with new ideas to help the Chicago Transit Authority reduce rats in public areas.
Boston has started a 311 line specifically for reporting rats. The city has also worked with MIT and Harvard to test an approach using dry ice that seems, at least from initial reports, to be working.
Cities are also cracking down on residents who contribute to the problem. Chicago fines homeowners up to $500 for leaving pet droppings or garbage in their yards, with other cities following suit. Some homeowners are unhappy about these efforts, but many are taking matters into their own hands rather than waiting on the city.
Risk of Disease
Rats in public places are obviously a public health issue. But in the home, they’re actually an even bigger problem.
Rats do not have to bite in order to cause illness; mere exposure to rat waste is the cause of many debilitating diseases. Rat urine, for example, is one of the leading causes of leptospirosis, a condition that can cause severe kidney and liver damage among humans.
Other diseases that are specifically carried by rats include, but are not limited to:
- Salmonellosis – a disease that can cause abdominal cramps, diarrhea, intense vomiting and fever. Symptoms can begin as soon as 12 hours after exposure.
- Weil’s disease – a severe form of leptospirosis, caused by the same bacteria. If leptospirosis reaches this stage, you will likely have to be hospitalized. Severe reactions may occur in the lungs, the heart, and the brain, if the bacteria reaches those organs.
- Rat bite fever – a disease which can be passed to humans from rat urine or mucus. It is also known as epidemic arthritic erythema, streptobacillosis, streptobacillary fever, sodoku, and spirillary fever. Symptoms may include chills, fever and intense vomiting.
- The plague – which can be spread through airborne contact in extremely unsanitary areas. The bubonic plague, one of the world’s longest-lasting rodent-borne illnesses, is only one manifestation of this disease.
- Hantavirus – a disease serious enough to require a report to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) if contracted. If it progresses to Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome, it can be fatal.
If you’ve identified a rat infestation on your property, there are several methods you can use to help turn rats away. But as always, it’s much easier to prevent an infestation than to treat one. Try these habits on a daily basis whether or not you’re already dealing with rodents.
Mitigate Odors and Food Waste
- Make sure that you always immediately throw out any food that is past its expiration date.
- Check to see that pantry doors and trash can lids close properly.
- Keep an eye on pet food. Remove anything left in open dishes once your pet has finished feeding, and store any food in airtight containers when it isn’t in use.
- Only eat in specified areas. If your family frequently eats in bedrooms, food will inevitably fall behind headboards and under beds, attracting rats.
- When you are eating, try to use place mats as much as possible so they can easily be wiped down afterwards.
- Try to sweep and wipe up the area where you’ve eaten after you’re done so there aren’t any leftover crumbs or residue.
Sanitize Your Home
- Sanitize your home by regularly vacuuming and dusting.
- Make sure that you move your furniture and get in the corners of your home to clean up all of the old food and sticky dust that may attract them.
- You also need to protect your home from your neighbors’ sanitation problems. If your neighbors are messy or smelly, you may want to have a talk with them to make sure any odors or trash aren’t making their way over to your property.
Rat-Proof Your House
- Start by inspecting the foundation of your home. Look for gaps or holes that may be large enough for a rat to enter. You can block off those entry points with expandable foam or mesh.
- Once those areas are secured, check your doors and windows. This is especially important at the change of seasons, when doors and windows may warp and leave gaps large enough for rodents can crawl into. Metal kickplates are a good solution for these, as well as insulation treatment.
- Next, inspect your roof. If your vents, shingles, or chimneys allow access to your attic, you may have a problem: roof rats can be especially difficult to eradicate once they’ve gotten in there. Cap the chimney when it is not being used, fix any holes that might be in your vents, and make sure your roof is in good repair in general.
- In the same vein as inspecting your roof, you’ll want to inspect your basement if you have one. If there are any holes or cracks around your plumbing, these can be easy and covert areas for rats to get into your home. Make sure these small openings are all sealed up and that you also have proper sealant on your basement door.
- Consider using a metal rodent guard if you have any wire lines or pipelines that come from the outside into the house. You can also block holes with a mixture of steel wool and mortar or caulk.
- You can further protect your home by setting up a rat poison barrier around your own property. The best rat repellents on the market usually contain chemicals with odors that rats can’t stand. These can come in a liquid spray form or granules that are then used to create a perimeter around your home, within your garden, and near any rodent holes.
Natural Rat Repellents
- Ammonia – Rats stay away from the smell.
- Bay leaf – The chemical compound of bay leaves can be lethal to rats.
- Peppermint oil – This can be distilled in water and sprayed around the house.
- Castor oil – This works similar to how citronella works to repel mosquitoes.
- Baby powder – The chemical compound can intoxicate rats and help you trap them.
- Instant mashed potatoes – If rats eat dehydrated mashed potatoes, the flakes will expand in their stomachs until they die of bloating.
Traps
- Use a large number of traps.
- Use traps designed specifically for rats. Mouse traps are too small to trap rats, but they can easily be confused while you’re at the store or shopping online. Many people are also tempted to use the same solutions for rats if they’ve had a mice infestation in the past. However, rats and mice are different pests and should be treated as such if you’re dealing with an infestation.
- Place the traps in the most infested areas. These will likely be dark corners, behind big appliances and wherever you see droppings. You can also put rat traps on tree limbs that overlap the house to prevent roof rat invasions, and you can put them in your attic as well.
Follow these guidelines with any type of rat trap you choose to use. While you’re shopping for the best rat traps available, you’ll notice they have different properties that can be better suited to your different needs
Snap Traps/Spring Traps
Live Traps
Glue Traps
Electric/Electronic Traps
Bait
- Peanut butter
- Chocolate
- Pepper
- Fresh and dried fruits
- Onion
If you don’t have any natural bait available, or would rather not leave food out to attract other pest problems, there are many great chemical rat baits on the market with the options of containing poisons are not. There are also different receptacles that you can buy to place your natural or chemical bait inside.
Last update on 2023-03-24 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Bait Stations
Bait Trays
Poisons
Bromethalin-Based Poisons
Vitamin D-Based Poisons
Fumarin and Warfarin-Based Poisons
Wherever you decide to place poisons, rodents will feed off of them and go elsewhere to die. Ideally, the best place to put them will always be outside in order to prevent any rats from dying in the walls or the attic of your home. However, you can still use them inside as long as you periodically check for dead rats or even call in professional help to perform routine inspections.
