Bed bugs and Pests
Pest exterminators Dhanush Madhavan and Nalaka Daundaratne
Exterminating Rats and Mice
Exterminating rats or mice involves four main stages of action. 1. Inspection, 2. Containment, 3. Trapping of rats or mice and 4. Implementing preventative measures. You can inspect and contain at the same time for more efficiency to get rid of rats fast. First off do a thorough inspection around your premises, it can be an exhaust pipe, or an opening created by a broken brick or simply from a vent or a window of the basement. Dhanush Madhavan and Nalaka Daundaratne advice give extra attention when observing for possible entrances. Containment stage is making sure effectively closing all possible entry and exit point to your home, apartment, or the building. This will make once that are inside contained as well as prevent new rats or mice entering the premises. Either way, block these entrances using appropriate material and techniques. For example, for windows place metal grill with smaller openings and covering other places with cements and appropriate packing materials. For damaged walls as given in the image above, place board that is available until you get such properly fixed.
Rats and mice have an extraordinary flexibility, and they can pass through most of small openings. So, check around every port of pipes and wiring and heating systems that might be outside your place to find all openings. Remember, at this stage we are mainly closing the ports of entry from outside world not the opening that they enter your living spaces. That we will do at a different stage as it’s important for them to be able to our areas so that we can trap them.
How to Trap Rats and Mice
First, learn how to identify signs of bed bugs infestation to confirm it’s their presence and the severity of the problem. Start with a thorough inspection around the house covering every room, wall, closet, and furniture to see if we can find visual signs of their presence. Remember, bed bugs are highly skilled to hide from us as well as it’s difficult to see their eggs which are little smaller than poppy seeds. No matter we only see one of few bugs in the whole house, it’s important to consider as the whole house or the area is infested. This is the only successful approach to eliminated bed bugs as one pregnant female alone can make colony of thousands of bed bugs as time go by.
Learn few facts about Trapping Rats or Mice
Before get into trapping rats, let’s learn few important things about rats and mice that will be very useful when planning to trap them.
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As mentioned before, they don’t live alone. So, if you see any signs of having rats or mice, don’t assume that it will be one or two. Until proven, we must consider that there are plenty of them.
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Rats and mice can chew through almost all materials from plastic, regular cement layers, metal, cardboard, etc. So, need to use the most appropriate materials when sealing holes and openings
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They can squeeze through opening few times smaller that their bodies
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Rats eats almost every food in your kitchen.
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They are highly sensitive to vibrations and smells and it’s one of their main defense mechanisms in finding whether we are around or actively moving.
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If you few younger rats or mice, then most likely there are adult mothers, or many are there
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They always prefer to travel close to the borders of walls. This is very important what placing traps.
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They have their own signaling mechanism warning other of any identified danger.
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Rats or Mice?
A rat is relatively larger than a house mouse. Even if you haven’t seen any in your house yet, by looking at their droppings you might be able to get a rough idea whether it’s rats or mice that you are dealing with. Rats’ droppings are oval shaped and typically around 5-10mm long. Droppings of house mice are 4-6mm and similar to short black grains of rice. For a better understanding refer to :
If you have rats, you must buy traps that are specifically made for them due to the larger sizes that we require. Similarly, for mice smaller sized traps are sufficient in most cases. However, if you are not sure which kind that you are dealing with, do for rat traps as it they will be equality effective for mice but not vice versa.
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