Norway Rats Pest Control
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ApolloX Pest Control will remove Norway rats from your home quickly, efficiently, and safely.
Norway Rats Pest Control: Rodent Extermination Demonstration
Norway Rats Pest Control: Identifying Norway Rats
Norway rats, sometimes called brown or sewer rats, are stocky burrowing rodents that are larger than roof rats. These rats have smaller eyes and ears and shorter tails than roof rats. While Norway rats are more powerful swimmers, roof rats are more agile and are better climbers.
Norway Rats Pest Control: Where Norway Rats Live and Breed
The burrows of Norway rats are found along building foundations, beneath rubbish or woodpiles and in moist areas (around water) in and around gardens and fields. Nests can be lined with shredded paper, cloth, or other fibrous material. When Norway rats invade buildings, they usually remain in the basement or ground floor.
Once Norway rats have invaded your garden or landscaping, unless your house is truly rodent proof, it is only a matter of time before you find evidence of them indoors. Norway rats can gain entry to a home through a hole the size of a quarter although their average length is 8″. They can squeeze beneath a door with only a 1/2-inch gap. If the door is made of wood, the rat might gnaw to enlarge the gap, but this might not be necessary.
Norway rats eat a wide variety of foods but mostly prefer cereal grains, meats, fish, nuts, and some fruits. When searching for food and water, Norway rats usually travel an area of about 100 to 150 feet in diameter; seldom do they travel any further than 300 feet from their burrows or nests. The average female Norway rat has 4 to 6 litters per year and can successfully wean 20 or more offspring annually.
Norway rats, like house mice, are active mostly at night. They have poor eyesight, but they make up for this with their keen senses of hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Rats constantly explore and learn, memorizing the locations of pathways, obstacles, food and water, shelter, and features of their environment. They quickly detect and tend to avoid new objects and novel foods. Thus, they often avoid traps and baits for several days or more following their initial placement.
Inspect your yard and home thoroughly. If the answer to any of the following questions is yes, you may have a Norway rat problem.
- Do you find rat droppings around dog or cat dishes or pet food storage containers?
- Have you found remnants of rat nests when dismantling your firewood stack?
- Does your dog or cat bring home dead rat carcasses?
- Is there evidence rodents are feeding on fruit/nuts that are in or falling from the trees in your yard?
- Do you see burrows among plants or damaged vegetables when working in the garden?
- Have you found rat nests behind boxes or in drawers in the garage?
- Are there smudge marks caused by the rats rubbing their fur against pipes and walls?
- Do you see burrows beneath your compost pile or beneath the garbage can?
- Are there rat or mouse droppings in your recycle bins?
- Have you ever had to remove a drowned rat from your swimming pool or hot tub?
- Do you see evidence of something digging under your garden tool shed or doghouse?
Norway Rats Pest Control: Damage, Harm Caused by Norway Rats
Norway rats eat and contaminate foodstuffs and animal feed. They also damage containers and packaging materials in which foods and feed are stored. Norway rats cause problems by gnawing on electrical wires and wooden structures such as doors, ledges, corners, and wall material, and they tear up insulation in walls and ceilings for nesting.
Norway rats can undermine building foundations and slabs with their burrowing activities and can gnaw on all types of materials, including soft metals such as copper and lead, as well as plastic and wood.
Among the diseases rats can transmit to humans or livestock are murine typhus, leptospirosis, salmonellosis (food poisoning), and ratbite fever. Plague is a disease that Norway rats can carry.
Norway Rats Pest Control
Call Now: (888) 499-7378
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