Author: alex

Since they’re warm and often undisturbed by humans, attics make great nesting options for many unwanted critters. Most often these pests seek shelter in attics to survive harsh weather during winter or raise young during the spring.

The most common animals that live in an attic are raccoons, squirrels, bats, mice, and rats.

Top 5 Signs of Animal in the Attic

1. Noises at night – vocal noises, scurrying, scampering, thumps
2. Damage to your home – animals will damage your hour getting into it and then continue to destroy the interior as well
3. Droppings in the attic – feces and urine are some of the most obvious signs of an animal in the attic in Dallas
4. Physical evidence in the attic – animals will leave behind signs like tracks, debris, rub marks, and runways
5. Strong odors – the longer an animal is in your attic, the more the animal will urinate, and you may start to smell it

1. Strange Noises in the Attic

Scurrying and Scampering in the Attic or Walls

These noises indicate that you are probably dealing with rats, mice, or squirrels. If these noises occur during the night, you most likely have rats, mice, or flying squirrels, and if they occur during the daytime, you most likely have squirrels.

Loud Thumps During the Night

Louder noises during the night typically indicate you are dealing with a bigger nocturnal animal like a raccoon or possum.

Crying Noises during the Day

Unless a raccoon is sick/rabid, we typically only come across a momma raccoon active during the day if she has young, and baby raccoons are very vocal. Keep in mind, that raccoons have one litter per year and give birth in the Spring or early Summer.

Fluttering and/or Chirping

These noises indicate you are dealing with bats or birds. Bird noises will be more prevalent during the day while bats are active at night.

You are hearing vocal noises

Unless you are hearing crying during the daytime (potentially baby raccoons), a vocal noise LIKE squealing or squeaking during the day would most likely belong to a squirrel or bird, while vocal sounds at night like growling, whimpering, or screaming can typically be attributed to a raccoon.

Slithering Noises

Believe it or not, snakes can certainly make their way into your attic, however, we do not come across them often.

Buzzing noises

Buzzing is a sign of bees, wasps, or yellow jackets. You may possibly have a hive in the attic or in the wall of your house.

2. Damage to Your Home

Raccoons, squirrels, rats, and mice can wreak havoc on your house. If these critters can’t find an easy way in, they can gnaw, tear, and rip apart parts of your house. We see damage along roof ridges, vents, soffits, fascia boards, and occasionally straight through the shingles and roof.

Once inside, they continue to destroy. They can fray electrical wires and gnaw on plumbing pipes. Frayed electrical wires can lead to power fluctuations and increased risk of house fires. The combination of gaps in your roof with damage plumbing can cause water damage in the insulation and ceiling.

3. Droppings in the Attic

Not only can the accumulation of feces and urine saturate into insulation the ceiling, but also it will spread diseases to you and your family.

Raccoon Feces

Raccoon feces are typically dark in color, tubular in shape, and about 2 to 3 inches long with blunt ends. You may notice undigested food like seeds or berry skins inside the droppings. Unlike rodent droppings that are scattered, raccoons often use the same spot repeatedly as a latrine, creating a concentrated pile of waste in a corner or on insulation.

Squirrel, rat, and mice droppings do resemble one another.

Squirrel Droppings

Squirrel feces are typically oblong pellets, around ? inches in length, with rounded ends—similar to rat droppings but slightly larger and more uniform. The droppings are usually dark brown when fresh and lighten with age. Squirrels tend to defecate in scattered patterns, especially near nesting sites or along travel routes like beams or insulation trails. If you find droppings in your attic or notice gnaw marks and scampering noises, contact Critter Control for a full inspection and safe cleanup.

Rat Droppings:
Rat droppings are a clear sign of an infestation and something Critter Control technicians are trained to identify. These droppings are spindle-shaped, about ½ to ¾ inch long, and pointed at the ends. Rats tend to leave a significant number of droppings—often hundreds—along walls, in corners, and near food or water sources. Fresh droppings are dark and soft, while older ones become dry and crumbly. Because rats can spread diseases through their waste, it’s important not to handle the droppings yourself—call Critter Control to investigate and address the issue safely.

Mouse Droppings:
Mouse droppings are smaller and more numerous than those of rats or squirrels. Each pellet is about ? to ¼ inch long, black or dark brown, and pointed at both ends. You’ll usually find them scattered in drawers, cupboards, attic spaces, and along baseboards or wall edges where mice travel frequently. Mice produce dozens of droppings each day, making them one of the first indicators of an infestation. At Critter Control, we help homeowners identify, clean, and eliminate mouse activity safely and thoroughly.

If you discover suspicious droppings in your attic, avoid direct contact—raccoon feces can carry serious health risks such as raccoon roundworm. Contact Critter Control right away for safe removal and thorough attic inspection.

4. Physical Evidence

When inspecting an attic, we look for the traces an animal leaves behind as they travel through your house.

• Tunneling
  • When dealing with mice, rats, and even flying squirrels, you will often see tunneling in the insulation of an attic because insulation makes for a great nesting material. The tunneling will look like small holes that are as big as 3 inches in diameter.
• Prints
  • Another indicator that animals will leave behind are paw prints on your duct work. Possums and raccoons have the biggest prints. They each have five fingers, but the palm of a possum’s print is more triangular. On the other hand, squirrels and rats have much smaller prints with their front feet having four toes and their hindfeet having five.
• Debris
  • Squirrels will often collect acorns and leave behind shells in the attic space, which is an easy way to tell when you are dealing with squirrels. Squirrels will also bring nesting material into an attic. Take into account, you may have more than one animal type in your attic space.
• Rub Marks
  • Animals like rats, mice, squirrels, and bats will leave behind rub marks around the openings that they utilize for entry. The rub marks will be brown to dark brown in color. The more the trails have been utilized, the darker these rub marks will be.

5. Strong Odors

There are seventy-one species of rodents found in Texas which include beavers, nutria, gophers, porcupines, and chipmunks. The rodents that cause homeowners the most problems are rats, mice, and squirrels. Rodents are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws.

Why do rodents come into your home, anyway?

Squirrels, rats, and mice infiltrate your home looking for safe place from predators and weather, and they want to establish nests near food sources.

Where Do Rodents Live Inside the House?

Generally, rodents prefer areas in homes that humans don’t frequent, such as basements, garages, attics, walls inside, or cars. Rodents love clutter, as it offers them many potential living spaces.

How Do Rodents Get Inside?

The smallest species are able to get inside through holes as narrow as half an inch in diameter. Rodents also employ their inherent climbing, running, jumping, digging, and swimming abilities to infiltrate manmade buildings. Warehouses, farm fields, and food processing factories are also prime targets for rodent infestations.

How to Identify Rodent Infestations in Dallas, TX

Rats, mice, and squirrels will do their best to avoid detection, but these rodents will leave evidence behind.

Common Signs of Rodents in Dallas, TX

• Sounds. Squirrels, mice, and rats all make similar sounds if they’ve made it into your house; rustling or scurrying noises. The bigger the rodent, the louder the sound will be. Squirrels may also make rolling noises, as they roll nuts and acorns around. Pay attention to when the noise is being made. If it occurs during the day, it’s probably a squirrel. If you hear it more at night, it’s more likely to be a mouse or rat, since they are nocturnal.
• Droppings. Mice, rats, and squirrels have similar looking droppings. They resemble dark pellets less than an inch long. Rats and mice will leave feces as they travel. You might find them along floorboards, behind appliances, and in cabinets. Squirrels will stay in attics, chimneys, and walls.  Droppings are found in the largest numbers near nesting sites.
• Gnaw marks. A rodent’s teeth grow continuously, so they must gnaw on things to keep this growth in check. As you might expect, this leaves rather damning evidence. Look for gnaw marks on things like garbage cans, fences, food containers, and under porches. Squirrels sometimes chew through roof vents or attic louvres to gain access to the attic.
• Runways. Mice and rats are creatures of habit and will follow the same route between their nest site and food and water uses. After repeated use, these paths develop dark, greasy rub marks that are accumulated from the oils and dirt on the rodent’s fur. Runways usually follow along manmade edges like baseboards.
• Odors. When living in confined spaces like homes, rodents tend to produce an odor that is most often described as musky and resembling ammonia or stale urine.

Rats vs. Mice

There are a few notable differences between rats and mice:

• Appearance. The most significant difference between a rat and a mouse is physical size. Rats are much, much larger than mice. They also have coarser fur, and comparatively larger heads and feet.
• Mentality. It’s well established that rats are more cautious, while mice tend to be curious. For example, a rat will likely avoid a trap set in its path for few days, until it gets comfortable enough to approach it (this is why, when dealing with rats, it’s important to leave traps baited for a few days before setting). A mouse, on the other hand, will probably go for a trap the moment they discover it.
• Burrowing. Mice are climbers, and generally prefer to build their nests higher up. Norway rats, on the other hand, prefer to keep their operations at ground level, and usually construct their nests in garages, basements, or burrowed underground.
• Droppings. Since rats are larger, their droppings will be larger as well. Rat droppings are generally 3/8 inches long, with a diameter of 1/8 of an inch. Mice droppings are about half this size. Both are oblong pellets, but rat droppings have rounded tips, and mice’s have pointed tips.

Squirrels vs. Rats

The single most significant difference between squirrels and rats is that squirrels aren’t nocturnal, and are therefore unlikely to make much noise at night. But there are a few other differences, too:

• Nesting Habits. Squirrels are much more likely to build their nests outside, usually in trees. Rats prefer building their nests inside, on the ground, and close to food and water sources.
• Tracks & Prints. Squirrels bound, leaving significant gaps between paw prints. Rat tracks have a more alternating pattern, and unlike squirrels, their tails often leave an obvious path.
• Droppings. While both rat and squirrel droppings can be dark brown to black in color with blunted ends, they are found in different places around the home. Squirrel droppings are often found in attics or around tree trunks, while rat droppings are more common along baseboards, in cupboards, and behind large appliances like washing machines.

How to Identify Rodents Nest in Your House

Rat Nest

Rat’s nests are a mess, design-wise. The size of a nest varies depending on the number of rats in the nest, but they are usually about the size of a cereal bowl. Rats use almost anything to build a nest—plants, garbage, cotton, insulation, sticks, twigs. Norway rats typically build their nests on ground floors or in basements. Less commonly, they burrow in the ground.

As their name implies, roof rats prefer to nest off the ground. Roof rats live in colonies and prefer sheltered habitats like lush landscapes, dense vegetation, and fruit trees (especially citrus trees in Florida). Inside, they prefer to nest in the upper parts of buildings like attics or rafters.

Mouse Nest

Mice often build their nests with soft, easily sourced materials such as paper, fabric, string, insulation, and mattress and pillow batting. The nests appear as rough, ball-like structures, around four to six inches in diameter. Unlike Norway rats, mice are climbers, and will often build their nests in attics. There will likely be many droppings surrounding the nest.

Squirrel Nest

Squirrel nests are much larger than rat and mouse nests. They are clumped-up assemblies of leaves, twigs, bark, and moss. Squirrels will build nests between two branches in trees, but they will also bring these materials inside to create a nest in the attic. Squirrels in the attic will use materials in the attic like insulation, cardboard, and fabric.

Dangers of a Rodent Infestation

Rodent problems can cause a number of issues:

• Property Damage. Mice and rats will chew on anything they see as useful while building a nest. This can include prized valuables like books or other important documents, especially if they are stored in the attic or basement. Rodents also have a fondness for living in cars, and can ruin them by their compulsive wire-chewing.
• Fire risk. Mice and rats sometimes build their nests in large electrical appliances, gnawing through wires in the process, which can increase the likelihood of a short-circuit or fire.
• Disease. Rodents can carry many diseases including hantavirus, leptospirosis, lymphocytic choriomeningitis (LCMV), Tularemia and Salmonella.

Get Rid of Rats, Mice, Squirrels in Dallas, TX

Rodents are not only a bother to have in your house, but also they spread diseases and damage your house. DIY rodent control methods are typically ineffective and can be dangerous to someone who is untrained. At Critter Control, we can quickly control the rodent population, remove the rats, mice, or squirrels, and install exclusions to keep rodents out! Call us today.

Of all the creatures known for infesting homes, rats are among the most difficult to deal with. They are infamous for their resourcefulness, their intelligence, and the staggering rate at which they breed. So, to put it simply, a rodent infestation is a serious issue.

Types of Rat Traps

?Individuals have access to a variety of traps and toxic baits when it comes to removing rats from homes. Snap, electric, live-capture traps, and glue boards are popular means of rodent control in homes and garages where rat populations are small in number.

Snap Traps

Snap traps are as old as time. In the past, they were almost always made of wood, but some companies offer modernized versions of this age-old trap that are made of plastic and reusable. Snap traps have a small bait cup into which the bait is inserted, then you pull the metal lever back 90 degrees (watch your fingers!), and the trap is set. A mouse then steps on the plate, and is a nuisance no more.

Plastic Enclosed Snap Traps

These are very similar to generic snap traps, except they are encased in a hard plastic shell, and you use a lever on the exterior of the shell to set the trap. There is also an indicator for when a mouse is caught.

Live Catch Traps

These devices are unique in this list in that they do not kill the rodent; rather, they simply hold it until you can release it elsewhere. There are two main versions of live catch traps: metal cages, and plastic tubes, both of which are outfitted with trigger-operated doors. Metal cage traps are preferred as they are large enough that the captured mouse likely won’t get overly stressed out in the time it is detained.

Electric Traps

Electric traps work by luring rodents into a chamber and administering a lethal shock. They are gaining in popularity because they are one of the more humane options, killing mice almost instantly. They are also engineered to include a no-see, no-touch disposal procedure, and a light to indicate when a rodent has been caught. They are also designed to ensure that humans and pets cannot be shocked.

Glue Traps

Glue traps (Glueboards) are very simple. They are thick industrial cards, covered in sticky adhesive. The mouse attempts to cross it and is then caught up on the sticky surface, where it dies due to lack of water and food. Then the card is thrown away. We do not recommend glue traps. They are better at catching mice than rats. Temperature extremes and dusty areas can make them less effective. Most importantly, they are not an ethical rodent control method.

What Should You Bait Rat Traps With?

Rat traps should be baited with enticing foods like bacon, peanut butter, oatmeal, or marshmallows and placed along areas rats are known to regularly travel such as adjacent to walls or in dark corners. Toxic options, such as anticoagulant baits, may pose hazards for small children and pets. Additionally, the use of such baits often leads to rodent death in inaccessible places like inside walls or above ceilings.

Rat Bait Stations

Although they might look like a trap, bait stations or bait boxes are not a rodent trap. Bait stations contain a solid, liquid, or paste rodenticides, and increase the effectiveness and safety of rodenticides. Bait stations have two holes one for entry and one to exit. After the rodents eat the bait, they leave it. Rodenticides should be used a supplemental control option. If you need to use repeated use of baits, trapping and exclusions services are needed.

Why Are Rats Avoiding My Traps?

Rats are intelligent critters that fear changes in their environment. Successful rat control requires more strategy than a few hastily placed store-bought rat traps. Here are a few reasons rat traps are not working:

• Wrong Sized Trap – People often make the mistake of confusing mouse traps for rat traps due to their similar design. Rat traps, however, are significantly larger and more powerful to compensate for the size difference between rats and mice. If a mousetrap is used on a rat, you run the risk of it escaping or being pinned down but still live and potentially hostile when you go to release it.
• Ineffective Placement – An important consideration about rats is that they will typically stick to scurrying along the edges of rooms near walls where they feel safe. Placing a trap in the middle of the room will most likely not catch much. If you put the trap along the edge of the room and place the end with the trigger plate facing the wall, you will have a better chance at coaxing rats into the trap.
• Traps Set Too Early – Rats are very aware of their surroundings, and the moment a new element is introduced, they can become weary of it. Place the traps in the room, but do not set them. This way, the rats will not perceive them as a threat yet and will be more inclined to approach your traps a few nights later.
• Not Enough Traps – In addition to acclimating the rats to the traps early, you need to keep in mind that once the traps are shown to be deadly, the rats will stay away. That is why you should always set multiple traps. Statistically, you always trap the most rats on the first night, so by setting many overnight you increase your odds substantially.
• Using the Wrong Bait –  Rats nibble carefully at new foods and can be rather particular about what they eat. Plus, there is a readily available food source, the rats will ignore the bait. Eliminating their food sources for twenty-four hours and baiting with a highly desirable bait can help rat traps work better.

Professional Rat Trapping

Effective use of rat traps includes proper size, bait, placement, and timing. The standard Critter Control rat trapping process takes between five to fourteen days. If the rat infestation is large, it can take longer. Once the rat population is controlled, we seal the house and disinfect the area. Rats can gnaw through virtually any material on your house. A recurring rat control plan will control any potential rat infestations.