How to get rid of rats

To get rid of rats, you need to do three things in the right order: take away what's attracting them, remove the ones already there with properly placed traps or secure bait stations, and close the gaps they use to get in. Most failed attempts skip one of those steps. Below is the approach we'd suggest for a typical Pretoria or Centurion home, based on 25 years of dealing with rats in roofs, gardens and garages.

Work out what you're dealing with

Start with a quick detective job, because it tells you where to focus.

• Noise in the roof at night usually means roof rats, which climb in along trees, creepers, walls and cables.
• Burrows under paving, sheds or the compost heap point to brown rats, which dig and come in at ground level.
• Droppings about the size of a raisin mean rats; rice-sized ones mean mice, which need a slightly different approach. Our mouse control page covers those.
• Greasy smudges along walls and beams show you the routes they travel.

Walk around the house one evening with a torch, and note where the droppings, rub marks, gnawing and burrows are. That map is the basis of everything else.

Step 1: Cut off food, water and cover

Rats stay where life is easy. Make it harder.

• Store pet food, bird seed and chicken feed in sealed metal or thick plastic bins.
• Bring pet bowls in at night.
• Pick fruit as it ripens, and clear fallen fruit and pecans from the lawn every day or two.
• Close the compost heap, or switch to a sealed bin, and don't compost meat or cooked food.
• Keep wheelie bins closed and stand them off the ground if rats are tipping or chewing them.
• Move wood piles, building rubble and stacked pots away from the walls of the house.
• Cut back creepers and branches so nothing touches the roof or gutters.
• Fix dripping taps and leaking irrigation, which give rats a water supply in the dry winter months.

Step 2: Trap the rats you have

For most homes, good snap traps are the safest and most effective DIY option. Use them properly:

1. Buy rat-sized traps, not mouse traps, and buy several.
2. Place them on the routes you found, along walls and beams, with the trigger end against the wall.
3. Leave them unset for a couple of nights with bait on them. Rats are wary of new objects, and this gets them used to the traps.
4. Bait with something they're already eating, or peanut butter, a piece of dried fruit or a nut. Use a small amount so they have to work at the trigger.
5. Set them and check every morning. Wear gloves when you handle traps and dead rats.
6. Keep traps away from children and pets, by placing them inside a box with a rat-sized hole, or in the roof space.

Step 3: Be careful with poison

Poison from the hardware store is the most common DIY approach, and the one we'd steer most people away from. Loose pellets thrown into the roof often lead to rats dying inside the ceiling or walls, and the smell can last for weeks. Pellets get carried and dropped where dogs, cats and children find them. And owls and other birds that eat poisoned rats can be poisoned too.

If bait is needed, it should go into lockable, tamper-resistant bait stations, secured in place and positioned on the routes rats use, outside where possible. That's how we use it on our own jobs.

Step 4: Close the way in

This is the step that stops the problem coming back next winter. Look for:

• Gaps under garage doors and outside doors. Fit a rubber or brush strip.
• Holes where pipes, cables and geyser overflows go through walls. Pack them with steel wool and seal with filler or mortar.
• Broken air bricks and vents. Cover them with fine metal mesh.
• Gaps at the fascia boards, loose or broken roof tiles, and the open ends of roof sheeting.
• Broken drain covers and gully grids around the house.

Do the proofing once the rats inside are gone, otherwise you can trap them in the roof.

When to call a professional

Call in help if you're still catching rats after a couple of weeks, if you can hear them in the roof but can't get to them safely, if there are burrows across the garden, if you live in a complex where rats are moving between units, or if you run a food business where rats are a health and compliance problem. We'll inspect, set up secure bait stations and traps, and show you exactly which gaps to close. Our page on rat control across Pretoria covers how we work, and for estates and businesses, see rodent control and monitoring. In the east, we also do a lot of rat work in Lynnwood's older gardens.

Keeping them away for good

Rats tend to return to properties they know. Check your traps, bins and boundaries at the start of each winter, when the nights turn cold and rats look for warm shelter, and again in summer, when fruit and bird seed are plentiful. Our article on rats and mice in summer covers the warmer months.

If the rats are winning, call 012 012 5526 or WhatsApp us a photo of the droppings or damage. We're SAPCA registered, and our rat treatments carry a 3-month guarantee.