Steps to Take If a Rat Got Inside My House

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Rats invading your actual living space is not as uncommon as you might think, but if it happens, it’s really bad, significantly worse than rats in the attic, in the ceiling, inside the wall et cetera. If they roam about in the living areas of your home, that means they will gnaw and chew whatever they please, they will spread their waste all around the place, and they will contaminate your food and architecture. A risky health hazard, if rats are living in the same area you occupy on a day-to-day basis, you will frequently encounter them, and I don’t think you’ll particularly enjoy neither the sightings nor the creepy noises they make in the house when all is dark and quiet.



There’s no mathematic approach to getting rid of rats, especially when talking about rats that live in the house and circulate through the kitchen, the living room, the bedrooms, and so on. As with rat invasion in any part of a building, you first have to identify any and all rodent entry holes they might use to get inside the building, and seal all of them. The following step is to thoroughly check the interior of your house in order to identify the entry points they use to get inside the living areas of the home (they don’t necessarily require a hole). Here are the most common access points a rat will use to get inside your living space:

• Behind the washer/dryer: use metal flashing to cover up the access point, preferably aluminum flashing;
• Behind the stove: again, seal up the point of access with metal flashing;
• From the toilet: make sure that the water traps are full, and that the plumbing pipes were not breached.

Rats could come into your living area through different points of entry, so make sure you inspect every nook and cranny. Once outside and inside access point identification and home repair is complete, you now have to eliminate the rats. There’s a strategy here for efficient disposal, and I wouldn’t try anything else but trapping the rats with lethal snap traps. I mean, I’ve tried all the different methods, and I’m sticking to the snap trap because it’s the most effective and humane way to deal with rats. You can continue reading on this website about lethal snap trapping, as well as about the other alternatives you can choose from. Poison should never be an option. Even if you’re all about the best methods to scourge and torture rats that will die in some inaccessible place inside your home, and stink up the entire structure, poison is still not your best option. It’s a pretty sure thing that not all the rats will eat the poison. Then, even if they do eat it, chances are they might not ingest a deadly dose, or even develop a high tolerance to it. There’s no winning with poison.

You may have a difficult time getting rid of rats inside your living space, and if you’re done trying and waiting, take a look at my nationwide wildlife control list of experts. They have all been vetted, and I can vouch for every single pro found in this directory. 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.