Rat Pest Control
Stevenage, Hertfordshire
Are you looking for Rat Pest Control Stevenage, Hertfordshire and the surrounding areas? If you need help or advice in solving a rat infestation, get in touch today. our pest control experts are here to help. Contact our rat pest control specialist today on 07807 429 843.
Why Are Rats a Danger?
Unlike high numbers of mice breeds, rats are a massive danger if they contact humans undomesticated. Rats like to communicate to one another and mark their territory by urinating everywhere in their places. Rats carry numerous nasty diseases that spread to us humans in various ways.
One way is through their urine or if their body comes into contact with our food or food prep areas. Some of the diseases they spread to us are Leptospirosis or known to some as Weil's Disease, Listeria, Salmonella, Hantavirus and Toxoplasma Gondii.
During the Black Death Plague that swept across Europe in the 14th and 17th centuries, rats, mainly black rats, took a great deal of blame for the deadly sickness's reasoning. However, since studies have shown that whilst rats and the diseases they carry are incredibly fatal, they may not have been the reason for the plague.
Rats can also cause problems existing outside of public health. Due to their constant gnawing into average household objects to keep their teeth in sharp shape, they have a knack for causing much harmful structural damage. They grind and bite down on and around numerous spots; one of the most dangerous things they can get their teeth around are electrical cables.
Such a thing is hazardous to anyone working or living in the building or living in the surrounding areas, and this can cause many fire hazards and gnaw on pipes or wires can result in leaks of both water or gas. Rats are willing to take on any teething challenge from wood, metal, bone, cinderblock and even glass, leaving them able to cause significant damages to home and business property sites.
If you're beginning to notice any flooding or leaking from chewed pipes or electrical fires happening from gnawed wire cables, rats may be infesting your home or workplace.
Rats around your business are the last thing you may want to happen to your company property. Under the Prevention of Damage by Pests Act 1949, all property owners, especially those with business buildings, must keep premises free of rodents and pests. Suppose rodents begin to pose a threat to you, to public health or the property. In that case, it is best to report the infestation immediately to any of your local authorities and pest control.
A company or business organisation with a rat or mice problem never goes down well with the public, and it may heavily impact your company reputation for a long time afterwards; you may even have to force yourself to shut down for good. Suppose your business is a hotel or you own a restaurant. If guests or those dining spot a rat or mouse, they are likely to never return to your establishment and probably won't be shouting any good reviews to any of their family or friends.
Once the news spreads, you may find yourself with no customers or guests and certainly no profit to keep your company afloat, even long after you get rid of rats.
Our Rat Pest Control covers Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire including:
- Stevenage
- Letchworth Garden City
- Luton
- Leighton Buzzard
- Hemel Hempstead
- Welwyn Garden City
- St Albans
- Hatfield
- Hertford
- Dunstable
- Bedford
- Hitchin
- Royston
- Biggleswade
- St Neots
- Harpenden
It could result in poor reviews of your site or products online to easy viewing, and you may receive several fines as many businesses with pest control problems must pay the price. There is a significant expense, and those with persistent pest problems finding pests are in much danger of further legal action.
The EHO, Environmental Health Officers, may issue enforcement notices your way or to any business owners should you not have adequate management of pest problems put in place. It helps prepare for every negative situation you can think of occurring for your business, which means putting in place a course of action for running into or discovering pests.
It's not only businesses that can run into pest problems. Rat infestations can occur in any building or home, and in the house, it can also have a tremendous negative impact on personal wellbeing. Alongside health risks that you may receive from being in contact with them, the awful scuttling noises they make as they run across floorboards can make it incredibly difficult and frightening to try and sleep during the night.
Signs of Rat Infestations
A common and most apparent sign rats have been paying for your home visits is their faeces. It is dark and pellet-shaped, making them look almost like vast grains of rice. You can find these usually clustered into one spot as they often get used to using the same area; they can leave up to 40 droppings all in one night.
If you find any gnawing or chewed up marks on any of your electrical cables, plastic, brick, woodwork or lead pipes, it may be a sign of rats infesting your home or property. They may also even tear up rubbish bags with waste or leftover food inside, as they can be highly greedy rodents.
If your company building has dusty areas due to a current work project or the location is unused, look for tail marks or footprints that suggest they scuttled past the site.
As opposed to mice, rats are dirty animals, their habitat is the sewer, and they often seek out wasteland areas or dark and gritty places. If you search for signs that they are lingering in your area, look for greasy or dirty, smelly residue. Pest control BPCA professionals refer to these as "smear marks." These smear marks can appear when rats rub their dirty fur coat along the walls or across objects in your home or site as they make a trail to their nest searching for food.
Keep your ears open for sounds of scratching, scuttling and gnawing. Brown rats often grind their teeth, or their teeth may chatter when in distress, and it is a highly distinctive sound that you will struggle to miss. These sounds can also be squirrel infestation sounds, so ensure other clear signs are a rat before reporting.
Where to Check for Rats
In the home, there are many places to check if you have worries that there may be visiting rats and would like to enforce immediate pest control. Check any household lofts and attic spaces; here, you may find chewed items, rat droppings in the corners of the room or inside any objects or items like old cardboard boxes. They may even attempt to use your insulation for teething, so check for any shredding or chew marks.
Next, check the kitchen and your laundry appliances. Check your washing machines, dishwashers tumble dryers and look behind them if possible. It's best to search for any gaps where existing cables or pipework enter your home from the outside.
Look to any out of sight locations, if you have any crawlspaces, cavity walls that young rats may squeeze their way into and any suspended ceilings. They are brilliant creatures and could fit themselves in any means.
Don't stop there; check outside your property too. Rats are such agile rodents; they can climb, jump, burrow and gnaw their way into any site or household. Do top to bottom checks inside and out for evidence of rat infestations. Look on the decking should you have any; edges may have gnawing or chew marks and damage from burrowing. Look in your sheds, and it may be one of the first places they choose to inhabit; look for rat holes and burrowing signs in any of your sheds or outbuildings.
Garages may also be an excellent place for rats to burrow away. There may be gaps surround door frames or holes gnawed into the bottoms of wooden doors or walls or vents that could give them leeway into internal spaces and your living property.
Places, where there is food can attract numerous rats and rodents. Compost bins are warm contain food; search the lid for chew marks that could offer them entry points and access into your container.
Many rats could be burrowing away in overgrown vegetation or wasteland; look for rat holes in shrub roots or amongst trees.
Finally, it is a bright idea to check your drains, rats come from the sewers, and the gutters may be where they feel most comfortable; your drain covers or pipes may receive damage if rats are digging holes to get down there, so this is a great place to check.
Rats in the House
BPCA Professionals and pest controllers services would never suggest ruthless DIY methods to eliminate rats in your home. However, when they could gnaw through electrical cables or pipes and put your household in danger through fires or flooding, it may be your only choice to get rid of the rats in your home.
Something like snap traps or a "sticky board" is the last resort you may wish to take, especially if you are an avid animal lover who only wants them out of your home and not necessarily kill them. Sticky boards can cause some suffering to the rat, but it is often better than to have the rats cause significant damage or public health that could kill. Boards can come with pre-bait in the glue; however, you may wish to improve the board's performance by adding an attractant like a nice nut in the centre, this way, the rat can't resist.
Check the glue boards you have put out as traps very regularly, at least twice a day. You want to ensure that you humanely detached and dispose of any dead trapped rats in the aftermath.
Rats in the Roof
As they are such desperate and agile creatures, often rats can escape sewerage systems through broken or damaged drainage pipes.
They can exit older properties or sites through the Foul Air Outlet that you may find in bathrooms, protruding from above gutters or upstairs toilets. Rats can climb the pipes inside as though it is child's play, as the tube gives access to the sewers through a maintenance hole, and if they climb up, they may reach the roof.
Once on the top of the roof, it is not entirely challenging for them to burrow their way inside. Here they may like its cosy, warm insulation, and it won't be a great deal long before they've slipped their way down into the cavity walls and possibly into your kitchen.
Getting in through the roof is the gateway to the rest of your home. Holes that you may find around your sinks waste pipes can allow the rats to gain accessible entry points to your kitchen from the walls' cavities.
Rats in the Garden
Rat in your garden isn't something to heavily concern yourself with if you live in the country, and it will be quite a common scenario to identify scuttling about in the grass or fields. However, if you live in the city or a more suburban area, rats in your garden can cause much fear and hysteria. You may have fears of them infiltrating your home and causing damages or disease.
Compost heaps or drains may be the most attractive aspects of your or your neighbour's gardens. The best way to cope with rats in your garden is through rat poisons or rodenticides, which you may use in bait form to attract them. It would be best if you were wary of placing it in an area where it will most likely attract rats and not become a threat to non-target animals like strays or the neighbour's pets. The best method of action or treatment is to place the bait in a bait station, with its specific design of trapping rats where no other animals like cats or hedgehogs can access the trick inside.
Inform any neighbours of your course of action and reassure them of the bait you intend on using so that they too can assist you, give you advice and also make themselves wary of their pets going into your garden. Using rodenticides or rat poisons bait is best for outdoor rat control so that you do not attract the likings of birds or other mammals in the area that are not your target pests.
Types of rat in the UK
Two rat species exist in the UK, Rattus Norvegicus, which is known as the brown rat or the common rat, as it is the one most found.
You may also discover the black rat or ship rat, known as Rattus Rattus, and they are the rarest breed of rat found in the UK.
You can find black rats most commonly in shipping ports. Most of these rodents, predominantly brown rats, find a home somewhere that can provide food, water, and the warmth of shelter.
In households, they find places in wall cavities, insulated roof spaces or underneath your very floorboards. They can burrow in gardens, under or inside sheds or into grassy banks.
If you find rat holes, they are a sure-fire sign of rat infestation and nesting. Brown rats find themselves living mostly in sewage systems, but they can clamber their way up onto roofs and burrow their way into attics because they are so vastly agile.
How do you get rid of rats in the home?
1.
Firstly, be sure to seal any gaps in your home'any holes or slits in the walls, piping or drain covers. Cover them up with wire wool, metal kick plates, cement or caulk.
Rats are clever animals and know precisely how to budge their way into premises through a crack in the wall or a damaged drain or drain cover. Upkeep of the outdoor maintenance of your property will ensure that this is less likely to occur.
2.
Declutter and clean your home regularly. Whilst for many this is a given, rats, like many pests, warm near spaces that are dirty or untidy.
Minimalise the clutter in your house, move objects away from walls or check behind them regularly to ensure nothing could potentially hide behind them.
Less mess and dirt provide fewer places for rodents to hide away and make any rat infestation signs much easier to sense, identify and eliminate. Keep waste in tightly closed bins, clean your pipes and drains as regularly as possible.
3.
Eliminate any potential food sources. You can easily do it by ensuring you keep away any dry foods in tightly sealed containers. Clean up any spillages, and do not keep leftovers out sitting on counters, especially if you do not intend on covering them with cling film or tinfoil.
4.
Lastly, the best course of action is knowing who to contact if you are unsure of the steps to take or living in fear of ill health or paranoia.
Call up professional pest controllers or services who have been doing the job for years have the best information and advice on handling pests in the home or on a business property site.
They can provide you with a deep, detailed inspection of your home or site and develop an action plan treatment to rid the rats. If you don't know what to do next, contact a pest control team, local authorities or call to contact Red Tail Pest Control, and our experts can provide you with all the necessary steps and details.
If you suspect that you have a pest in your home or office, call Red Tail Pest Control today for a free, no-obligation quote.
Domestic Pest Control Commercial Pest ControlIf you want more information about Rat pest control in Stevenage, Hertfordshire or the surrounding area we can help. Get in touch with our pest control expert on 07807 429 843. Alternatively you can use our contact form to send an enquiry.