2 Tips For Setting Traps To Catch Rats In Your Home
After finding large droppings in your kitchen and/or gnawed holes around the house, you may determine that you have some rats living in your home. If you believe there are only a handful of the rodents in your house, you may have decided to try setting large snap traps to catch and kill them. However, before you do so, use the following tips for setting rat traps that can help to increase your chances of catching them.
1. Wear Gloves When Baiting the Traps
One thing you can do to help increase the chance that a rat will be drawn to the bait on the trap is to wear gloves while you are handling both the trap and the bait. Rats have a keen sense of smell, and they tend to be very skittish especially when they know humans are around.
If you handle the trap or bait without gloves, the scent from your hands will linger on the surfaces. Even if you use a strong-smelling bait such as Limburger cheese or peanut butter, the rats will be able to pick up your scent.
This would then make them hesitant to approach the trap or the bait, much less eat it. Wearing a pair of latex or neoprene gloves should help reduce the chances of your oils transferring to the traps and bait.
2. Place a Cardboard Box over Each Trap
Along with being hesitant to investigate items with a strong, fresh human scent, rats also do not like to be out in the open for very long. Even if you set the trap in areas where you find rat droppings that indicate their path, they may not stay too long if there is no cover.
To counter this issue, cover each trap with a small cardboard box to give the rats cover. While wearing gloves, cut holes in the center of each side of the box to allow for entry by the rats.
If you know that you only have a few rats scurrying around your house, setting traps can be a good way of getting rid of them. However, if you have an infestation, the traps most likely will not make a dent in the rodent population. Instead of trying to get rid of one or two rats at a time, contact a pest control company that offers rat extermination services to have them determine the extent of the infestation and discuss your options for getting rid of the rats once and for all.
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