What to Do if You Have Rats in Your House?

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So you saw a rat running through the kitchen or are hearing them shuffling around in the attic. You are sitting there wondering, “What should I do?”.

The answer is simple; if you have rats in your house, you need to ACT NOW!

Why Act Now?

A rat infestation in your home is dangerous. Rats create fire hazards when they chew through electrical wires. They generate health hazards from the diseases that are transmitted through rat poop and urine. Rats present a real physical risk to your family and pets as they are not afraid to bite you while you sleep.

A rat infestation is NOT something that will go away on its own. In fact, it only gets worse with each passing day.

Rats leave trails of poop everywhere they go as a way of communicating with and attracting other rats. Also, how many babies do rats have, you might ask? Rats reproduce at an incredible rate. If you have rats and don’t start acting now, then I promise you will have a lot more rats soon.

What to Do?

You need to treat your rat problem like a serious issue and spend the time and money required to protect your home and family.

Yes, you are going to have to spend money.

Get over it….this is NOT the time or place to be cheap.

Spend the Time to Fix the Problem

If you have rats in your house, then you have two problems that have to be fixed.

The first problem is what attracted rats into your yard and towards your house. You have to figure out what attracted the rats to your yard and fix that problem.

The biggest attractants for rats are sources of food and water. Common food sources include open trash cans, spilled seed from bird feeders, open compost piles, garden debris, dropped fruit from trees, and dog poop. Common sources of water include water bowls for pets, birdbaths, and pools of standing water.

If you can’t find the attractant in your yard, then look in your neighbors’ yards.

Find the food or water source that is bringing the rats to your yard and GET RID OF IT.

The second problem that you have to fix is that the rats found a way to get into your house. You will have to spend a day identifying the locations that rats are using to access your structure. Rats can get into your house through access points on your roof, gaps in utility access lines, and essentially any location that has an opening of half an inch or greater.

Find the holes in your house and seal them up! There is no point in getting rid of the rats inside your house if you leave the door wide open for more rats to come on in.

Spend the Money to Fix the Problem

You are going to have to spend money on either traps, poisons, or a professional exterminator. How much you need to spend will be determined by how much of the work you are willing to do yourself.

A professional rat exterminator will cost you between $500 and $1,500, depending upon your location and your problem’s size. During my rat battles, the exterminators I hired simply crawled around my attic and set about twenty Victor professional rat traps. The exterminator came back in three days, got rid of the dead rats, and set new traps. After the third round of setting traps, all of the rats were gone.

Buying the traps yourself is inexpensive. The hard part is learning to safely set the traps and figuring out where to place them. Here is how I set the Victor professional traps:

When you put the traps out, you will need to set LOTS of them. You want to get rid of these rats fast, so setting lots of traps is your best option. These traps are highly effective and inexpensive. There is no reason not to buy plenty.

If you watched the video above, then you saw how powerful these traps are.

I’ll be honest, while these traps work, they always scared me when I was using them. I was always afraid that I would accidentally trip the trap and break a finger.

An equally effective, easier to use, but more expensive option for killing the rats is to use a bunch of electric rat zappers. Rat zappers kill rats almost instantly by electrocution and are easy to use. The risk of hurting yourself with a rat zapper is just about zero.

If you decide to kill your rats with a zapper, then make sure you buy several. A zapper will only kill a single rat per evening so if you have a bunch of rats, then put out a bunch of these things.

Wrapping It Up

If you have rats in your house, you need to act NOW to get rid of them. Figure out why the rats came to your house and get rid of the attractant. Figure out how the rats got into your house and seal it up. Lastly, it would be best if you started killing the rats either by hiring a professional pest and rodent removal company or setting out a bunch of traps.

Good luck and GET BUSY!!