Saturday, April 21, 2018
Rats may look like cute and adorable creatures, but in fact, they can also cause illness, damage your home and generally its existence makes discomfort. Sometimes it also becomes something very annoying. Why? Because sometimes they often sound hissed in the dark bedroom. This will interfere with your sleep time. Here's what you need to know about rats and how to get rid of rats.
Rats are medium-sized and long-tailed animals of Muroidea superfamily. The "true rat" is a member of the genus Rattus, the most important for humans is the black rat, Rattus, the brown rats and Rattus norvegicus. Many members of the pet genera have many characteristics with true rats.
Rats are known as one of the most successful mammals in the world. Especially for their endurance to become most favored species of other animals as the prey of eagles, foxes, wolves, dogs, cats, reptiles, and even some arthropods. Being highly hunted animals, rats have adapted to seek shelter, especially near food sources where they do not need to walk distances exposed.
They breed quickly
Rats can breed year-round with one female able to produce 5-10 liters per year. With an average of six to eight babies per litter, families with six rats can breed to 60 for three months.
They can make you very sick
While common house rat poisons are not as severe as deer rats, they can only spread diseases, such as Hantavirus, salmonellosis, and listeria through urine, feces, saliva and nest material. The disease can be deadly and if you have major infestations in your home, the risk factor for catching one rat is greatly increased to spread the disease.
They can destroy your house
It may sound too dramatic. How can? Because rats like to chew wires while on the walls and attics especially if there is full access to your home electric kettle.
They do this to keep teeth short and this is also to gain access to places that might block blocking (like a hole through a wire). As soon as a wire is peeling off, it is likely to trigger an increase in fire. Rats can also chew through soft concrete, wood (structure and furniture), rubber, plastic pipes, insulation, aluminum and even gas lines.
Rats can fit through much smaller spaces than they seem. Holes and crannies in the foundation and outer walls are the main entry points, as are doors and areas around windows, chimneys, roof vents and wherever pipes and cables go into your home. They can also jump, climb and swim, making it almost impossible to prevent them from entering.
Eat anything
As mentioned above, rats will chew and eat anything. Especially they love grains and get past the box of cereal or crackers without much effort. They also eat between 15 and 20 times a day and will make their nest near the food source (think your kitchen or pantry). The Department of Health for the Durham Region, Ontario, said rats pollute food 10 times more than they eat. Eating foods contaminated with rat is a sure way of contracting the disease from them.
House rats are called the most common mammals, so it is not surprising that many homeowners report handling infestations at one time or another. Since rats are so common, you might think you already know everything there is to know about these household pests, but think again. Here's an interesting fact about rats you might not know:
If you have the rat infestation, rest assured that you are not alone.
Every winter, rats and other rodents attack around 21 million homes in the United States. Rats usually enter your home between October and February, searching for food, water, and shelter from the cold.
Rats have a great appetite. Although their bodies are tiny (and the stomach is smaller!), Rats eat between 15 to 20 times a day. Because of their frequent eating habits, they prefer to build houses near food sources.
They are small gymnasts. Rats are good jumpers, climbers, and swimmers. In fact, rats can jump into the air, making them easily climb into the kitchen or into the pantry to access food. To prevent rats and other pests from getting into your food, keep all the food items in hard and plastic containers with the lid tightly closed. Prevent rats from getting access to your home by sealing openings on the outside with a silicone brush. You can also fill the gaps and holes in your house with steel wool.
They have a relatively short lifespan. In the wild, rats usually live only about five months, mostly because of predators such as cats, snakes, and foxes. In a lab setting, rats can live for up to two years.
They spread more germs than you know. Sure, you know that rats can spread diseases like Hantavirus and Salmonella, but that's just the beginning. In fact, rats can actually carry as many as 200 human pathogens!
Rats are not trained with a potty. Okay, so you already know that. But did you know that house rats produce between 40 and 100 droppings a day? In addition, house rats continually secrete micro-water droplets as they travel around their territory every day. However, if you are looking for a silver lining, house rats (like all rodents) do not vomit.
One rat can turn into many rats. Female rats can give birth when they are only two months old and these rats can reach a dozen babies every three weeks. This means he can have as many as 150 breeds in a year! If you see a rat in your house, it is safe to assume. We recommend contacting a licensed pest before infestation grows out of control.
Rats in your home can carry many risks. Rodents can spread the disease and can cause damage to the structure of your house as well as food and contamination of your pet food. And rats can cause structural damage to homes, apartments, offices and almost all types of buildings through excavations, nesting and defecating buildings, such as:
Rats will chew on anything they find useful in building their nests. This could be wood, paper, cloth, books, etc.
A rat will gnaw and dig into the upholstered furniture or car seat to create a hidden and silent nest.
Isolation is also unsafe for rats. They will tunnel into the insulation inside the walls and attics, whether to make a house or collect soft materials for their nests.
It will also chew the insulation around the wires. This has been known to cause a real fire threat.
Rats will even build their nests in large electrical appliances, again chewing or through insulation and cables, which may cause the tool to be short, malfunctioning, or cause a fire risk.
Rats do not care about any items, they will eat away and store chewing goods stored in attics, basements, garages or cabinets - including irreplaceable family heirlooms, valuable paintings, and important documents.
The more hidden and uninterrupted the item or area it means the more likely the rats to see it as a comfortable and safe home. Then, as the rats walk around your house looking for nesting materials, food, and water, it will leave traces of urine and fecal dirt. Not only do they contaminate the surface where they land and caused potential disease spread, they also leave traces of smell to other rats.
Rats are not very choosy in terms of food. They will eat a variety of good food or animal foods.
If a food item comes in a cardboard box or wrapping paper this is a double bonus for rats. The packaging can be used for nesting and food in it to eat.
While they are in the kitchen or closet, the rats will also contaminate the food with their urine, dirt, and hair.
Although it consumes only about 3 grams of food per day, it is estimated that rats contaminate and destroy 10 times more food than they eat as they leave their droppings, bite the packets and leave some food left over from the many foods they eat.
Even without food inside, rats will gnaw on plastic containers and wooden items and tear off towel paper, napkins for their nests.
Outside, rats can damage the structure of your house and try to get inside the house. Rats need a small hole to get into your home. If a rat finds a very small hole cannot be entered, then the rat will bite the edges to try to enter.
Rats can also dig and eat newly planted crops in the garden, causing damage before harvesting and digging into other areas of the property for food and nests.
Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS): This is a deadly disease transmitted by infected rodents through urine, feces, or saliva. Humans can catch the disease when they breathe the aerosol virus. Although rare, HPS is potentially deadly. Control of rats in and around the home remains a key strategy to prevent hantavirus infection.
Sinus typhus (caused by Rickettsia typhi infection) occurs worldwide and is transmitted to humans by rat fleas. Fly-infested rats can be found year-round in humid tropical environments, but temperate climates are most common in the summer months. Travelers who visit buildings and houses filled with rats, especially in the harbor or river environments, may be at risk for exposure to typhoid murine.
Rat-Bite Fever (RBF) is a systemic bacterial disease caused by the streptobacillus moniliformis that can be obtained through bites or scratches from rodents or consumption of food or water contaminated with rat droppings.
Salmonella Enterica Serovar Typhimurium: As the name suggests, it causes a disease like typhoid in rats. In humans, Salmonella typhimurium does not cause severe diseases such as Salmonella typhi and is usually not fatal. The disease is characterized by diarrhea, abdominal cramps, vomiting and nausea and generally lasts up to 7 days. Unfortunately, in uncompromising people, the elderly, young, or people with depressed immune systems, Salmonella infections are often fatal if they are not treated with antibiotics.
Leptospirosis (also known as Weil's syndrome, cancolic fever, canefield fever, nanukayami fever, 7-day fever, Catcher rat yellow, Fort Bragg fever, black jaundice and pretibial fever) is a bacterial disease affecting humans and animals. This is caused by the bacteria of the genus Spira. In humans, it causes various symptoms and some infected people may not have any symptoms at all.
Symptoms of leptospirosis include high fever, severe headache, chills, muscle aches and vomiting and may include jaundice (skin and yellow eyes), red eyes, abdominal pain, diarrhea, or rash. If the disease is untreated, the person may experience kidney damage, meningitis (inflammation of the lining around the brain and spinal cord), liver failure, and respiratory problems. In rare cases, death occurs.
Leptospirosis is one of the most common diseases in the world that is transmitted to humans from animals. Infection is usually transmitted to humans by allowing water that has been contaminated by animal urine to come into contact with a gap that does not heal on the skin, eyes, or with mucous membranes. Outside the tropics, cases of leptospirosis have relatively different seasons with most occur in spring and fall.
Eosinophilic Meningitis is a brain infection that occurs associated with an increase in the number of eosinophils, white blood cells associated with worm infections that penetrate into the body. The most common organism causing eosinophilic meningitis is rat worm called Angiostrongylus cantonensis.
Rickettsialpox is a bacterial disease of the genus Rickettsia (Rickettsia akari). This bacteria was originally found in rats and caused feeding mites in rats to become infected. Humans will get rickettsialpox while receiving bites from infected mites, not from the rats itself. Fleas are Liponyssoides sanguineus, formerly known as Allodermanyssus sanguineus.
The first symptom is a lump formed by a bite, which ultimately produces a black and crusty scab. Many flu-like symptoms include fever, coldness, weakness and aching muscles but the most distinctive symptom is a ruptured rash, covering the entire body of an infected person.
Once you detect that you have rats, you better handle it immediately so as to reduce the damage and the spread of diseases that concern. The most common DIY method for cleaning house rats is snap rat traps and toxins or feed stations. Traps should be installed and placed in the area around the house where you detected rats.
Read: 5 Ways to Make Simple Rats Traps
For best results, forget about cheese and use a piece of crackers with peanut butter in a trap. Check the traps every day and wear a pair of latex or latex gloves to release dead trapped rats. Dead rats should be put in plastic bags and placed in the outside bin immediately.
Poison pellets and feed stations can be placed in kitchen cabinets and bathrooms, attics, basements and elsewhere to detect the rats. Most of the poison pellets and feed stations for rats allow pets to continue to be cautious and follow the directions on the packaging.
Ultrasonic sound devices, such as Victor's PestChaser line, use electronic tones that create "very stressful conditions for rodents" which in turn force them away from your home. These come in different sizes depending on whether you want a single room or an entire floor of a closed house or apartment.
The sound emitted can only be heard by rodents and will not bother you or your pet. If you have a major infestation or find the pitfalls and toxins do not work fast enough, contact the pest control company to enter.
See Also: Natural Ways To Get Rid Of Rats
Prevention is the key to stop rats from continuing to enter your home. Checking the perimeter of your house and sealing the holes or cracks there, and cleaning up piles of wood, leaves or other debris near your foundation walls, will make it harder for them to enter. Caulk around doors, windows and wherever the cables and pipes for not entering.
Check the roof and vent your roof for damage or holes and fix as needed. Keeping your gutter clean also helps. That's a bit of information about rats. Hopefully this article useful.
What is Rats?
Rats are medium-sized and long-tailed animals of Muroidea superfamily. The "true rat" is a member of the genus Rattus, the most important for humans is the black rat, Rattus, the brown rats and Rattus norvegicus. Many members of the pet genera have many characteristics with true rats.
Rats are known as one of the most successful mammals in the world. Especially for their endurance to become most favored species of other animals as the prey of eagles, foxes, wolves, dogs, cats, reptiles, and even some arthropods. Being highly hunted animals, rats have adapted to seek shelter, especially near food sources where they do not need to walk distances exposed.
They breed quickly
Rats can breed year-round with one female able to produce 5-10 liters per year. With an average of six to eight babies per litter, families with six rats can breed to 60 for three months.
They can make you very sick
While common house rat poisons are not as severe as deer rats, they can only spread diseases, such as Hantavirus, salmonellosis, and listeria through urine, feces, saliva and nest material. The disease can be deadly and if you have major infestations in your home, the risk factor for catching one rat is greatly increased to spread the disease.
They can destroy your house
It may sound too dramatic. How can? Because rats like to chew wires while on the walls and attics especially if there is full access to your home electric kettle.
They do this to keep teeth short and this is also to gain access to places that might block blocking (like a hole through a wire). As soon as a wire is peeling off, it is likely to trigger an increase in fire. Rats can also chew through soft concrete, wood (structure and furniture), rubber, plastic pipes, insulation, aluminum and even gas lines.
Rats can fit through much smaller spaces than they seem. Holes and crannies in the foundation and outer walls are the main entry points, as are doors and areas around windows, chimneys, roof vents and wherever pipes and cables go into your home. They can also jump, climb and swim, making it almost impossible to prevent them from entering.
Eat anything
As mentioned above, rats will chew and eat anything. Especially they love grains and get past the box of cereal or crackers without much effort. They also eat between 15 and 20 times a day and will make their nest near the food source (think your kitchen or pantry). The Department of Health for the Durham Region, Ontario, said rats pollute food 10 times more than they eat. Eating foods contaminated with rat is a sure way of contracting the disease from them.
Interesting Facts About Rats
House rats are called the most common mammals, so it is not surprising that many homeowners report handling infestations at one time or another. Since rats are so common, you might think you already know everything there is to know about these household pests, but think again. Here's an interesting fact about rats you might not know:
If you have the rat infestation, rest assured that you are not alone.
Every winter, rats and other rodents attack around 21 million homes in the United States. Rats usually enter your home between October and February, searching for food, water, and shelter from the cold.
Rats have a great appetite. Although their bodies are tiny (and the stomach is smaller!), Rats eat between 15 to 20 times a day. Because of their frequent eating habits, they prefer to build houses near food sources.
They are small gymnasts. Rats are good jumpers, climbers, and swimmers. In fact, rats can jump into the air, making them easily climb into the kitchen or into the pantry to access food. To prevent rats and other pests from getting into your food, keep all the food items in hard and plastic containers with the lid tightly closed. Prevent rats from getting access to your home by sealing openings on the outside with a silicone brush. You can also fill the gaps and holes in your house with steel wool.
They have a relatively short lifespan. In the wild, rats usually live only about five months, mostly because of predators such as cats, snakes, and foxes. In a lab setting, rats can live for up to two years.
They spread more germs than you know. Sure, you know that rats can spread diseases like Hantavirus and Salmonella, but that's just the beginning. In fact, rats can actually carry as many as 200 human pathogens!
Rats are not trained with a potty. Okay, so you already know that. But did you know that house rats produce between 40 and 100 droppings a day? In addition, house rats continually secrete micro-water droplets as they travel around their territory every day. However, if you are looking for a silver lining, house rats (like all rodents) do not vomit.
One rat can turn into many rats. Female rats can give birth when they are only two months old and these rats can reach a dozen babies every three weeks. This means he can have as many as 150 breeds in a year! If you see a rat in your house, it is safe to assume. We recommend contacting a licensed pest before infestation grows out of control.
Rats Destruction
Rats in your home can carry many risks. Rodents can spread the disease and can cause damage to the structure of your house as well as food and contamination of your pet food. And rats can cause structural damage to homes, apartments, offices and almost all types of buildings through excavations, nesting and defecating buildings, such as:
Rats will chew on anything they find useful in building their nests. This could be wood, paper, cloth, books, etc.
A rat will gnaw and dig into the upholstered furniture or car seat to create a hidden and silent nest.
Isolation is also unsafe for rats. They will tunnel into the insulation inside the walls and attics, whether to make a house or collect soft materials for their nests.
It will also chew the insulation around the wires. This has been known to cause a real fire threat.
Rats will even build their nests in large electrical appliances, again chewing or through insulation and cables, which may cause the tool to be short, malfunctioning, or cause a fire risk.
Rats do not care about any items, they will eat away and store chewing goods stored in attics, basements, garages or cabinets - including irreplaceable family heirlooms, valuable paintings, and important documents.
The more hidden and uninterrupted the item or area it means the more likely the rats to see it as a comfortable and safe home. Then, as the rats walk around your house looking for nesting materials, food, and water, it will leave traces of urine and fecal dirt. Not only do they contaminate the surface where they land and caused potential disease spread, they also leave traces of smell to other rats.
What Are Rat Foods?
Rats are not very choosy in terms of food. They will eat a variety of good food or animal foods.
If a food item comes in a cardboard box or wrapping paper this is a double bonus for rats. The packaging can be used for nesting and food in it to eat.
While they are in the kitchen or closet, the rats will also contaminate the food with their urine, dirt, and hair.
Although it consumes only about 3 grams of food per day, it is estimated that rats contaminate and destroy 10 times more food than they eat as they leave their droppings, bite the packets and leave some food left over from the many foods they eat.
Even without food inside, rats will gnaw on plastic containers and wooden items and tear off towel paper, napkins for their nests.
Outside, rats can damage the structure of your house and try to get inside the house. Rats need a small hole to get into your home. If a rat finds a very small hole cannot be entered, then the rat will bite the edges to try to enter.
Rats can also dig and eat newly planted crops in the garden, causing damage before harvesting and digging into other areas of the property for food and nests.
Diseases Caused by Rats
Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS): This is a deadly disease transmitted by infected rodents through urine, feces, or saliva. Humans can catch the disease when they breathe the aerosol virus. Although rare, HPS is potentially deadly. Control of rats in and around the home remains a key strategy to prevent hantavirus infection.
Sinus typhus (caused by Rickettsia typhi infection) occurs worldwide and is transmitted to humans by rat fleas. Fly-infested rats can be found year-round in humid tropical environments, but temperate climates are most common in the summer months. Travelers who visit buildings and houses filled with rats, especially in the harbor or river environments, may be at risk for exposure to typhoid murine.
Rat-Bite Fever (RBF) is a systemic bacterial disease caused by the streptobacillus moniliformis that can be obtained through bites or scratches from rodents or consumption of food or water contaminated with rat droppings.
Salmonella Enterica Serovar Typhimurium: As the name suggests, it causes a disease like typhoid in rats. In humans, Salmonella typhimurium does not cause severe diseases such as Salmonella typhi and is usually not fatal. The disease is characterized by diarrhea, abdominal cramps, vomiting and nausea and generally lasts up to 7 days. Unfortunately, in uncompromising people, the elderly, young, or people with depressed immune systems, Salmonella infections are often fatal if they are not treated with antibiotics.
Leptospirosis (also known as Weil's syndrome, cancolic fever, canefield fever, nanukayami fever, 7-day fever, Catcher rat yellow, Fort Bragg fever, black jaundice and pretibial fever) is a bacterial disease affecting humans and animals. This is caused by the bacteria of the genus Spira. In humans, it causes various symptoms and some infected people may not have any symptoms at all.
Symptoms of leptospirosis include high fever, severe headache, chills, muscle aches and vomiting and may include jaundice (skin and yellow eyes), red eyes, abdominal pain, diarrhea, or rash. If the disease is untreated, the person may experience kidney damage, meningitis (inflammation of the lining around the brain and spinal cord), liver failure, and respiratory problems. In rare cases, death occurs.
Leptospirosis is one of the most common diseases in the world that is transmitted to humans from animals. Infection is usually transmitted to humans by allowing water that has been contaminated by animal urine to come into contact with a gap that does not heal on the skin, eyes, or with mucous membranes. Outside the tropics, cases of leptospirosis have relatively different seasons with most occur in spring and fall.
Eosinophilic Meningitis is a brain infection that occurs associated with an increase in the number of eosinophils, white blood cells associated with worm infections that penetrate into the body. The most common organism causing eosinophilic meningitis is rat worm called Angiostrongylus cantonensis.
Rickettsialpox is a bacterial disease of the genus Rickettsia (Rickettsia akari). This bacteria was originally found in rats and caused feeding mites in rats to become infected. Humans will get rickettsialpox while receiving bites from infected mites, not from the rats itself. Fleas are Liponyssoides sanguineus, formerly known as Allodermanyssus sanguineus.
The first symptom is a lump formed by a bite, which ultimately produces a black and crusty scab. Many flu-like symptoms include fever, coldness, weakness and aching muscles but the most distinctive symptom is a ruptured rash, covering the entire body of an infected person.
How to Get Rid of Rats
Once you detect that you have rats, you better handle it immediately so as to reduce the damage and the spread of diseases that concern. The most common DIY method for cleaning house rats is snap rat traps and toxins or feed stations. Traps should be installed and placed in the area around the house where you detected rats.
Read: 5 Ways to Make Simple Rats Traps
For best results, forget about cheese and use a piece of crackers with peanut butter in a trap. Check the traps every day and wear a pair of latex or latex gloves to release dead trapped rats. Dead rats should be put in plastic bags and placed in the outside bin immediately.
Poison pellets and feed stations can be placed in kitchen cabinets and bathrooms, attics, basements and elsewhere to detect the rats. Most of the poison pellets and feed stations for rats allow pets to continue to be cautious and follow the directions on the packaging.
Ultrasonic sound devices, such as Victor's PestChaser line, use electronic tones that create "very stressful conditions for rodents" which in turn force them away from your home. These come in different sizes depending on whether you want a single room or an entire floor of a closed house or apartment.
The sound emitted can only be heard by rodents and will not bother you or your pet. If you have a major infestation or find the pitfalls and toxins do not work fast enough, contact the pest control company to enter.
See Also: Natural Ways To Get Rid Of Rats
Prevention is the key to stop rats from continuing to enter your home. Checking the perimeter of your house and sealing the holes or cracks there, and cleaning up piles of wood, leaves or other debris near your foundation walls, will make it harder for them to enter. Caulk around doors, windows and wherever the cables and pipes for not entering.
Check the roof and vent your roof for damage or holes and fix as needed. Keeping your gutter clean also helps. That's a bit of information about rats. Hopefully this article useful.