How to Prevent Rodents from Damaging Your Property

Posted by Emma Brown
4
Sep 20, 2013
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Taking a pest infestation lightly can lead to some very unpleasant results for your home. Even though all kinds of pests can be harmful to yours and your family’s health, when it comes to the well-being of your house no pest is more dangerous than those of the rodents’ family.
Among the rodents that you should be particularly careful not to let inside your home are rats, squirrels and skunks. They can severely damage the structure of your house or at least make it a very uncomfortable place to live in.

Rats

Rats are by far the most common and dangerous rodents that can be found in households throughout the world. They can cause quite serious health problems – they are known carriers of quite a large number of dangerous diseases. In addition, they can heavily damage several parts of your home. There are two main kinds of rats that can be found in a household: the black rat and the brown rat.
Black rats are also known as roof rats, since their preferred place is the rooftop area of the house. Their number can rise considerably even within a few weeks after they have come to your house. Apart from chewing their way inside the roof, thus damaging its structure, black rats are known to damage electrical insulation (in some cases even causing fires), make fire systems dysfunctional and causing small scale floods on the lower levels of the house.
Brown rats, in contrast to the black rats, do not like heights. They prefer living in the ground. They can be found also in mattresses and couch cushions. They would do anything to get to your food supplies, even if that means destroying your cupboards and other pieces of furniture. A team of good pest exterminators could be your only hope of getting rid of your rat problem. You should make sure to know a good rat control team in London, such as this one: http://www.pantherpestcontrollondon.co.uk/rat-control/

Squirrels

Surely, squirrels are cute and they tend to look harmless. If you let them anywhere near your house though, you will encounter some serious problems. Squirrels also prefer living in the attics. Just like rats, they chew through the insulation, damaging the wiring and water lines that come in their way. They can also make a huge mess in your garden since they love to go through the garbage and look for food.

Skunks

If a skunk enters your home, it would most likely not damage anything. But it will leave a scent that would make the place hardly inhabitable for quite a long time.

How to Keep the Rodents Away

Rodents are always on a lookout for ways to enter your house. But you are not defenceless against them. There are several thing you can make to prevent rodents from gaining access to your household.
  1. First of all, you should take care of all the potential entry ways that rodents use to get inside your home. Usually they use small holes and cracks in the walls. All you have to do is fill those holes.
  2. Another important thing to do is never leave garbage uncovered in your home. Rodents seek ways to get in your home mainly because they are looking for food. Garbage is their main food source, so the less of it you have at home, the more unlikely it is to get rodents’ infestation. Get rid of garbage and clutter and you will get rid of rats and mice.
  3. Rodents also attack your food leftovers, so do everything possible to restrain their access to it. Do not leave your food uncovered and make sure that even your pet’s food is stored in rodent-proofed containers. It is very important that your kitchen is neat and clean, if you want to make sure that your home is safe from rodents. Any food spills are to be removed in a timely fashion after they have occurred.
  4. Cotton balls and rags soaked in peppermint oil and placed at strategic places in your house are a good way to repel rodents too.
  5. If you find rodents, or their faeces and urine stains, make sure to clean and disinfect the place as quickly as possible in order to reduce the possibility of contracting dangerous and potentially life-threatening diseases. The use of disinfectants is a must at all cases and you should be always equipped with rubber gloves when conducting such cleaning tasks.
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