The attic in your home is the perfect living space for rats. It provides a place to nest in peace away from human activity, yet the rats in your attic are close to a food source in your kitchen below or in your yard outside. Rats might enter through the roof or near the foundation of your house and then climb between the walls to get to the attic. Either way, you need to find a way to eliminate them and keep them from coming back. Here are some ways to deal with rats in your attic.
Check Around Your Roof For Their Entry Holes
Roof rats like high places, so they might climb up a tree or the side of your house and enter your attic through a hole in the roof. Rotted and weak fascia boards are easy for a rat to chew through, so you'll want to check the soffit and fascia of the roof as well as the roof itself for holes in the shingles and deck. When you find holes, cover or plug them with steel materials. Rats have the ability to chew through a wide variety of materials, but steel is one material that often slows them down or deters them.
Eliminate Their Odor Trails
In addition to covering the rat hole, you may also want to disinfect the area with a cleaning product to eliminate the rat odor that will continue to attract other rats. For even more protection, clean the entire rat trail that leads to the hole if you can identify it. Not all rats love heights, so you'll want to repeat the process of finding entry holes and cleaning away the greasy rat trails from the foundation of your house to the top of the roof.
Eliminate Escaping Air
Rats can get in fairly small holes, but rats will also enlarge a hole if they want to get inside. One thing that encourages rats to start scratching and gnawing to get inside is when they detect air escaping through a small hole. The air may be warm and signal there's a good nesting place inside, or the air may carry the aroma of food. For this reason, it's also important to look for areas where air leaks from your home and plug those areas with caulk or spray foam while you're covering up rat holes.
Set Traps Or Call A Pest Control Service
Once you've sealed up your home, new rats can't get in, but the rats inside won't be able to get out either. You'll have to trap them to get them out of your home. Fortunately, your kids and pets shouldn't be in the attic, so you can place as many snap traps around as you need to in order to get rid of all the rats.
If you're uneasy with this or are squeamish about going in the attic when you know rats are in there, call a rodent control professional to set up the attic traps. Depending on how big the infestation is, the exterminator may deploy a large number of traps in the hopes of wiping out the pests before the rats learn they should avoid the traps.
To learn more about rodent control, contact a pest control specialist in your area.