Ruined clothes, spoilt food, bits of papers everywhere, are the signs of rodent invasion. All these happen when rodents takeover your home and cause a problem. It isn’t just the nuisance they cause but it is also the diseases and the hygiene problems they bring along with them. Rodent Control Melbourne is extremely important. And there are many ways through which you can do rodent prevention at home.
Seal Off the Entry Points
By entry points, we mean the path that these rodents take. They can come through the holes near closets, cabinets, or doors. It gives them crawl spaces through which they can go outside. Even the holes around appliance pipes or sink are like tunnels for them. Any cracks in the basement or even the ventilation holes are also entry points through which they can creep into your home.
Your job is to find out all their entry points and seal them off. You can use metal mesh to seal off entry points or you can cement the holes off. This is the first step of rodent control.
Starve Them
This might sound harsh and inhuman but it is one of the effective rodent pest control methods. Once you have sealed off all the entry and exit points, the rodents inside the house can go nowhere else.
They feed off your food and water. Even before sealing off the entry points they do so. Rodents thrive on leftovers. They eat food in unsealed containers and flour. And they also munch on pet food as well as water that lie around at night. If you leave vegetables or fruits in open bowl out at night rather than storing them in the refrigerator, it is a feast for them. And open trash cans and composts are the picnic spots for them. And for water they go to leaky pipes and faucets.
If you do not leave any food out in the open. Keep everything in tight containers and out of reach. And fix every faucet and pipe, the rats will have no option but to starve to death. It is also a good way to prevent rodent invasion. If you keep your house clean and organised there won’t be any rodents around.
Use Rodenticides
Using rat poison or rodenticide is a way to get rid of the pest problem for good. It kills off all the rats in close proximity. But there are also risks which come along with it.
Rat poison isn’t just meant for rats and mice. But Rodenticide baits are poisonous for any bird or mammal that ingests them. That’s why all the baits have a risk of being highly poisonous to the non-target animals as well. When you use Rodenticides there is a huge chance that
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Your pet will eat it, and get poisoned
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Your child can ingest it, mistaking it for a toffee or candy
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Non – target animals like cats and dogs in the neighbourhood may die.
The biggest drawback of rodenticide is, when you kill rodents using it, they go and die somewhere else. They die in locations you can’t predict, and then their smell spreads everywhere making life uncomfortable.
Even if you use Rodenticides for Rodent Control, Keep in mind this few things
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Use baits that are approved by US EPA approved. The baits must not contain second-generation anticoagulants like brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difenacoum, and difethialone as active ingredients.
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Also use bait stations that are tamper resistant to keep your children and pet safe.
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Place the baits in inaccessible locations. Where children or pet can’t reach, so that they are safe from getting harmed.
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Once the work is done effectively, remove the bait stations so it doesn’t hurt anyone.
Use Traps
Using traps is one of the oldest rodent extermination methods. A trap uses a bait, may it be cheese or any form of food. Once the rodents, rats or mice try to get the bait, they are trapped.
Trapping the rodents is the easy part, the next part – killing them is the hardest one. There are various types of traps that help with rodent control. Snap trap is the ancient form of trap, that captures the rodent in a cage. And later you can kill the rodent by pouring hot water over them. You need to be cautious while doing this, and more careful while disposing the carcass.
Another type of trap, is the electronic trap. This helps to trap the rodent, and then gives them a shock that kills them off easily. If you don’t want to kill an animal then you can use the live trap. It helps capture the rodent and then release it. There is also multiple live animal traps that capture many rodents at the same time. And later you can let them out in the wild.
Glue trap is also a relatively new type of trap. But its use is discouraged because it can trap unsuspecting animals and birds too. Glue traps also cause a lot of suffering to the rodents, and they might urinate and excrete inside as a result. This can spread diseases. That’s why CDC warns against using Glue Traps.
Disposing off the dead rodent is a crucial part of rodent control process. You must use gloves while disposing the carcass or the nests of the rodents. Then you should use a disinfectant and spray the dead body with it, let the body absorb it for a few minutes. And then secure the body in a bag and dispose it off. If there are nesting materials, then get rid of those as well. And spray the area with disinfectant solution to clean it and sanitise it. After the long process, you must thoroughly wash your hands and use hand sanitizer.
There are three cardinal rules of rodent control – Seal, Trap, Kill/Dispose. Rodents can make life a living hell, and they are also carriers of numerous diseases. To keep yourself and your family safe and healthy, you must get rid of rodents using this efficient methods. If you can’t do, you can also hire a professional rodent removal melbourne company for all your rodent control needs!