Hearing Noises In The Attic At Night?
The house is quiet, the children and animals are fast asleep, and then it begins. In the attic, you can hear scratching noises. You believe you’re hearing things for a split second, but then you hear them again and again. You can’t sleep now since you’ve been plagued by nightmares. Do you have rats in the attic?
The noises in the attic during the night may possibly be coming from what? Roof rats most likely. It’s likely that you have a mouse infestation if you’ve been hearing noises coming from your attic. Get a free rodent control inspection at your home or place of business today by getting in touch with On Demand Pest Control for rodent control in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Roof Rats In Attics
Yes, we did say that. Rats living on the roof. We’d add that it’s well-named, too. Roof rats enjoy climbing up on your roof, and once they’re there, they enjoy nesting there. Most of all during the cold months when they’re on the prowl for warmth. It’s hard to imagine what they’d want from your attic. While your family sleeps warmly thanks to the insulation, roof rats do, too!
Due to their large, nearly twice-as-long tails, roof rats are simple to detect. In comparison to Norway rats, they are smaller and can grow up to 18 inches long, including their tail.
Roof rats in the attic are most likely to blame if you find lengthy cylindrical droppings on your insulation or air conditioning ducts. In this case, you’re safe because these are merely lizard droppings with white tips.
Roof rats are masters of the art of getting into attics. They’re excellent climbers, and they’re sometimes referred to as palm rats because of their abundance in palm trees. Having them in your attic can result in fires if they’re not removed. In addition, their excrement and urine contaminate the insulation in your attic, making them incredibly harmful to your property.
What Do Rats In The Attic Sound Like?
People usually assume that attic noises at night are caused by mice, although the vast majority of the time it‘s actually caused by rats. This is a common misconception. It’s hard to imagine what rats in the attic sound like. Is it possible to tell rats from other types of rodents?
Because rats are nocturnal creatures, the noises you hear in the attic will almost certainly be from them. Having a fast-moving rodent in your attic might be a nuisance. Attic noises may be heard more frequently in the same region due to the birds’ habit of utilizing the same routes.
In the attic, you may hear scratching noises since roof rats enjoy building nests. The noise of the birds as they leave and return to their attic for food and water may disturb some portions of your home.
How To Catch A Rat In The Attic
At this point, you’re probably wondering how you’re going to get a rat out of the attic. There are more than one rat up there, to begin. Simply erecting one snap trap will not suffice.
By the time you notice noises coming from the attic late at night, there may be as many as 10 roof rats in and around a house. Roof rats, on the other hand, are a shady bunch. Roof rats won’t even bother a trap with peanut butter on it if it’s placed incorrectly in the attic.
Attic edges and the roofline are common places for rats to build their runways. In the attic, rats also enjoy running around the cables.
Rub marks are a good indicator of their presence (sticky black stains left behind by their filthy bodies continually pressing against surfaces). In addition to urinating and excreting in odd places, roof rats also leave behind excrement and urine that is easy to detect.
In what section of the attic have you found an abundance of excrement and rub marks? It looks like you’ve located a working runway. It’s now or never for the traps.
Traps made of wood and plastic, as well as a range of different kinds of bait, should be used to avoid rat resistance and to accommodate their shifting food preferences (slim jims, peanut butter, dried fruit.)
To prevent being trap-shy, you must catch the rats that try to set off your traps, but you must do it before they do so. Place them correctly along the runways on the first attempt. Putting two or three traps in a row helps because rats may easily jump over them.
Rats Won’t Go Near Traps?
It’s possible that the rats in your attic are content with the food they’re getting from the outside and have little interest in the bait you’ve placed on your traps.
Roof rats will leave your attic every night to find food if it contains a food supply. Bird seed, nuts and rubbish are among their favorite outside sources of nutrition.
You must prevent rats from re–entering the house by securing all of the entry points on the exterior of the property. Rodent proofing or exclusion is the technical term for this procedure. Once you catch the rodents inside, they will seek out your traps because they are starving.
Make certain that your attic has an enough number of traps! The average home has 5-10 roof rats, so it’s recommended that you set up at least 12 traps in your attic. It’s common to see only a few traps set out at a time. This will add time to the process of catching all of the rats.
If rats are unable to get caught in your traps, they will get frantic and try to gnaw their way out of your ventilation systems, making your rodent exclusion impossible.
Roof Rat Poison
You can‘t just catch roof rats in the attic by putting a trap in the attic‘s access door. Roof rat poison is an option you’ve probably considered. Stop thinking about it.
Yes, this method will kill some of the roof rats. They aren’t going to perish in the open while looking for water, no. Inexperienced pest control technicians and homeowners alike have used roof rat poison and bait in attics before, and the results have been disastrous. A few days later, there’s always the revolting odor of decomposing rats.
You have no control over where any rats that eat the bait will die and decay if you use it inside your home. Oftentimes, it’s hidden somewhere in the walls, generating a stench that lasts for weeks. If you have rats in your attic, roof rat poison is not going to fix the problem.
The best way to keep roof rats out of your attic is to seal up the holes they use to enter from the outside. Your attic will once again be filled with noises from rats following old rodent pee trails that lead to your home.
Once rats have been removed from your home, we do encourage utilizing roof rat poison or bait outside of your home in a safe manner. However, we do not recommend using it inside your home.
In order to limit the number of rodents outside your home, bait stations should be properly positioned around the foundation of your property. There will be fewer attempts to re-enter with fewer rats outside. For this aim, we install and maintain tamper-proof rodent bait stations on a professional level.
Other Animal Noises In The Attic
In your search for a solution to the query “what do roof rats sound like?” you arrived to this site Roof rats are almost certainly to blame for your rat infestation, and hopefully you’ve already taken steps to eliminate them from your attic and prevent them from returning.
Attic raccoons or opossums may be responsible for the noises you’re hearing if they’re large enough to be heard. We’ve dealt with both. As with both of these species, you’re likely to hear a lot more noise. In order to get food and water, you may hear noises from the attic as you sleep.
South Florida cities like Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach may also have iguanas living on their rooftops as a source of animal noises. Your roof is covered in iguanas! Some of our neighborhood roofs have had resident iguanas basking in the sun while making a lot of noise with their movements.
Please contact On Demand Pest Control or learn how to safely remove raccoons or opossums from your attic, if you do in fact have these other creatures living in or on your roof or attic.
Rodent Control in West Palm Beach, FL
Your attic may have an intruder after all, thanks to the sounds made by roof rats. What’s next, then? You could go to the market and get some rat traps and poison, but contacting us will be a lot easier.
In South Florida, call On Demand Pest Control for all of your rodent and pest control needs. It doesn’t matter which county you live in; we cover it all. Over 1000 five-star evaluations on Yelp, Google and other review sites show that we are South Florida’s best rodent control company.
To reclaim your house from rats and mice, call today to book a FREE rodent control examination.
Professional Pest Control From On Demand Pest Control
Having pest control issues is always a concern in South Florida. The only approach to ensure long-term pest control in a location with a hot and humid climate all year is to establish a preventative treatment plan.
Whether or not your home is currently infested with pests, On Demand Pest Control has the expertise and equipment to keep your family safe from future infestations. We are a devoted local firm that is ready to assist you in keeping those pesky bugs and critters out of your house or place of business.
The first step in our pet-friendly treatments is an inspection of your entire home by a trained exterminator. This is followed by the application of a preventative treatment on the outside of your property.
In addition, we provide maintenance care on a quarterly or bimonthly basis. Commercial clients, such as restaurants or HOAs, typically benefit more from monthly treatments than do residential ones.
Finally, if you want to avoid a full-blown pest infestation, calling in the experts at On Demand Pest Control is your best bet. Would you like to find out how much it would cost to have a pest treatment for your South Florida home or business? On Demand Pest Control offers free estimates, so call today!
