Keeping Rodents Out: Expert Strategies For A Rodent-Free Del Rio Home

Rats and mice are the worst. Why? Because they're so sneaky. If you're lucky, they'll bump around in your walls and annoy you enough to do something about them. But, most of the time, noises don't come until rodents have done things you definitely don't want them doing. What sort of things do they do? Join us today as we share some of the things you may not realize rodents do inside your Del Rio home. We'll tell you how to look for signs of rodent activity and what you can do if you discover these animals lurking around in your home or on your property. If you don't have an infestation, stick with us to the end, and we'll tell you how to keep it that way. For fast answers to your rodent problem or for rodent pest control in Del Rio, remember that you can always call. YourGold Star Exterminators are here to provide answers and service options.

It is nice to hearrodents in your walls because it alerts you to a secret problem that you need to address. While it is nice to have a rat or a mouse as a pet, it is not good to have them roaming freely about the interior of your home.  Here are just a few things you can expect these critters to do.

• When rodents scramble up through your wall voids, they chew on wood, paneling, sheetrock, insulation, and other building materials. They also chew on wires. If a live wire is cut, it can lead to a flame inside your walls.

• Rodents can go in and out of your home. While outside, they may climb inside a dirty trash can or dumpster. When inside your home, the bacteria they picked up on their fur is deposited in the places they explore, or within the food they're accessing in your kitchen or pantry.

• Rodents are woodland critters. While scampering around in your yard, they can pick up ticks and fleas. In your home, flea eggs and flea dirt can drop off, creating a flea infestation, or tick see ticks can mature and leave the rodents in search of a second host. Fleas and ticks aren't always infected with diseases that impact human health, but there is a risk.

• Rodents leave droppings and urine as they move about in your kitchen, pantry, wall voids, attic spaces, and more. These are a source of contamination. They can also soil building materials, like your attic insulation. 

• Rodents gather materials for their nests. They may rip up stored clothing, tear out the stuffing in stored couch cushions, destroy insulation, rip up wallpaper, and more.

It is best to catch rodents in Del Rio early, so they don't have an opportunity to make you sick or cause damage. We don't recommend waiting until you detect them. Take the time to do an inspection of your home and make sure you are rodent-free. Let's take a look at how to perform an inspection like this.

Signs Of Infestation: How To Identify Rodent Activity

There are two ways to inspect your home. You can do it yourself or contact a licensed pest management professional. Since it is hard work, it is worth paying to have a trained and experienced technician do this for you. For help with rodents in Texas, contact Gold Star Exterminators. To do it yourself, here are some suggestions.  

• The damage rodents cause is one way to detect them. It isn't the best way because you're catching them after they've already damaged your property, but it is an easy detection method. Look for holes in your weatherstripping, frames, screens, baseboards, and pantry walls. Check for chew damage around the pipes that come in underneath your kitchen sink. Keep in mind that even big rodents can fit through a hole the size of a quarter.

• When rodents access the food in your kitchen or damaged items to gather materials for their nests, you can evaluate the damage and zero in on an infestation. For example, finding a hole in the bottom corner of a dog food bag, in a package of rice in your pantry, in the thin plastic of a toilet paper package, or in the side of a trash bag sitting next to a basement door to go outside.

• Rodents leave their droppings in many places, some of which may surprise you. These black pellets are about the size of rice grains. Some common places you'll find them are in the cabinet under your kitchen sink, on pantry shelves, along baseboards, in the backs of kitchen drawers, in the void above drop-down ceilings, and sprinkled on your attic insulation.

• The nests rodents create are usually made from extremely soft materials gathered in your home. You may find them in attic voids, underneath insulation, inside the drawers of stored furniture, and within the frame of stored upholstered furniture.

If you find evidence, what is the next step? How do you get rid of rodents? We strongly recommend contacting a professional for effective rodent control. Rodent control requires several steps and each step requires specialized knowledge. Let's take a look. 

Professional Rodent Control: The Safe Way To Remove An Infestation

A pest management professional is uniquely qualified to handle rodent control because they have field experience. There are many benefits that come with routinely dealing with rodents. Here are a few ways your Gold Star Exterminators address rodents.

• Professional inspections are needed at all stages of the process. Your technician begins with inspecting your property to track activity, consider routes, and evaluate potential points of entry. After treatments are applied, inspections help you track rodent activity even when evidence isn't seen in monitoring devices.

• The treatment process is multi-pronged. It consists of rodent removal and monitoring. Together, the treatment arrests all rodent activity in the structure. The products and methods used by your technician are the most trusted, and they consider the humane treatment of rodents and are selected for efficacy.

• Exclusion work is applied as needed to prevent continued entry. If entry points require repairs, your technicians will advise you.

• Once rodents are controlled on the interior, it is sometimes helpful (or required) to address rodent pressures around the exterior. Your technician can install tamper-resistant bait stations to deal with rodent populations and deter entry.

Would you like guidance on rodent control for your Del Rio property? If so, jump to our contact page and tell us about your rodent infestation or general rodent concerns. Or, contact us by phone. 

Rodent Exclusion Tips: Safeguard Your Property from Infestations

We hope you've found this blog before rodents have gotten into your home. If so, there are many steps you can take to keep them out. Every home is a bit different, so you'll have to take these generalized tips and consider how to apply them to your specific situation.

• Rodents use ground clutter to navigate. Pick up objects that sit on the ground in your yard and near your exterior.

• Rodents hide in vegetation. Cut grass, remove weeds, and trim plants.

• Rodents hide under structures. Applying hardware cloth can help to keep them out. Install the material at least a foot below the ground to stop rodents from tunneling underneath.

• Clean up natural food sources, such as nuts, fruits, and seeds.

• Protect natural food sources, such as garden vegetables, berries, and fruits. Netting can help protect your garden. If you have a fruit tree, consider girding it with sheet metal. The sheet metal is smooth and hard, preventing rodents from clawing into the material and finding the claw holds they need to scale the bark.

• Reduce insect populations in your yard as they are a source of protein for rats and mice. A helpful way to do this is to keep lights off or replace your lights with motion-sensitive bulbs or fixtures.

• Store bagged trash in covered containers and remove trash weekly to avoid smells that attract rats and mice.

• Use expanding foam to fill in gaps, cracks, holes, and voids in your exterior walls.

• Repair damaged building materials, such as screens, weatherstripping, frames, and door sweeps.

• Trim vegetation away from your exterior and roofline.

• Install guards on building materials rodents can scale on your exterior walls, or on wires that attach to your roofline.

• Install a mesh cover over downspouts to stop rodents from getting inside your gutter system and finding a way to your roof.

If you work hard, you can keep evensmall rodentsfrom entering your home. But, of course, it isn't easy work. Keep in mind that your efforts will also help to keep many other pests out of your home, and some of these tips provide long-lasting results. If you don't have the energy to tackle these prevention tips, remember that your Gold Star Exterminators are available to help you with rodent prevention in Del Rio. Contact us anytime for guidance or service options. We'll steer you in the right direction.

Gold Star has been spraying our house for a few years now and I can't express how much it has helped.  I was spraying Demon WD myself and barely made an impact on the scorpions and spiders.  after they started doing it, we have very few sightings now.  Great company.

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