The first signs of rats inside walls are the sounds of scratching and movement in the very late evenings or early mornings.
You are probably here wondering how much longer is this going to continue. You’re likely losing sleep, or worse, the urine and droppings are beginning to bleed through with a bad odor that’s filling your home.
Twin Home Experts service 10 to 15 property owners per week dealing with rats in their walls and ceilings. One of the most frequent questions we get asked is…
🗣 “Twins, how long can rats inside walls survive”?
Rats in your walls are a serious problem and should be dealt with properly and quickly.
We often arrive at clients’ houses after they have hired several other pest control companies who have attempted to seal some outside holes and set traps with no success. The rat problem remains.
Even worse, we often see homeowners and pest technicians dropping poison thinking that will eradicate the issue. This is the WORST strategy and is rarely successful in solving your rat issues.
When it comes to rodents in your walls, the likely scenario is that you have sewer rats. Sewer rats can survive a very long time as they forage outside your home and enter to nest and give birth.
This also attracts other colonies of rats, creating a safe haven for them in your home. This is why the rat infestation will only get worse if not addressed quickly.
The same colony of rats can survive for years inside your walls as long as they have an entry and exit point.
📺 We fixed a 30-year rat problem for a pest control client named Mike.
Rats that live in walls will continue to gnaw and chew in order to survive. Those are the noises you hear at night.
You have to be very careful if you have pex water piping or plastic drain lines. The damages sewer rats can cause could cost you thousands of dollars in secondary damages.
🤔 WHAT HOME REMEDIES GET RID OF RATS?
We see so many blogs and advertisements for products to get rid of rats.
Here’s a list of common remedies we see :
- Mothballs
- Ammonia
- Peppermint Oil
- Owl’s Feather
- Pepper Flakes
- Onions and Garlic
- A mixture of Plaster of Paris with Cocoa Powder
- Instant Potatoes
In addition, we see things like noise repellents that can cost upwards of $300.00.
Unfortunately, all these methods and attempts WILL NOT solve your pest issue.
Dumping poisons inside wall cavities or up in the attic is probably what we see done most. This, in our opinion, is the WORST thing you can do.
Rats will forage outside your home. Baiting and trapping are a waste of time. You may have high hopes of catching one or two particular babies, but that’s about it.
❓CAN RATS CLIMB UP WALLS?
Rats are expert climbers and are biologically equipped with claws and feet that are designed to scale vertical walls to enter structures that would commonly be inaccessible to other animals. Roofs and attic entry points, plastic pipes, and wood framing are all able to be climbed by these rats with minimal effort.
These are materials they climb to enter into your attic and other parts of your home.
🐀 ➡️ HOW DO RATS GET INTO WALLS?
🔎 Places to investigate for possible rat entry points into walls:
1- Your waste & drain system (we put this as number one, as this is the most frequent entry point)
2- Hidden holes outside the exterior of your home
3 – Crawl spaces (rats will enter into a crawl space and then climb up plumbing, and electrical penetrations into your walls)
4- Burrowing under foundations that lead into wall cavities
5- Holes into your attic
6- Tub access panels
7- Dryer vent kit that flap remains open
8- Holes behind & between gutters and roof lines
📺 Rats were getting inside one of our client’s walls for 3 years…..
@twinhomeexperts Unbelievable how rats can get into your HOME! #rats #pestcontrol #homeowners ♬ sonido original – Alexanderlegon
🚫 HOW DO YOU GET RID OF RATS PERMANENTLY INSIDE YOUR WALLS?
The ultimate way to eradicate rats from inside your wall cavity is to locate the open sources. This is a MUST & the ONLY permanent solution.
Here’s our process:
1 – We perform a thorough executed investigation & Inspection of the interior, and exterior of a property
2 – We build a critical rodent barrier in preparation for wall/ceiling opening
3 – We conduct in-wall micro camera inspections to assist in strategic openings
4 – We perform a rodent smoke test on the entire waste & vent system to determine openings in the drain system
5 – We perform ALL repairs
6 – We clean & sanitize all rat contamination as this produces pheromones in other rats
7 – We install monitoring cameras to provide us data on how many rats are in the wall, provide us trapping notifications, and possible other openings
8 – We utilize camera & location devices
Here’s where rat removal from a wall or ceiling begins to be super effective. Any remaining rats inside the walls of your home will get hungry and thirsty since we have blocked all entry & exits.
Rats can only survive within 5 to 7 days without food or water. Removing the walls is just a matter of a few days.
In fact, we always warn our clients that the noise is going to increase as the rats begin to panic and get desperate. This is a good sign, as we have now disrupted their routine in a very big way.
📺 How we extract rats by trapping them inside a bathroom wall.
💡 TWIN TIP:
Seal up the attic and crawl space holes using wire mesh and foam above and below the wall cavity so they can’t escape.
Depending on how many rats you have, will depend on how long you leave the wall and ceiling open with traps prior to patching and painting.
CONCLUSION:
If you follow the correct process by pinpointing the exact entry points and sealing or repairing them permanently, rats can and will live in your walls for only a few days. Until then, rats can live in your walls for a very long time causing severe contamination and costly damage to your home.
