Rat Control

Rats, nobody wants a rat problem. But with readily available food sources and habitat rats may become a problem. Rats typically do not live in the wild and usually depend on humans for their survival. They may migrate to your residence or business from other homes or businesses or from infested trains or other forms of transportation, usually coming from cities where they are more common than in rural areas. Either way if you have a rat problem you have a pest problem that must be taken care of. Brown Exterminating Co., offers full service pest control including the control of rats and other invading rodents.

Common Rat Species in Virginia

There are several rats that are common in Virginia. The Allegheny woodrat, black rat, hispid cotton rat and the marsh rice rat, but the Norway Rat is the largest pest rodents and referred to as alley rats, or river rats. They are common in more temperate climate zones and can be found all over Virginia.

The Norway Rat

Norway rats are 7 to 9 inches long and weigh over a pound as an adult. They have blunt noses and small eyes and ears. Although Norway rats have poor vision their sense of smell, taste, hearing and touch are excellent. They also are excellent swimmers, runners, climbers and jumpers.

Norway rats are nocturnal and wary by nature. In an outdoor environment they will burrow into the ground to make nests but when inside they will build a nest where they can raise offspring undisturbed in a hidden place, sometimes in storage areas or under a house. Adult Norway rats reaches maturity in two months and can produce six to twelve baby rats in 23 days. With a good food source and undisturbed places to hide can produce over 100 baby rats in their lifetime. Each rat require about one ounce of food and the same amount of water per day, not including moisture they receive from food, for survival. They can produce a substantial amount of waste, on average 30 to over 150 droppings and about one half of an ounce of urine per day. They are a real problem once established in an area.

Any rat brings with it many health issues from the damage they create from gnawing, eating to diseases they carry. The most notable being the bubonic plague during the middle ages. In the past few years, in isolated situation in North America, it has still been found in rats. A rats gnawing can cause considerable damage to buildings and even cause fire if they decide to gnaw on electrical wiring in a structure. Foundations of buildings can be compromised if they dig below one, this can cause cracks which lead to a whole new set of issues contributed to rat infestations.

Extermination and control of rats

Rats although similar to mice as they are both rodents require a specific technique and application plan to control and alleviate. To rid a property of rodents the home or business owner must work with Brown Exterminating to properly work.

Brown will eliminate the current rat population and the home or business owner must eliminate the contributing factors that allowed the rats to become a problem such as food and environments that rats need to survive. We will aid in identifying points of entry and suggest repair to create a barrier that will prevent future rat issues.

The plan put into place to control and exterminate rats depends on how the rats have adapted to your environment and every situation is unique. We will derive a plane specific to your pest control issue and take into consideration any sensitive situations or areas such as children, pets or the presence of food preparation or storage. Finding and eliminating the core of the issue will greatly reduce the chances of future rat infestations.

We will implement an Integrated Pest Management program to cover all aspects of the issue in order to create a strategy that will solve the problem with all things considered for your unique situation. This may include trapping or the use or environment adjustment or a combination of several techniques depending on the place or extent of the problem. On occasion an adjoining property or building will need to be included into the strategy to be effective or an ongoing plan to control the problem.

Brown Exterminating's 40 plus years of experience and attention to detail have allowed our company to help thousands of clients through similar situations, and we are confident that we can do the same for you. We service Martinsville, Danville and the Henry county and Pittsylvania county, Va area.

Contact Brown Exterminating today for a free inspection and quote.