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You may already know that rats are agile creatures. And their intelligence, along with their resilience and social life can make them quite the pest to have to deal with. But what can rats climb exactly? Can they get inside of your home regardless of what kind of walls you have? What are some preventive measure you can take to make sure rats won’t target your home, and what can you do if you’re confronted with an infestation?



What can a rat climb, exactly? Contrary to some misleading information out there, even if rats are agile climbers, they will not be able to climb on smooth surfaces. So, glass, and smooth interior walls won’t allow rats to climb them. But there are a few things you need to consider before you can choose these types of walls to protect yourself from rats. There are some species of rats which can jump pretty high, so a smooth wall won’t stop them if they find an opening and really want to get it. Little protrusions on the wall, bricks, vines or just about anything which has a textured surface will facilitate their climbing.

The best advice you can follow in order to prevent these pests from climbing inside of your home is not to have too much stuff stacked against your walls, especially near entrances or windows. This gives rats an easy and straightforward path to the inside of your home. Landscaping should be your next focus, as outside rats will focus on overgrown areas and undisturbed places to create their nests.

Last thing you need to tackle in order to make sure rats won’t climb inside your house is proper waste management. Keep your garbage away from your home, and properly close the bins after you throw your garbage. Rats love garbage and they will usually inhabit areas close to it, as garbage often serves as a food source for your garden variety rat. Make sure you don’t keep pet food outside, as this is another common factor that attracts rat. These prevention methods are applicable, of course, to any invasive vermin that like the comforts of your manmade structures.


‘I saw a rat climbing on my home’s wall! What should I do?’ If it’s an isolated event, keep your eyes on it and see where it goes. If there’s any chance whatsoever that the rat got inside of your home, even if you’re not completely sure it did, your best bet would be to find a rat control service. These professionals will make sure that the reason why rats are present in the first place are being dealt with, and then handle the rat population, and in the end, properly decontaminate the place the rats have infested so that there’s no risk of contracting diseases from leftover excrements.

Do rats jump? How high or how far?

Believe it or not, rats actually have a very surprisingly array of talents at their disposal. They can eat pretty much anything, dead or alive, in good condition or bad, meat or plant products included. That automatically puts ahead of animals that are just herbivores or carnivores. If the plant or meat products were to run out, that animal would struggle to find food and stay alive. Rats don't have this issue. They'll even eat and chew through paper if that's all there is, and the rodents have also been shown to eat from the feces of other animals, because they have managed to find some sort of nutrition in it.



As well as eating everything and anything, rats can also swim pretty well, for half a mile or more in some cases, as long as there is something worth swimming all that way for at the other end. They can also tread water for any hours and, in some cases, many days. That means that the animal can live for long periods of time in sewers and other bodies of water, even preying on the foods locally found in those conditions.

Aside from that, some species of rat have been shown to jump very well, and not just climb, which they are all famed for. Black rats are better climbers than their brown cousins, scampering up any textured surface without even breaking a sweat. Black rats can also jump, although they prefer to down down onto something, rather than hopping up. In short, they would climb up and jump down.

Brown rats, on the other hand, cannot climb as well as the black rat, but has jumping ability on its side instead. Studies have shown that the average brown rat can jump a horizontal distance of more than a meter — 120cm. Not only can the brown rat jump ACROSS a large distances such as from a tree branch onto the wood panelling and then inside your home, they can also jump UP a great distance too. Not quite a meter, but still somewhere in the region of 50cm to 80cm. This could be the leap from a fence panel to a windowsill, for example.

Rats can jump, and quite the distance and height too. They are not animals to underestimate, and that's why we recommend hiring in the experts when you are dealing with a rodent infestation. It won't be long before these animals get one over on you, and you won't be happy when this happens.



Check out my nationwide directory of wildlife removal pros if you’re considering hiring someone qualified to help you with your rat problem. For more information, you may want to click on one of these guides that I wrote:

How much does rat removal cost? - get the lowdown on prices.
How to get rid of rats - my main rat removal info guide.
Example rat trapping photographs - get do-it-yourself ideas.
Rat job blog - learn from great examples of rat jobs I've done.