Hunting Exotic Wildlife in Our Homes

When I was a kid in East Wenatchee and Boise, shooting rats at the dump was great fun – and appreciated. Landfills are now more carefully managed. Rats have found new homes. Times have changed

If you are reading this, you probably have been reading other things in this rag, too – maybe the periodic stories about the rats of Paradise. Those stories have focused on what to do outside; clean up trash, pick up fallen vegetables and fruits in the yard and garden, and plug up those holes that might be letting rats into your house. No shortage of pats on the back about fewer rat complaints in town, either, but little to nothing has been said about what to do if they are already in your house.

Contact the city and they will refer you to the rules about cleaning up outside areas and David Kaufman, the guy who, thankfully, has been spearheading that work. Contact the County Health Department and they will tell you of the potential diseases rats carry and the dangers of wire-chewing, and then recommend you go online or contact one of the local pest control companies.

You may already know this, but rats can get expensive and scary in a hurry. They can move in pretty quickly after some neighborhood cleanup or some change in the household. You may, as we have, discover that you have one or more rats when you are suddenly faced with a $300+ dollar bill for replacing the chewed-up wire harness of your dish washer, and discover a set of wires in the attic chewed within 1/32 of an inch of a possible house fire. Now start hunting the rats.

As Chair of the Problem Wildlife Subcommittee of the Reecer Creek Rod, Gun, Working Dog & Outdoor Think Tank Benevolent Association, I am required to provide the specifics below.

We are talking about the black rat (aka roof or ship rat). An exotic, or alien, species, probably brought to the US on ships, its scientific name is Rattus rattus, It originated in tropical Asia, found its way to Europe (where it has long been associated with the plague), then to North America. It is a sleek black rodent with a gray, buff or white belly, measuring to ten inches from its pointy nose to tail tip. Its tail is as long as its body, and it will weigh up to slightly over half a pound. Roof rats will eat about anything you eat, from fruit to veggies to meat. Females may have three litters of five to eight young a year. Within a few weeks of being born hairless and blind, the little rats are out scrounging. The black rat occupies the eastern, southern and western portions of our country.

The problem with hunting rats is that they may be smarter than most of us humans. Put out poison bait (even the $15 guaranteed variety) and they scatter it. Put out sticky trays and traps and they will find a way around or over them. Go online and find that, while one person insists you can catch them all in a couple days, most of the pros and your fellow rat hunters speak in terms of months. In the meantime, you try to find rat-proof food containers, look for chewed wires – and hold your breath.

The more you learn, the more you wish you didn’t know.

Here’s a roundup of online info about “dealing with rats in your house.”

Virtually every bit of advice starts at the same place: find and close (steel mesh and steel wool are most often recommended) every possible entry hole bigger than a quarter inch around the exterior of your house. Only then do you go after the rats in the house or building.

Tools and techniques are all discussed in excruciating detail, with a surprising level of agreement among bloggers from across the country. Rat poison is not recommended: if they do eat it, you end up with pretty large rotting and smelly animals in walls and hard to access places. Glue boards, or sticky traps, are almost uniformly thought to be inhumane – even for those @!#! rats – and they often get dragged into hard to access places. Repellant sprays or gimmicks, powders, sonic boxes, and flashing lights are virtually never effective for more than a day or two. The uniform solution is setting numerous large rat traps. The large rat traps are baited with fruit, peanut butter, bacon, or something else they seem to be enjoying and set in places the rats travel. It is recommended that you attach the traps somehow (screw them down or wire them to something) because they can be dragged away to not easily accessible places. After you have caught all the rats (a week to six months), clean and decontaminate.

Find out all you ever wanted to know about rats in North America in Rex Marsh’s essay at icwdm.org/handbook/rodents/RoofRats.asp, the site for the Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management. Do a search for “how to get rid of rats” and you will learn more than you really wanted to know. The guys at Prosite Pest Control (509-925-5900) are worth a chat anytime.

Happy rat hunting.