Rodent Control for Homes and Small Businesses

Rats. If you didn’t purchase them from your pet store, chances are that you don’t want them in your home or small business. Pest control can cost hundreds of pounds per treatment, for what actually seems like very little work.

Before you commit to treating rodents in the first place, you will want to check that they are in fact in your property. The tell tale signs of rodents are small gnaw marks in wooden skirting boards and furniture, as well as small droppings in cupboards and behind wooden furniture. It’s also possible that you may have heard rodents in your property during the night in attics and in crawl spaces or behind walls.

If you can identify that you need rodent control, it’s worth shopping around to see what is available on the market other than commercial solutions. There are many DIY Pest Control Supplies sold to the general public for home and commercial use for a fraction of the price.

DIY control kits are safe for use even if you have no training, as manuals are provided. Different kits clearly provide different setups for different uses, but advice is clearly given wherever the poisons are sold. If you are unsure on how to treat your problem, call the sales line of the shop that you are researching.

The actual method of controlling rodents is to use pet and animal safe boxes to house the poison. The entrance holes are limited to a small size to ensure that family pets cannot access the poison inside, as typically rodents can access spaces where the entrance is less than one inch in diameter.

Pest control boxes should be placed around areas where rodents appear to be active. The amount of boxes you will need depends on the degree of the problem, so by spacing them at around 10 metre intervals, a small property should be fully covered with a pack of two control boxes.

The treatment of rodents isn’t purely chemical however; rodents clearly are interested in your property for a reason. It’s probable that you or perhaps your neighbour is being a little too liberal with leaving food scraps near your house bins. Once attracted to your area, they will then also need a way into the building – mice can squeeze through any hole that is around ¼ inch in diameter, so it’s important to assess your walls for potential gaps around retro fitted plumbing or building work. Raised steps are less of a challenge than you may imagine, so protecting your open commercial doorways with netting may also be a smart idea.

Some smaller sets also come with free bait samples, so I would recommend trying the do-it-yourself method before shelling out hundreds of pounds of company profits or wages!

Find More Pest Control Articles

Rodent Control After The Summer Harvest

With the newly cut fields and the colder nights drawing in rodents such as rats and mice are seeking new warmer homes for the winter. Unfortunately for us though their new homes tend to be our homes so now is a perfect time to block any holes or install repellents to get rid of those pesky vermin. However if the rodents are already inside the property using poisons carefully is another fast fix.

Blocking holes is a quick fix. We highly recommend using wire wool and nothing else for this. What defines a rodent a rodent is their continuous growing teeth. Having teeth that never stop growing means that the rodent needs to gnaw to keep their teeth sharp and short. Continuous gnawing means that the rodent can actually drill holes through concrete, plastics, wood etc however filling holes with wire wool will cut the gums of the rodent and they won’t be able to pass. The rodent isn’t too persistent with gnawing through wire wool and will leave the property quickly.

The installation of an ultrasonic pest repellent will also work very well. I have been asked many times whether they work or not, and the answer is yes. They are lots of different variations of pest repellents on the market, some have the ultrasonic setting, others have both the ultrasonic and electromagnetic setting. The ultrasonic pest repellent only work in open space and only in the single room the unit is plugged into. One of these units is never enough, and we would recommend installing more throughout the house and remembering to install the unit in open corridors or in plug-sockets that aren’t being blocked by any furniture. Units that also have the electromagnetic setting are better units as these units will protect the cabling of the property as well as the room they are plugged into. They will go through cavity walls via the cables and it will stop rodents from chewing through cabling which will ultimately save you money on repairs. It must be noted the ultrasonic devices are not an immediate fix and can take up to 3 weeks. Rodents have been seen to approach the unit itself, but this does not signify that the unit is broken.

The final other method of rodent pest control is using the traditional poison method. Using rodent poison bait carefully and according to the label is a preferred method of controlling rats and mice but users must be careful that only the targeted species are killed. Open bait trays can only be used indoors and away from pets and really are ideal for loft areas (make sure you don’t have bats and poisoning squirrels is also illegal). Open bait stations are easy to refill and monitor and uptake can be quicker then boxes. For larger areas, open bait sources are far less time consuming and cost effective. For anything outside , if it be under a shed etc. a locked bait station is required. Loose bait can be used in boxes but remember to put them in trays inside a box to stop spillage. Placing a brick or a heavy object on top of the box is also recommended. Block bait is also available and its also ideal for indoor and outdoor use. Block bait is for use inside bait boxes and is far safer to use in areas of activity, for example in corridors, play areas, near dogs etc. Block bait is either tightly packed into the box or comes on a spindle so spillage isn’t possible. Block bait is a very safe bait to use and is preferred over loose bait.

Most customers ask about where the rodent dies and in 9 cases out of 10 the rodent will die in its nest. The poison can be a single feed kill or multiple kills do it isn’t an instant kill. The rodent will begin to feel unwell and in most cases will wonder home. If you do find a dead rodent we suggest that you bag and bin it, or bury it.

Alternative methods to controlling rodents are trapping but as with poisons you need to be careful in setting the traps. Rat and Mouse Traps are violent object that can hurt pets, children and adults, so when using a traps positioning is very important.

Related Pest Control Articles

Keeping your property free of rats and mice is a perpetual problem for home and property owners. New York City recently put noted rodentologist Bobby Corrigan on the payroll fulltime to combat its burgeoning rat problem. Heading a beefed-up squad of special inspectors known as the “Rat Pack,” Corrigan and his crew are patrolling the city to root out rodent infestations, visiting as many as 200 buildings a day. If cited, property owners have two weeks to evict the varmints or face a fine.

Eviction is rarely easy. Widespread and abundant, rats and mice are considered the second and third most successful mammalian species inhabiting Earth today. Only humans have proved more adaptable. Spread throughout the world by early seafarers, rats and mice are found on all Earth’s continents, exhibiting an amazing ability to adapt to extreme and harsh climate conditions. Rodents thrive in diverse environments from swampy river banks and city sewers to the upper branches of trees and the top floors of high-rise buildings. Opportunistic survivors that live with and near humans, Corrigan calls rats “a barometer for human activity.”

Rats and mice have long been a problem in large metropolitan areas where food sources and hiding places abound. The low shrubbery, parked cars, construction sites, abandoned buildings, tunnels and sewers common in cities provide ideal cover and harborage. Overflowing dumpsters, trash bags stacked along sidewalks and lunch bags tossed in sidewalk garbage cans provide a never-ending food source. But mice and rats are not relegated to cities. As natural habitats in fields, woods and rivers have given way to development, rodents increasingly seek harborage in suburban homes and multi-family dwellings. A recent History channel special, Life After People, postulated that without man’s refuse to feed on, rats and mice would be among the first animals to perish should man become extinct.

The challenge in keeping rodents out of a building is to find and seal off entry points. It’s narrow skull and flexible body allows rodents to creep into homes through small cracks, holes and crevices and along sewer and pipe outlets. It’s said that if a mouse can fit his nose in a hole, he can squirm his body through it. Adept climbers, they use their long tails for balance. While mice are quite small, often only an inch or two in length and weighing less than an ounce, rats grow to 5 or more inches in size and can weigh a pound or more.

Primarily nocturnal, rats and mice build nests of sticks and leaves or nest in burrows. They live in polygynous groups of multiple males and females, the females breeding throughout the year. A mature female can produce up to five litters a year of 6 to 12 pups. Young rodents reach maturity quickly and are capable of reproducing by 3 to 5 months of age. In the wild rodents generally live 6 months to a year but have been known to live up to four years in captivity.

Aggressive in defending their territory, rodents exhibit many destructive behaviors that create problems for home and property owners. They contaminate food sources with their urine and feces, gnaw through baseboards and walls, destroy farm and garden crops and fruit trees, and spread internal parasites and mites that can infect pets and humans. Rat fleas carry a number of diseases than pose a serious danger to humans, pets and livestock.

In the Middle Ages, the Black Plague (also called the Black Death), carried and spread by the rat flea, decimated human populations worldwide killing more than 20 million. Bubonic plague spread by rats killed tens of millions during the 19th century Asian pandemic. Each year approximately 3,000 cases of bubonic plague are reported worldwide in Asia, Africa, the U.S. and South America. Scientists fear that global warming may increase the incidence of plague which favors warmer climates. In 2006, campgrounds were closed for three weeks in Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah when bubonic plague was detected in field mice and chipmunks. Rats and mice can also spread disease through parasites and feces. In the early 1990s, a deadly outbreak of Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome in New Mexico was linked to breathing the dust of mouse feces. Characterized by hemorrhagic fever and renal failure, a disturbing number of cases of the untreatable hantavirus have been reported each year in the U.S.

The typical rodent elimination arsenal includes snap traps, rodenticides and mechanical traps. Though these products may be effective in killing rodents, they do not stop rodents from continuing to infiltrate a building. To effectively eliminate rodent problems, all points of ingress must be fully sealed. Now a revolutionary new “green” system helps home and property owners locate ingress and egress points, allowing rodents to be trapped and removed, nests to be located and destroyed, and entry points to be effectively sealed. The innovative Track & Trap rodent control system, available in both mouse and rat sizes, is the smart, “green” way to take care of rodent problems.

The Track & Trap system features a special tracking box that is loaded with a food attractant, surrounded by a powdered, environmentally-friendly fluorescent chemical. As mice or rats scurry around the food trough, their feet and bodies become dusted with fluorescent powder. Ultraviolet light sensors allow pest control experts to pinpoint ingress points and even follow rodents back to their indoor dens. This allows traps to be targeted effectively, rodents and nests inside the building to be eliminated, and entry points to be permanently sealed to prevent further rodent problems.