Rats in the house: entry points, baits vs traps, safety with kids

Rats get into a house through a gap you could put your thumb in. If you do not find and close that gap, you will be trapping rats for the rest of the year, because the one you catch is replaced by the next one from the drain. That is why a rodent treatment on our rate card is ₹1,199 for trap plus bait plus sealing gaps — the sealing is not an extra, it is the part that makes it stop.

Where they get in

Walk around the outside of the house, then the inside, looking low.

• Drain and pipe gaps. The hole in the wall where the kitchen waste pipe, the AC drain or the washing machine outlet passes through is almost never sealed properly. Rats follow pipes.
• Floor traps and gully traps with a missing or broken grating. A rat comes up the drain itself.
• The gap under the kitchen door or the back door to the utility area.
• The false ceiling, via the gap where it meets the wall above a wardrobe, or the hole cut for a light or a cable.
• The chimney duct outlet if it has no flap.
• Gaps around the gas cylinder pipe into the kitchen, and behind the washing machine in the utility.
• Roof and terrace: the water tank area, the open stair shaft, and the space where the parapet meets the slab.

In Nellore the drains are the main route. Older localities with open drains, buildings near the canal, and homes close to the market or the fish and vegetable trade have a constant supply outside. During the monsoon, when the drains flood, rats move up into buildings, which is why calls jump in October and November.

Baits vs traps: what goes where

Traps indoors. Snap traps and cage traps placed along the wall where the droppings are, bait side against the skirting, because rats run with one side touching a wall. Glue boards work but are inhumane and a misery to deal with; most technicians now use them only where nothing else fits. A trapped rat is removed, so there is no smell in the wall.

Bait outdoors, in stations. Rodenticide works, but a rat that eats it indoors goes to die inside a wall, under a kitchen platform or in the false ceiling, and the smell lasts a week or more in this heat. Bait belongs in a locked station along the outside wall, near the drain and the compost pit, where rats feed and die outside. Never loose bait on a plate, anywhere.

Seal the gaps. Steel wool packed into a pipe gap and covered with cement or sealant; a metal grating on the floor trap; a door sweep on the kitchen door; wire mesh in the chimney outlet. Rats chew through foam, plastic and wood, so the plug has to be metal or mortar.

Safety with children and pets

• Know where every bait station and trap is. Ask the technician to show you and to write it down.
• Bait stations must be the locked kind. A child or dog should not be able to open one.
• Keep snap traps where small hands cannot reach: behind the fridge, inside a closed cabinet, on top of a wardrobe.
• If you have a dog or cat, lean on traps and sealing and keep bait outside only — and say so at booking so the plan is built that way.
• If a pet eats bait or a dead rat, take it to a vet straight away and tell them what the bait was; the technician can give you the product name.
• Wear gloves to handle a dead rat, bag it twice, and wash the area with disinfectant. Do not sweep dry droppings; damp them first and wipe.

What you can do before the visit

Clear the floor along the walls in the kitchen and utility so the technician can see the runs and the droppings. Move the fridge out if you can. Put all food, including pet food and the rice sack, into hard containers — a rat goes through a plastic bag and a cardboard box in minutes. Fix the kitchen door sweep. Take the rubbish out every night.

When it is more than a trap job

Gnawed cables are a fire risk; if you find chewed wiring or a tripping MCB, switch off at the MCB and have the electrical point checked as well. Scratching in the false ceiling, more than one rat a week, or rats in the bedrooms mean a route you have not found, and that is when the sealing part of the ₹1,199 treatment matters more than the trap. If the same house also has cockroaches and ants, the full home treatment at ₹2,999 covers insects and rodents together with a 30-day warranty.