As an avowed single gal, the idea of the pitter patter of little feet in my house is as terrifying as being the last one through the door at Saks’ going-out-of-business sale.
So imagine my horror a few months ago, when the relative calm of my crib was shattered by feet pitter-pattering directly above my head, in my attic. I assumed it was a possum, or maybe a squirrel–usual suspects in attic invasions. Something fairly cuddly and easily removed.
When I delivered this matter-of-fact assessment to the pest control expert I summoned, he let loose with a guffaw.
“Uh, you’ve got a rat, maybe a few,” he said, his naivete-induced chuckles yielding to gentle words of comfort as I stammered that I kept a clean house and this simply wasn’t possible.
“You live in South Florida,” he said. “It happens.”
Languishing in denial and reluctant to hand over the $730 the exterminator said he needed to work his magic, I decided the best thing to do was nothing. It had to be a fluke. A one-time thing. The rat would show himself out, never to return.
Days went by, and my plan crumbled like blue cheese. My visitor grew more adventurous. Suddenly, he was all over the attic and crawling up the wall behind me when I tried to sleep at night. And he appeared to be growing. One night, it sounded like he had converted my attic into a bowling alley.
“Oh, that means they’re probably mating,” a co-worker said the next morning. “That’s when they’re loudest.”
My dilemma prompted an outpouring of suggestions (and horror stories) from co-workers who gathered around like I was a water cooler the morning after the Oscars. I heard tales of baby rats snoozing in dog-food containers, rats skittering through a bedroom where a child slept, and one that brazenly held his ground in a kitchen showdown. And that was all in one house.
As for getting rid of them, rodent combat veterans spoke with glazed, vacant eyes about drowning them in pools and pouring acid on them. One woman said she teetered on a chair and dropped a loaded Coleman cooler on an invader.
Possessing no pool, no acid and no cooler I was willing to get rat shmutz on, I realized I would need some help.
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So here are some prevention and eviction tips that worked for me, for other homeowners and for a man who makes like Uma Thurman in “Kill Bill Vol. 1” when it comes to rodents — Paul Bello, Orkin’s technical director, which means he spends his days devising new and ingenious ways to rid homes of rats, mice and their buddies.
Open crawl spaces, vents and pipes leading to a house might as well have tiny welcome mats out front. Buy hardware cloth (it’s not really cloth, but a roll of metal screening) for about $6. Stretch it over the openings and secure with staples or screws. Rats don’t like to chew metal. Patch cracks and holes in exterior walls. Install weather strips on the bottom of exterior doors.
It’s nearly impossible to make a house impervious to rats, Bello says, but thorough patching and sealing offers the same boost in protection that putting a security company sign out front does to keep burglars at bay. “You’re trying to make your place less attractive than someone else’s,” he says.
Keep your home clean, especially the kitchen. Store all food, including pet food, properly. Do not leave dishes in the sink or pet food out overnight. Place garbage in lidded containers. Keep the yard clean. Keep firewood, bricks and debris as far from the home as possible.
Fruit trees next to a house provide both food and walkways for rodents to hop on the roof. Trim branches so they’re 10 feet from the wall.
Or “flash” the tree. Buy aluminum or galvanized sheetmetal pieces and make a skirt around the trunk, about half way up. The metal is too slippery and the rats can’t scale the cone shape. Discard fruit that’s fallen to the ground and pick all ripe fruit off the tree — don’t let any rot on the branches.
Trapping is the most efficient way to combat the problem, says Bello, who insists that this is definitely one time when calling an exterminator is worth the money, plus any reputable company will guarantee its work. Most charge anywhere from $500-$800 to set about 16 traps to handle up to eight rats. That price can escalate, though, based on the size of the house and the rat problem.
If you want to try it yourself, Bello says, bait traps with peanut butter, candy or fruit (myth debunked: Rats don’t eat cheese). Set them about 1/4-inch from walls. Bait traps for about a week, but don’t set them. Rats may be reluctant to approach a trap at first, Bello says. So offer them some free grub for a while, let them get complacent and chunky, and then set the traps.
Tie a long string to the trap for easy fishing when the dying critter crawls off to remote regions, dragging the trap in tow. Check them routinely and dispose of the contents immediately.
Poison bait is the great divider in debates among rodent war veterans. Some dismiss it as the harbinger of a worse problem: rats dead and decaying in the walls, followed by a heinous odor and flies. It does not, as one myth holds, dry out the rats’ insides, causing them to scurry out of the house looking for water. “They die where they die,” Bello cautions.
All I can say is, it worked for me.