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Roof Rats have taken over Phoenix and all her neighbors. When trapping, baiting, excluding and even birth control might not be enough to control roof rats!

Roof Rats (Rattus rattus) Have Taken Over The Valley

Rattus rattus or Roof rats as they’re more commonly known have incrementally spread over the entire valley of the sun. Originally found in the Arcadia area of Phoenix, Arizona, now rapidly spreading across every metropolitan city. The roof rats were first documented in 2001.

Today, all the western cities such as Surprise, Peoria, El Mirage and the Sun Cities are reporting roof rats in droves!

Top 5 Things To Prevent Roof Rat Take Over

What can you do to prevent the roof rat takeover of your property. There is much that can be done to control of roof rats. Most important is prevention to avoid attracting them to your home.

  1. Make sure all openings on your home are properly sealed.
  2. Trim all trees and vegetation away from your home.
  3. Make sure all fruit trees are picked.
  4. Don’t leave pet food on the patio.
  5. Clean up all debris, wood piles, any possible place a roof rat could live in.

Roof Rats Are Hard To Control

While prevention is key, it’s not fool proof. Sometimes no matter what you do, you might not be able to stop them from eventually trying to find a way into your house. This is particularly important if your neighbors have done NO prevention and their property is the source of the infestation.

Rodents Can Reproduce Rather Quickly

Because of the short gestation period of roof rats, it doesn’t take very long for a pregnant female to begin a potentially large colonization if left alone. Roof rats can have up to 8 offspring, and if half of those are females, within 30 to 40 days those babies can have babies! If you do your math, within a year the first you could jump to 500 rats in the perfect rat world.

Getting Rid Pf Roof Rats

Getting rid of Roof Rats is not an easy thing. It takes a strategic effort to accomplish a complete eradication of this rodent. Oh, yes you can run out to one of the big hardware stores and purchase some large rat traps. I have heard it a million times, “my husband is going to take care of them”. But ultimately, it ends up coming down to hiring a professional pest control expert with lots of experience with rodent control to solve the problem. Unfortunately, it’s not the low-price leader who is going to solve your problem. A real pro knows the extent he must go through to attack this infestation head on.

Modern Technologies Are Showing And Telling A Different Story

As rodent control technologies advance, we can use wildlife cameras to video the rat’s activity. With new knowledge and understanding of rodent activity, control methods have been evolving based on new findings about rat activity. Question for you, have you ever noticed your trap was sprung and the bait was gone? Well guess what, we have documented proof that rats have learned how to utilize a tool to set the traps off and safely take the bait. Who knew?

The Elusive Rat

With everything I have already mentioned, you can imagine that there is always that one elusive rat, that nobody seems to be able to catch. This is the super smart one, the one who has learned that traps are bad and stays away from them avoiding every effort to catch it. This rat has probably been through the DIY’er, and 3 different pest control companies control methods. It has seen it all and is now very versed on the fact that people are trying to mess with it. This rat is probably a well-seasoned adult, been around the block a couple times. If it is a female, she will continue to perpetuate her species if she is not caught. Think about this, she was taught to avoid control methods, it won’t be easy to solve this problem.

The Solution to Roof Rats

Well as previously discussed, prevention is a primary factor, however once an infestation is established, then the real work begins.

Of course, seal the structure, keep them from getting in. Trapping is always going to be a part of the solution, but don’t do it yourself, and don’t use an amateur who might catch a few rats, but not all of them. Look for a professional with an expertise in rodents, who understands all the points already mentioned. If you have already been trying, you will need some patience, a professional will have to retrain the rodent to approach a trap, before it will even eat from it, let alone capture the rat. You might need to have wildlife cams installed just to see what is going on. As I wrote earlier, there is a lot of new technology out there. For that elusive rat, if you can’t catch it, at least put it on birth control so she cant have any more babies. The life span of a rat is around two years, and generally such an elusive adult rat is probably 12 to 18 months old. The likelihood is, on birth control, she will probably naturally expire in a short time. Until this happens, she is on contraceptives preventing an additional break out population.

Who You Gonna Call?

Invader Pest Management is an expert in rodent control, specifically roof rats. We have been performing professional roof rat control services since 2001 and utilize all the most advanced techniques. If you have any questions or need assistance in finally resolving that very persistent roof rat issue please contact us or call 623-435-0228.