Norway Rats in Seattle and the Surrounding Metro Area

Rats are filthy and dangerous. They carry disease, ruin food, damage buildings, and start fires by gnawing on electrical wiring. Norway rats in Seattle, West Seattle, Burien, Kent, Des Moines, Bellevue and Renton and the surrounding metro area are a serious problem.

The Norway Rat

Norway rats did not originally come from Norway, but from Asia. They are also known as brown rats, sewer rats, and wharf rats. Even though they are able to climb, they do not usually live in trees or attics. The smaller black rat, also known as the house rat or roof rat, is the one that builds nests in these higher places.

Where They Live

Norway rats live wherever there are people because they have similar food and water requirements. They are referred to as: Commensal, which means they benefit from a relationship to humans. Rats are found in cities and rural areas on every continent except Antarctica. Outdoors, they eat garbage, pet food, birdseed, berries, fruit, and farm animal feed. Indoors, they roam over the floors, counters and furniture foraging for whatever food they can find. They may find the dog’s food left in the dish or the bag, the bread on the kitchen counter or they may gnaw through the back pack left on the bedroom floor to get the partial pack of sunflower seeds in the pocket.

All-Pro Pest Control specializes in the removal and control of Norway Rats

Rats like to dig complex tunnels for their nests. These are often under a building foundation or a concrete slab which provides a sturdy roof and prevents collapse of the tunnel. They are experts at benefiting from man-made structures. For example, in many cases, the dirt under a sewer line will settle creating a natural burrow under the pipe. Norway rats will follow these and gain access through the foundation wall into a crawl space because the hole in the foundation can be larger than the pipe. They love our crawl spaces, especially in the winter because they can get up in the insulation or even nest on top of heater ducts to stay warm and dry. Norway rats also nest in buildings, unused vehicles, woodpiles, discarded furniture, and other sheltered locations near food and water.

Norway Rat Damage and Other Problems

Rats eat and contaminate food. They urinate and defecate everywhere they go. In a warehouse, they may gnaw open a bag of flour and only eat a small part of it, but the whole bag will be unsafe to use. When they come back to feed again, they will tear other bags open rather than finish the previous one. Since they travel so low to the ground that their bellies rub in everything, it means they transfer dirt, filth (their own urine and feces) and pathogens wherever they travel. Their gnawing causes structural damage to window sills, doors and floors. They also chew on electrical wires and water pipes. Their extensive burrows damage building foundations, roads and irrigation canal banks. Rats destroy insulation as they nest in walls or the insulation under floors. They carry fleas and mites as well as serious diseases such as leptospirosis, murine typhus, salmonellosis food poisoning, ratbite fever, and trichinosis. These can be transmitted easily to humans and other animals.

Don’t let a Norway rat infestation go uncontrolled

Getting Rid of Norway Rats in Seattle

There are two main ways to treat for rats, baiting and trapping. Baiting is a polite way of saying poisoning. If the rats are in the structure, whether that’s the living spaces, the attic or the crawl space,    All-Pro Pest Control strongly recommends you let us trap to remove them. Baiting always includes some risk of a rat dying where we cannot remove it. If that happens, the stink can make a portion of your home unusable for a month or more. Baiting is best used after the structure is free and clear to intercept future intruders. When we do a rat baiting job, we install exterior bait stations, which securely hold the bait so that only rodents can get it, around the perimeter of a structure as a preventive measure.

Why should you call All-Pro Pest Control?

We will actually ‘suit-up’ and crawl your crawl space. Many companies will just open the access and stick traps inside, we will investigate the crawl to identify how severe is the damage, the level of contamination and to locate entry points. In most cases, we will provide photos of our findings, so that you can see what we have seen. That way you can understand and make informed decisions about our treatment. We are a professional extermination company, which services Seattle, West Seattle, Burien, Des Moines, Kent, Bellevue Renton and surrounding areas. We can free you from your rats. With years of experience, we have a thorough knowledge of rat behavior, control, and diseases.

All-Pro Pest Control knows the most effective and safe methods to remove your rats without danger to you, your children, your pets or beneficial wildlife. We also offer an ongoing rat control service to prevent any future rat damage or problems. Please call us today for a free estimate.