If you’re struggling with not being able to effectively trap the rats in your home, 🐀 this post is for you!
Catching rats requires very strategic execution. People contact us constantly because they’re struggling with eradicating rats from their property. One of the most common things we hear is, “ I’ve been setting traps, but I’m not catching anything!“
We even get complaints from homeowners that have hired other pest control companies and STILL haven’t caught any rats. These are usually fully licensed and trained technicians that still cannot solve the rat problem.
Why aren’t my rat traps working?
First off, rats are super intelligent mammals. They are also neophobic. So right off the bat, placing a new object in their environment will cause them to be cautious and likely to avoid it.
TWIN TIP: Pre-bait, do not set snap traps, place bait on top of the trap without setting it for a few days. Let the rats eat off the trap. Once you see bait missing, THEN set the trap.
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We also see a lot of glue trap boards being placed in homes by other rat extermination professionals. About 80% of the time, this is unsuccessful in solving your rat issue as larger rats are able to escape glue traps.. If you are using glue boards, DO NOT place bait.
Here’s a call where we arrived with glue boards.
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Here’s the biggest rat trap TIP:
Successful bait & trapping is when you or your pest control company have SUCCESSFULLY found all the rat entry points. Until you have accomplished this, baiting & trapping will never work. You may catch a few here and there, but the activity will never go away.
Once you have TRULY found the rat entry and exit points, then it’s time to
de-colonize. At this point, you will see the AMAZING effects of proper baiting & rat trapping. In fact, the bait you use won’t even matter as the rats become desperate to eat.
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Once you’ve closed all entry points, you must remove ALL food and water sources from inside your home. This includes dog or cat food, fruit on countertops, bird feeders, etc. Absolutely NO food source should be left out.
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TWIN TIP:
Doggy doors are a HUGE entry point for rats that eat dog food inside your home.
This is critical because rats can survive for up to 5 days without food. So when you completely remove their food sources, the bait in your trap is the food they can go after.
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SEWER RATS?
If you’ve closed all exterior openings and you continue to hear activity, you more than likely have an entry point in your drain system. This needs to be addressed otherwise again, baiting and rat trapping will be a losing battle.
If you have successfully closed off their entry points, you should eradicate your rat issue within 4 to 8 days. Do not be sold a maintenance rat trapping and poison plan from a pest control company. This never works!
TWIN TIP: Using monitoring cameras is a great way to monitor the activity, this will provide data on how many, what their eating & not eating, what bait their eating more and not eating, how to re-position your taps, etc.
WHAT DO RATS LIKE TO EAT?
After trapping over 2,600 rats, here are our favorite rat trap baits for effectively catching rats in your home:
- Slim Jim
- Fruit nut bars
- Peanut butter
- Bacon
- Cat & Dog food
- Gummy bear apple 🍏 flavor
When you’re baiting with peanut butter, soak a torn-up sock in peanut butter and strap it securely on the feed plate clip. Rats will dive their teeth into it – placing them in the kill zone longer.
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WILL RAT POISONS WORK TO GET RID OF MY RAT PROBLEM?
Unfortunately NO. Poisons are one of the worst strategies you can use to try to get rid of rats.
We often see where a homeowner (and even pest control companies!) placing bait boxes around the perimeter of the property and dumping a bag of poison inside an attic or crawl space. This is lazy and very harmful to the environment and other wildlife. Rats 🐀 will eat and scurry off, then you will have dead rat carcasses inside your walls, attic, and crawl spaces.
In this video, you’ll see where another pest control company just dumped a bag of poisons under the crawl space to try and solve (unsuccessfully) a client’s rat problem.
Here’s a safer way if you’re going to bait with food that will kill rats but not hurt other wildlife. We cannot stress enough that finding the rat entry points and closing them is the MOST important part to successfully getting rid of your rat problem.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN WHEN I HEAR RATS SQUEAK?
Rats squeaking or chattering is a sign that you have successfully closed off their entry points. The squeaking noise is because of fear and panic. You have disrupted their runways, and they are communicating to the other rats that there is now a danger in their environment.
The other reason rats may be squealing Is pain. Rats will deploy the rat traps or escape the glue trap, but in the meantime, they have gotten injured in the process. The squealing is an indicator of severe pain.
