161 - 5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Use Glue Traps to Get Rid of Rats or Mice in the Attic or Home Glue traps seem like the idea solution when you have rodents in your home, don’t they? You don’t need to deal with the unpleasant snap-trap factor that comes with kill traps, and the animal can’t wander off somewhere and die like it can with rodenticides and homemade rat poisons. They’re also relatively inexpensive, meaning that you can buy more of them and distribute them around your home or building. A strip of hard material, usually stiff cardboard or similar, plus a layer of super strength glue/adhesive ensures that the rodent is stuck fast. Sadly, that’s pretty much where the advantages of using glue traps end. There are far more disadvantages to using them, many of which are not taken into consideration. You shouldn’t use glue traps to get rid of rats or mice because: 1 – They are an inhumane approach to rat control. The animal is stuck to the glue trap, but the trap itself doesn’t actually kill the rodent. Instead, the rodent will starve to death unless you check and deal with it quickly, or it will bleed out. Rodents are quite well known for trying to wriggle free of these traps, and they do manage it in some cases. Sadly, it often means leaving a part of their actual body behind. Rats have even been seen chewing off their own limbs in a bid to break free. They won’t get very far with blood loss and probably shock after that point, but you will be left with a horrific scene to clean up. 2 – When the rat doesn’t bleed to death or die of starvation it can attract other rats/mice, and even other wild animals too. It will make a lot of noise and defecate and rat urine is known for containing pheromones which naturally attract other rodents. Rats also have a number of natural predators, both in the air and on the land, and these could be lured in by the prospect of a free and easy meal. Not only will you have attracted other animals to your property when they might not have otherwise been there, you will also run the risk of luring other wild critters to become stuck and suffer the same glue trap fate. Depending on the animal, you may face legal proceedings because of this, particularly with endangered or protected species. 3 – If the rat becomes stuck to the trap and doesn’t die, you will need to “finish the job” and find a humane way to do it. If the rat becomes stuck to the trap and does die, you will still need to dispose of the body/trap. Most traps are designed to be disposed of once capturing a rodent, unless you hope that the strip will capture more than one animal. This isn’t exactly the most pleasant approach. 4 – Using glue traps for rats is actually unlawful in some states/areas. You will need to do your own research into using them before you take action. 5 – If you are not responsible and do not check the boards or dispose of the glue strips quickly enough, the rats and other animals are going to take a long time to die. It can take up to a week for a rodent to die in this way, making it one of the most cruelest approaches. There are plenty of other approaches to rat extermination or removal that you could rely on; using glue traps is just not a viable option. Nor is it a humane one. 162 – How Fast Will Rats Breed in My Attic? Leaving a rat infestation to go unattended isn’t a good idea, unless you want to have a very large rat problem on your hands. A very large rat problem could be anything from 100 rats to 1,000 rats; it all depends on the space or building in which they inhabit, how many predators are around, and how much the property owners care about the building. Rats are renowned for being one of the fastest breeding animals on our entire planet, with females having as many as five or six litters in any one year. When you consider that a single litter can have up to ten pups in it, that’s a lot of babies. Things get worse when you also bear in mind that rats are not a creature that will recognize incest, which means females will mate with any and every male, even if they are already related. Siblings, parents, cousins, uncles … Rats do not mind. Their main goal is to breed fast and keep the species going. They’re doing a pretty good job of it. If conditions are just right for the rats, they will speed up the breeding process. They will also do this if a large number of their colony or group is culled, such as with rat traps and poison. When you remove rats from a building, regardless of how you do it, you will want to pick the right way — the fastest and most efficient way. Otherwise, the rats will just speed up the rate at which they reproduce to counteract your actions. Nature is very clever that way. Rats in your attic will likely breed very quickly. The conditions are just right for their group to grow, and to grow very fast. Each pregnancy only lasts for around six to eight weeks, depending on particular rat species, and a female rat can usually get pregnant almost right away, as soon as she has given birth. Any females that she gives birth to can also breed from just four weeks of age and onwards. Although it is quite rare for rats to breed at such a young age, the right conditions (once again) have shown to work very well in the favor of rodents. 181 – What Happens With Rats After They Are Trapped? The outcome of a trapped-rat situation will very much depend on the kind of trap that you’re using. A snap trap, for example, is designed to kill the creature immediately, without causing undue pain and suffering, and without prolonging a horrible situation. Snap traps are one of the only ways that you can ensure a quick and painless death for rodents, and is usually the approach most advised by experts. When you trap a rat, you have a few options. You can remove the carcass and dispose of it, preferably via a bonfire if you can, and then clean up the trap with intention of using it again. Most rat traps are relatively inexpensive to buy, however, and can be used just the once if you only have a small rat infestation or would rather not scrape a dead rat from a trap. You should not bury pest animal carcasses in the back yard — other animals will come along and dig them up. You should not let pets or other wild animals eat rat carcasses – there are still some pretty dangerous disease risks associated with dead rats. Live cage traps offer a slightly different outcome; the rats are free to be released later on, in a much more preferable place than wherever you captured them from. When these rodents are released, there is a chance that the animal will survive, start a brand new rat colony of its own, and live a happy and healthy life. (Usually lasting just a couple of years at most.) This doesn’t normally happen with released animals, though. Rats that are captured in residential homes have probably spent their entire lives in residential areas, so won’t have much of a clue about rural, “wild” habitats. New predators, a tough time finding food, water and shelter, and an absolute shock to the system, too … There is a much higher chance that a rat that has been trapped and then released will get killed in a few days, either because it can’t find food, water, or shelter, or because it is attacked by one of the brand new predators. 182 – Should I Keep a Wild Rat as a Pet? Wild rats and pet rats might look alike in some instances, but the two ‘types’ of rat are actually very different. One of the biggest differences between the two is coloration, but that’s not the only thing that makes the many breeds of ‘fancy rat’ a much more preferable pet than a rat that you would find in the street. Pet rats — those that you can buy from breeders of ‘fancy rats’ — are bred so that they are nowhere near as “wild” as their actual wild counterparts. They are much more docile animals, living a life of lazy captivity. They don’t need to chase after food, hunt for food, or fight to defend themselves. This has been the case for almost the entire time that fancy rats have been around. They’ve been bred over and over again in captivity, so they have few of those wild instincts left. They are entirely wild-behavior-free, but they are considerably better behaved than wild rats. Those pesky wild rats really can be a problem, especially as far as temperament goes — and even more so the case if you have young children or other animals in the same household. Wild rats — the black rat or brown (Norway) rat — WILL bite when cornered, and they definitely don’t have the same fear of humans, cats, and dogs that they did a few generations ago. They are becoming more tame as the years roll by because they live alongside us now. They know how to get around your home without disrupting the dog too much and that, ladies and gentlemen, is evolution at its finest. As well as being much ‘bitier’ than fancy, pet rats, wild rats also carry diseases. Just in case you had any doubt over just how powerful these animals actually are, they once had a good shot at trying to finish the human species off entirely, during the Plague or Black Death years. The only reason they don’t have the same control now as they did back then, is because human hygiene has changed a considerable amount. As soon as rats were linked to deadly diseases, they were made outcasts of society and banished. Not for long, admittedly, but we are now much more educated over the dangers that are present when these rodents are. We should pay attention to what we know, too. Ignoring it could be deadly, especially if you’re faced with a rat that has been infected with the rabies virus, leaves Histoplasmosis spores in urine and droppings, or contaminates your entire vegetable patch in the back yard with Salmonellosis. Fancy rats are considerably easier to train than wild rats, and pet rats can also be kept in smaller groups, too. They still shouldn’t be left alone; they are very sociable and emotional animals, and they’ll soon become very stressed, depressed and unwell if kept in solitary confinement. Wild rats need groups that are many rats strong, so unless you plan on having an entire colony of wild rats in a cage, it won’t be long before your new “pet” rat dies. In studies, fancy rats have been shown to differ from wild rats in an actual psychological sense. When these rats are purchased or obtained from breeders who know what they’re doing and breed the rats properly, they are just as friendly, loving, loyal, and pet-like as any other conventional animal, such as a cat or dog. (Although, the degree of loyalty cats display humans is widely disputed … If you’re a cat owner, you’ll understand!) Should you keep a wild rat as a pet? Absolutely not, and you’ll have a pretty tough time doing it. This is NOT an animal that wishes to be caged up or removed from its group, and it will not react in a great way if you attempt to do just that. Wild rats should be just that — wild — and preferably as far away from your building as possible. 184 – Rat Diseases & How They Are Transmitted to People We already know that rats are unhygienic animals that you wouldn’t want to have in your home, but many people are not entirely aware of what diseases rats can spread, and exactly how they can be passed from one rat to another, one rat to another animal, and even one rat to a human. It’s a regular occurrence. In order to prevent this from happening in your home, education and prevention is key. Rat Diseases Transferred by Direct Contact Direct contact includes actual, physical contact with live rats, dead rats, rat traps, rat nests and accompanying materials, and any other surfaces, substances, or materials that have been touched by rats — fur, claws, paws, mouth, tail, etc. The rat doesn’t even need to be present or alive for you to physically come into contact with hazardous rat material. Dead rats can still have great disease risks attached, including rabies. Moist (dead) biological matter is not to be trusted under any circumstances, and we don’t recommend getting close to dried-out biological matter either. Rat Diseases Transferred by Urine and Feces You don’t even need to come into contact with feces and urine from rats in order to be at risk from contracting one of the diseases that are transmitted through them. Feces that has dried out will become dusty, and it will then be easily sent traveling through the air. Those disease spores then have the ability to enter the human body (or the body of animal animal) by way of inhalation — breathing in through the nose or mouth. Urine and feces can also contaminate food and water sources. If we imagine that one rat has the salmonella bacteria inside its body. It will urinate as it runs along, and paws, tail, other parts of the body will then come into contact with that urine, as will body parts of other rats, other animals, and even flies/other insects. If that rat then puts the same paw (for example) that has been in contact with the urine on the floor, in the bowl of water that you have put down for your dog, the bacteria would be transferred to the water and your dog could ingest the bacteria when it next drinks. The bacteria is then inside your dog’s body and will make it sick — salmonella is a little like a regular “tummy bug”, but with a lot more intensity. The dog can easily pass the bacteria along to other members of that household — including you — in the same ways. Hantavirus, Tularemia, Rat-bite fever, Leptospirosis and the more serious Weil’s Disease are all diseases transferred by rat urine and feces. Rat Diseases Transferred by Bites & Scratches It is usually the saliva that poses a problem when a rat either bites or scratches you, and this is because of the rabies virus. Although it is quite rare that a rat would give you rabies, there have been documented reports of humans contracting the disease from rodents. The virus is able to get into your bloodstream (or the victim animal’s bloodstream) when a rat’s teeth penetrate the skin. The saliva in the rat’s mouth is then Transferred to the bloodstream and the disease takes hold. Scratches are equally as dangerous — rats will lick themselves to keep clean. If a rat has licked its claws/paws and then scratched you, saliva containing the rabies virus still has the opportunity to enter your bloodstream. As the name would suggest, Rat-bite fever is one condition that is associated with rat bites and scratches. Rat Diseases Transferred by Insects & Parasites Cats, dogs, and various wild animals will all chase, hunt, and kill rats if given the chance, and this action could lead to the spread of disease. Even a dead rat has the potential to be infected with something, and various parasites, such as tapeworm, can be passed from the rat to the predator by way of ingestion. If that cat or dog then comes into your home, so does the parasite and everyone in that home can fast become infected. Although not usually a big problem in more developed countries, Trichinellosis is a problem in underdeveloped countries, and is easily spread to humans when pigs (both domesticated/agricultural and wild) eat wild rodents that are infected with a nematode worm, called Trichinella. Capillariasis is another medical condition associated with the same worm. Ecchinococcosis is another disease caused by a worm that is commonly passed on through rodents, alongside wolves, coyotes, and also foxes. Worms are associated with medical conditions that come with very vague or non-existent symptoms, making them very difficult to first diagnose, and then treat. 185 – 6 Symptoms of Sick (Wild) Rats You Just Can’t Ignore You can’t ignore a rat problem, or signs of a rat problem, full stop, but there are a few things that you will definitely want to keep your eyes peeled for, to make sure that you and your family are safe during the rat eviction journey. With any wild animal control issue there will be a threat of diseases, but rats come with some of the biggest threats, and there’s a long list of them, too. Some of them will have obvious symptoms, but many of them will have symptoms that you either can’t see at all, or just don’t know the animal enough to pick up on. There are 6 major symptoms of sick (wild) rats you just can’t ignore, however, and they are as follows: 1 – Orange/blue/green-tinged feces If you have spotted rat feces with a tinge of color to it, there’s a good chance that the rats in your building are being poisoned. You might believe this to be a good thing, especially if you’re the one putting poison down to get rid of rats, but it’s not a good thing. If a rat has eaten a lot of poison and still hasn’t died, it is probably immune to rodenticide, and it seems that many rats across the globe are now experiencing the same immunity. This makes life very difficult for home and property owners who rely on poison to get rid of infestations. Evolution — the rats adapting and the poison becoming less effective — means that any one rat would need a great deal more poison than usual to kill it, or the poison might have no effect at all. If you are not using poison to kill rat, someone in the neighborhood is/ If you have pets, those pets are in danger of falling victim to secondary poisoning. This happens when animals eat poisoned rats, either dead or alive. If a rat is immune to rodenticide, it can have ten, twenty, maybe even a hundred times the regular amount that it should have, inside its body. It won’t kill the rat because poison has no or little effect on rodenticide-immune rats, but it might be enough to kill a domesticated cat or small-medium dog. 2 – Not running away when you get close Rabies-infected rats, although rare, are less frightened of human interaction than ‘regular’ rats … for the most part. It must also be added that human-rat conflicts are on the increase, making these animals appear much more dangerous and aggressive than they would usually be. This could be because rats are naturally braver, but it also could be down to the fact that we are now living alongside more rats than ever before. Rats that aren’t running away when you try to shoo them away could be sick/dying. This might be as a direct result of poison, but there’s a chance there is a natural disease behind it. Rabies, as we’ve mentioned, can cause rats to be very brave, but if the rat is experiencing extreme lethargy or tiredness, it might not have the strength to scarper in the opposite direction. It might not have the capability of running away. 3 – Aggressive and threatening behavior Again, some diseases, including rabies, will make a rat act much more aggressively than other, perfectly hit and healthy rats. Rats are bound to become much more irritable when they are under the weather (just like people and other animals), and could be an indication that they have an underlying medical cause which they then could pass along to you. You do not need to physically make contact with a diseased rat in order to ‘catch’ that disease yourself. 4 – Dead rats When you’re talking about colonies with tens or hundreds of rats in them, there’s obviously going to be a very high chance that you will come across a dead animal from time to time. Although relatively normal in nature (but not in your home or on your property), dead rats could also be indicative of a disease working through the colony. They could also be a sign that poison is working. If you have started to see dead rats, it’s definitely time to take action. Each carcass will need to be removed and disposed of carefully and safely. 5 – Physical wounds If you see physical wounds on a rat, it’s going to be a grumpy rat. If it has come under attack from other animals, there’s also a good chance that it will have been exposed to more diseases. Raccoons, for example, are one of the biggest rabies vectors in the United States, so if one of those were to attack or bite a rat, there is a chance that the virus could be passed along. Although a rat without physical wounds is just as likely to have a disease or condition as a rat with physical wounds, one who is in clear pain will definitely be grumpier and, therefore, more aggressive than an otherwise fit and healthy rat, who would much prefer to scarper. 6 – You see a rat or signs of rats You don’t need to see a sick rat in order to have a big problem on your hands. If you have rats anywhere in your building, you are being exposed to a number of different diseases, caused by virus, bacteria, worms and other parasites alike, that you and your other household members, including pets, could then contract yourself. In some instances, particularly with vulnerable people with compromised immune systems, those conditions can prove fatal. Many rats are sick — infected with something — without showing any symptoms whatsoever. There is a slight chance that you would be able to tell just from looking at a rodent if it was sick or perfectly healthy. You must also bear in mind that many diseases have an incubation period — a period of time in which the bacteria/virus or other disease-causing spore, is in the body and starting to cause damage, and can still be transmitted to other people or animals. 186 – Where Will You Find the Most Rats? Residential or Rural? Although it is more common to find rats in residential settings in this day and age, you will actually find this animal anywhere that you can find a source of food. That’s what drives them; that and the need to breed. Rats will upheave everything and move a nesting spot if they find a better spot with a jam-packed source of food. Common places to find rats include: Around dumpsters – There is usually an abundance of food in the dumpster, with people throwing their household trash out there. Leftovers, uneaten cat or dog food, food that has been sitting in the fridge for too long and has gone bad … These are all foods that rats love to eat. Commercial and residential dumpsters or garbage cans are usually targeted, but making sure that a metal container has a fully secured lid can prevent them from getting inside. Around restaurants – It follows the same pattern as dumpsters and, in fact, restaurants usually have a dumpster or something similar in which all the waste and moldy food goes. They have a lot of waste to throw away and a rat colony can have a lot of mouths to feed. That’s why you see rats around restaurants that have not taken the appropriate measures to keep them at bay. Attics – Residential and business buildings are hit equally as hard as far as attic or roof spaces are concerned, and that’s because heat rises and no one goes up there. It’s a warm space, a relatively dark space, and the rats are left to live a pretty happy life, without fear of disturbances. Other spaces in a building that offer similar spots are crawl spaces and wall cavities, and also under porches, in basements, under stairs, etc. Outbuildings — if you have chicken feed in a barn and the rats can get in that barn, they will. They’ll eat all the chicken feed too, usually by chewing a hole through the bottom of the bag and then just helping themselves. Just like squirrels, rats will stash and hoard food, meaning they won’t stop taking from a food source when they’re hungry. They don’t just eat until they are full — they’ll do that and then go shopping, ready to take some home with them. Rural areas don’t offer the same kind of security to rats anymore. Yes, there are predators in urban areas too, but with humans being the only REAL predator for them to come up against, and perhaps the odd cat or dog, they really to thrive and flourish. There’s plenty of food, and when one attic closes, another attic will open right up. Rats are found in residential areas in this day and age — wherever you will find people and, therefore, food. 187 – What Do Rats Eat in the Wild? You already know what rats eat when they’re hanging around on your property, right? The kids’ cereal in the cupboard? Dog biscuits that were sitting on the floor next to the bowl. Perhaps even right out of the dog’s feeding bowl itself? Garbage bags and dumpsters down the street, bird seed that has fallen from bird feeders, delicious insects in flowering back gardens, and delicious seeds from various fruit and vegetable patches. Rats eat everything — whatever they come across. They are opportunistic feeders, which means they’ll eat when the opportunity arises because they can’t be quite sure when the next meal will come along. Just like squirrels, rats will also steal and stash food for later consumption if it is tasty enough. But that’s all in more residential and commercial areas … What about rats in the wild? Rats that don’t have garbage bag to rummage through or bird feeders to hustle? In reality, rats eat pretty much the same thing in the wild as they do in more urban areas — insects, fruits and nuts, vegetables, some flowers, smaller rodents, carcasses of other dead animals, etc. They eat what they can find. They jump on whatever opportunities they find, much in the same way that vultures do. Essentially, both of these animals, alongside other scavengers — raccoons, opossums, coyotes, foxes, wolves, etc. — are the janitors of our planet. They eat the leftovers that others won’t eat, making treasure out of another animals’ trash. Rats will always follow the trail of food, and that has what leads them right to our your door. If there is ANY food out in your front/back garden, or there is something easy for the rats to get to inside your home, they’ll move right in and they’ll be there to stay for a while, too. 188 – When Do “Pest” Rats Breed? Unlike many other animals, rats don’t have a specific breeding season; they’ll do it all-year-long if the conditions are just right. They don’t need spectacularly brilliant conditions either, so even the grubbiness and darkest/dirtiest of spaces on your land can provide the perfect little setup, especially if the rodents can get their paws on plenty of food and some fresh water. Most animals require three basic things in order to get into the mood to breed — shelter, water, and food. Once has a rat has those three things, plus a male to mate with, she will breed to her heart’s content, sometimes having as many as five or six litters in a year, with as many as 6 or 8 pups per litter. They won’t all survive to adulthood, of course, but many of them will, and they’ll be about six to eight weeks of age when the young females are ready to start breeding themselves. The males tend to lag a little longer behind, but not by much — a few weeks. It doesn’t matter if the rats are related; they’ll still mate with each other. Brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, uncles … It really doesn’t matter. They didn’t become one of the most successful animals on earth by being picky. A few points you need to know: A female rat can become sexually active at just four or five weeks of age. The average age is 6/7 weeks. During one “receptive period”, a female will mate with as many males as possible to ensure she can successfully get pregnant. She can mate up to five hundred times in that six-hour period, with as many males if they are available to her. One female rat will go into the “receptive” state around four to six times in one year. One pair of breeding rats — Norway or brown rats commonly found in your home — can produce more than a couple of thousand offspring in one year. The average rat infestation isn’t noticed until a few weeks or more in, sometimes a few months. Imagine the breeding that might have happened — in your home — during that time. 189 – How to Help Get a Rat Out of a Dumpster Finding rats in and around dumpsters is a very common occurrence, mostly because of the plentiful sources of food the rodents (and other scavengers) can find in there. They aren’t normally stuck — free to get in and out with their food scraps as they wish, but there are times when a rat might find itself encapsulated inside a dumpster with no quick way of getting out. If you want to help the rat or rats get out of the dumpster, you just need to provide the creature with something to grip on to. Rats can climb and jump, and their sharp claws make light work of climbing great walls. As long as whatever you use has a textured surface to it, such as a block of wood, the rat will be able to get a grip with its claws and free itself. If there are youngsters in the dumpster, the mother will move them, taking multiple trips if necessary. If there isn’t a piece of wood to hand, look at whatever is in the dumpster. Anything with a textured surface will help the rat break free of its tomb, and old rugs, clothing, towels, soft furnishings, etc. can also be used. Just make sure that you wear gloves before you touch anything, and don’t get anywhere close enough to the rat to enable it to potentially bite or scratch you. In most cases, the rat will be able to free itself eventually and we do not advise that you get yourself involved in the situation. Trying to help puts you in danger, not only from bites and scratches, but also from some pretty lethal diseases, including rabies. 192 - What Will Happen if I Use Rat Poison Rather Than Hiring a Pro? You’ve probably already seen that almost every website on the internet advises you to hire a professional when dealing with a rat infestation or signs of one. The reasons behind this are plentiful, but we do understand that the prospect of handing over a few hundred bucks for something that you could do yourself doesn’t appeal to everyone. If you are going to do the job yourself, you will need educate yourself, not just about the animal itself, but also about the approach you’re going to take. Almost every home that we visit has put forward their story of using rat poison, yet so many of them are not able to answer basic questions about that approach. What happens to rats after they ingest poison? How long does rat poison take to work? Does rat poison work? The answers are: - It depends on whether or not that rat has immunity to rat poison. - It usually takes a week minimum for a rat to die after ingesting poison providing it doesn’t have immunity. - Rarely. There are more cons than pros. Did you know there are three main types of rat poison? Commercially-sold rat poison, also known as rodenticide, usually falls into one of three categories — hypercalcemia-related, anticoagulants, or metal phosphides. Hypercalcemia causes the rat to have an excess of calcium in the body, which stops some of the major organs of the body from function correctly, including the brain and heart. Anticoagulants stop blood from clotting and are often a type of medication given to human patients who need blood-thinning, such as those who have suffered a blood clot. The rat will essentially die of massive internal bleeding when consuming a poison that contains anticoagulants as one of the main ingredients, taking a week or more. Metal phosphides are considered to be the fastest-working types of rat poison, working within a few days, rather than a week or more. When the rat eats the poisoned bait food, zinc phosphide (or other phosphides) are ingested and react with stomach acid. It creates a toxic gas that the rats can’t pass, giving you a relatively quick but still incredibly unpleasant outcome. The latter — metal phosphides — are the fastest acting, sometimes taking less than a day to take effect and also offer a reduced chance of other animals (such as those who may eat rat carcasses) experiencing secondary poisoning. There is still a risk, however. Thankfully, many of these come in the form of fumigant and can only be applied by a professional. (It’s still not an approach that we recommend you take.) When you buy poison, there’s a good chance that you will buy poison that contains Brodifacoum, an anticoagulant. It is one of the most common types of rodenticide, and one of the first types that comes up when you search for “rat poison” in internet search engines. This is not a fast-acting rodenticide, nor is it a humane approach. It is also the rodenticide that has the most reports of secondary poisoning — the death or injury/illness to wild animals directly caused by eating poisoned rats. If your pampered pooch were to chase that rat down and then eat it, or just eat it after finding a dead one on the floor outside, there’s a good chance that the pooch would then become quite unwell. The same thing happens to wild animals, including birds of prey. There are a number of rat predators and they are all vulnerable to secondary poisoning and its effects. You should be 100% informed about the rat control or extermination method you choose, and this means understanding the longer and more widespread effects of using poison to kill rats. You will find that snap traps provide a much safer and more humane approach for everyone and everything involved. 193 – Will County or City Animal Services Help Me Get Rats Out of My Home? Most animal and county services are not fully equipped to deal with rodents because the problem is such a big and widespread one. Rats invade residential and commercial properties on an all-too regular basis, and if local city/county workers were to attend and properly rectify the situation for every building that had an infestation, they wouldn’t even have enough time to eat a sandwich, let alone sleep or do any other duties. The problem with rats is that they breed at such a phenomenal speed that it’s everyone for themselves — each homeowner or business owner is responsible for protecting their own land. There is no one available to do the job for you. If you were to call up city or county animal services and get a nice and friendly person to help you, there’s a chance you’ll be lent a couple of traps. If these are snap traps, you’re off to a good start. If they’re glue traps, don’t use them. If they’re live cage traps, be prepared to go on a long drive to release the beast. Otherwise, it’ll just come right back. Poison might also be offered up, but this comes with far more negatives than it does positives, and it will cause you more work too. You’ll need to find and then dispose of each rat you have killed if those rats are on your property. If you do not do this, you run the risk of killing other animals, including local pets, and even poisoning children or contaminating soil and water sources with poisonous/hazardous material. Even if you do clean up properly, there’s a chance that another wild animal can die at the hands of secondary rat poisoning. Did we mention that rats have a growing and pretty staggering immunity to rodenticides, too? In almost every single case, the local authorities won’t be able to help you with a rat problem. They won’t even have the rat problem sorted in their own buildings. Calling them up might bring some helpful advice and information on the law your way, but it won’t get the job done. You’ll need a professional for that, and they come in the form of wildlife/critter/rat removal technicians. (And they’re often a lot more bank-balance-friendly than you’d think!)