Eliminating rats from your office

Many of us have an instinctual 'skin crawling' reaction to finding rats in our vicinity. Unfortunately, by the time you see rats, they are already firmly entrenched in the area and can be hard to get rid of. Here are some tips to follow if you find rats in your office. 

Cleaning the area thoroughly

Rats will come into an area with an easy food source, so it's important to work out what they are eating and eliminate this item. Rats can eat a large range of foods, but some common sources of food they may be after in the office is scraps from the bin (i.e. lunch scraps), fruit or candy from open snack bowls, or vegetables or fruit that is laying on surrounding garden to the office space. Essentially, rats will eat anything that people eat, so look around for anything that you could potentially eat and make sure it isn't accessible. 

Trapping and baiting the rats

If this is not enough to make the rats move on, you may need to move on to trapping or baiting the rats. This can be done either by poisoning the rats with a poison that they take back to the nest to infect the ohters or by trapping rats as they leave to find food and removing them live to another site. The best option for your office will depend on how many rats you have and how long they have been on the site. It can be a good idea to get some advice from a professional rat control company that can inspect your site and work out the best option for you. 

Discouraging them from returning

Once you have removed the rats from the site, it will be important to take regular measures to stop them from returning to the area in years to come. This usually includes some netting or mesh to stop them entering the site and as well as having some ongoing rat baiting as well as annual pest control inspections to ensure that they have not returned. Pest control companies can schedule these inspections annually and ensure that your office stays free from both rats and other pests. 

As you can see, if you have a rat problem in your office, it can be important to follow a full program of eliminating food sources, removing the rats and having regular measures to prevent them returning in order to have a long-term solution to the problem.