With Spring in full swing, wild animals become more active. Rats are among the most common animals to invade a house in the spring, especially in urban areas. These tiny rodents can bring a lot of damage and even other pests into your home.
Rats Moving In
Rats only require a very small opening to get inside your home. They can squeeze through holes as small as a coin. However, they usually make the hole larger by gnawing around it. Rats can thrive in basements, crawl spaces, attics, between floors, and inside walls. Apartment buildings can house huge colonies of rodents inside the walls and in between floors.
Heavy Damages
Rats can be incredibly destructive to the building they infiltrate. They can chew their way through insulation, wood beams, and wires. When they chew the wires, they may cause house fires. Gnawing on the wood beams can weaken the structural integrity of the building. The oily fur of a rat, as well as its droppings, may dirty the areas where they scurry. In Spring, rats breed and give birth, which will create a flood of tiny rodents to ransack your house.
Disease
Rats are known to host a wide array of diseases. Dead rats will bring foul odors and even more diseases to your home. In addition to smells and disease, rats may carry a multitude of parasites, such as ticks and fleas. These can cause further harm to your family, and can further spread diseases from the rats.
Further Problems
When rats are removed and excluded from a home, their entrance ways need to be repaired. Because they usually make tiny holes bigger; a rat’s doorway can eventually be large enough to let in larger pest animals. The openings made by the little rodents can bring in other pests, such as bats, mice, raccoons, opossums, squirrels, chipmunks, and even more rat colonies. Proper removal, cleaning, and repair are vital to fully defend your home.