Author: kollin.yelensky

Rats are an all-too-common problem for many folks around the Dallas area, especially as the increasing temperatures drive the rodents to find shelter in homes and offices. A rat infestation can bring damage and destruction to your home and serious health issues to your family. The following simple techniques will help you get the rats out, and keep them out for good.

• Find their Nesting Area – To prevent an infestation from growing and spreading throughout your home or office, you need to find where they are nesting and isolate it. From there you can cut off food and water supplies, seal entry points, and set traps to start eliminating the rodents.
• Removal – While professional removal is always the most effective option, there are methods you can use to try and eliminate the rats from your home or business. Some techniques include:
  • Snap Traps – These traps often kill rats instantly, but can be quite messy. A professional will have to remove the rat carcasses to avoid the spread of infectious disease.
  • Glue Traps – Known to kill rats slowly and inhumanely, you should avoid glue traps if possible. The rats may crawl around for a short time if they escape the trap, leaving glue residue everywhere.
  • Live Traps – Useful for smaller infestations, live traps allow you or a professional to relocate the critters safely, leaving them unharmed.

Poison should never be used under any circumstance. It is dangerous to both humans and pets and can be fatal if used incorrectly.

• Call a Professional – Once the rats have been isolated and trapped, the next step is to call a professional to remove them from your building. Touching a rat whether it be dead or alive, puts you at serious risk for contracting diseases like leptospirosis, Hantavirus, and rat-bite fever.

Hire the Professionals

The safest and most effective option for rat removal will always be using a professional service like Critter Control® of Dallas. Dealing with a rat infestation is not only frustrating, but it is also potentially risky as well. The longer they are allowed to live in your home or business, the more costly the damage will be. Call us today at (214) 225-2217 to schedule your consultation.

When animals invade a home, the attic is one of the most common areas that they build their nests. As a result, your attic insulation is often compromised by urine and feces as the critters tear it up to build their nests. Not only does this cause your energy costs to go up due to a decrease in insulation efficiency, but it leaves your home smelling foul and can even put your family’s health at risk. Critter Control® of Dallas can remove any damaged or soiled insulation along with the offending critters, and get your home back in top shape.

Physical damage to attic insulation is just one of the dangers of an animal infestation. Their waste is known to carry a variety of infectious diseases that can put your loved ones in danger. Diseases like leptospirosis, Hantavirus, and even the plague are a possibility when animals are nesting in your attic. The trained experts at Critter Control® of Dallas use only the most effective removal methods to get the animals out while keeping you and your family safe.

If an animal infestation has damaged your attic insulation, we do not recommend attempting to remove or replace it on your own. Many older insulations are made with toxic fibers that if inhaled, pose serious health risks. For a job like this, it’s best to leave it to the professionals.

Some reasons for having attic insulation removed and replaced include:

• Contamination due to animal waste damage
• Trampled or ripped apart insulation from the critters building their nests
• Replacement of old, outdated insulation

Any animal infestation should be addressed as soon as possible to avoid expensive damage. The animal removal experts at Critter Control® of Dallas can efficiently remove any offending critters, and repair any damage they may have caused during their stay in your attic. Don’t let your home fall victim to the dangers of wild animals in your attic, call us today at (214) 225-2217.

Though cute in appearance and an important part of our ecosystem, squirrels are very destructive and have no place in or around your home. Their constantly growing front teeth and sharp claws put your home and family in danger. Just one squirrel can cause extensive damage to your attic or crawlspace, and they have a habit of becoming aggressive if they feel trapped or cornered. A common method of discouraging their activity is through the use of squirrel repellents, but these are not always a good idea; here’s why:

Why Repellants are Ineffective

Repellants generally contain the urine scent of a predator such as a coyote, or the smell of mothballs to keep the squirrels at bay. While squirrels dislike these smells, using them as a repellant simply is not very effective. These furry critters are more intelligent than we give them credit for, and are very adaptable to changing environments. Once the initial scare of the repellant wears off, squirrels will soon realize there is no actual threat, and will continue to nest and wreak havoc on your home.

Toxicity

You may notice an initial decrease in squirrel activity after using repellent, but the effects are only temporary. Once they figure out that there is no actual threat, they will return – often in larger numbers than before. Some types of squirrel repellents are known to contain ingredients that are toxic to squirrels as well. If you want to rid your property of a squirrel infestation the right way, the best thing you can do is call Critter Control® of Dallas.

Let Us Help

Without putting you, your family, your home, or the squirrels in danger, Critter Control® of Dallas will remove the nuisance critters from your property efficiently, and can implement preventative measures to ensure they do not return. Contact us today at (214) 225-2217 with any questions, or to schedule a complimentary consultation.

Rats pose significant health risks to humans and pets due to the diseases they carry, such as Rat-Bite Fever, Salmonellosis, and Leptospirosis. Additionally, these critters have a tendency to cause expensive damage homes all over the Dallas area. If you notice signs of rat activity in or around your home such as small pellet-like droppings, chewed up wood trim or food containers, or strange noises coming from your walls and ceiling, it’s time to take action. For many, that means purchasing one or more of the many trapping options available. However, store-bought traps are only marginally effective, and most infestations require more comprehensive solutions. Here are just a few of the reasons why most DIY rat traps fail.

1. Crafty Critters

Rats are more cunning and intelligent than most people give them credit for. Some have even been seen stealing the bait off of traps without setting them off. Others sometimes figure out how to trip the trap, and will steal the bait once the trap is no longer active. This means that without the proper type of bait and trap, you may be in for some frustration before catching even one rat.

2. Location is Key

The effectiveness of any rat trap, professional or DIY, is based primarily on its location. For maximum effect, traps need to be set in areas frequently travelled by rats, and the best way to determine their paths is with a thorough home inspection from a professional rat removal specialist like those here at Critter Control®. Even if your traps are set in high-traffic areas, rats are adaptive and will find alternate routes, making for a frustrating process.

3. Rat 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.

4. Improper Baiting Techniques

Rats nibble cautiously at new foods and can be rather particular about what they eat. Plus, there is a readily available food source, the rats will ingore the bait. Eliminating their food sources for twenty-four hours and baiting with a highly desirable bait can help rat traps work better.

5. Rats Breed Quickly

Once inside a home, rats breed alarmingly fast. Even if you’re successful in trapping a handful of rats on your property, chances are there are plenty more where they came from. Simply trapping rats does not address the root cause of your infestation, which means that it can go on indefinitely unless additional action is taken.

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.

For these reasons, we recommend calling for professional guidance at the first sign of a rat problem. The rat trapping and removal specialists at Critter Control® in Dallas can get the nuisance critters out safely and efficiently. Contact us today at (214) 225-2217 with any questions, or to schedule a complimentary home consultation.

Are you awoken at night to the sounds of scratching or tapping coming from your ceiling? Does your house suddenly reek of a stale urine stench that won’t go away? If so, you might have rats in your attic. It is important to start the process of removing rats from your attic as soon as you suspect they are there because the longer they are in your home, the more damage they can cause.

Health Issues with Rats

Most homeowners know they shouldn’t go near any wild rats, living or dead because their bodies harbor so many infectious diseases. However, you can still develop one of the many illnesses passed on by rats, even if you don’t come in direct contact with one. Rats can spread a severe disease through their urine called leptospirosis which can shut down your liver and kidneys. If rats wander around high-traffic areas of your home, they’re spreading their infected urine to places that you’re at every day.

3 cases of leptospirosis recently broke out in a New York neighborhood due to rat contamination. Two patients recovered while the third passed away. Health officials recommend that you wash your hands frequently, especially in an area where you could be in the presence of rats, and always wear shoes. To read more about this case, you can check out the New York Times article here.

Enlist the Experts

In addition to all the health risks rats pose, they can also cause hundreds of dollars in damage to your property like:

• Ripping out insulation
• Damaging infrastructure
• Fraying electrical wiring
• Staining walls and ceiling with urine and feces

The techniques we’ve developed at Critter Control® Dallas allow us to get in, remove the rats from your attic, and get out in a timely fashion, always making sure your health is our number one priority. We’ll also repair any of the damages the rats might have left behind, including re-installing your insulation. To set up your free consultation, call us today at (214) 225-2217.

Until recently, the phrase ‘sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite’ had lost much of its meaning, as bed bugs really weren’t an issue. However, in the past decade or less, they have made quite a comeback in many homes across the US. Adult bed bugs are small and oval-shaped insects that often inhabit the nooks and crannies of mattresses, and live on the blood of both animals and humans.

Female bed bugs have the potential to lay hundreds of eggs over their lifetime, which can turn a small issue into a large infestation before you know it.

Although we recommend calling for expert help when removing bed bugs from your home, there are things you can do to get rid of them and prevent their return:

• Wash your bedding, linens, and clothing in hot water and dry them on the hottest setting available. Run any shoes, stuffed animals, or other items that cannot be washed in the dryer for about 30 minutes to help kill off any bed bugs or eggs that may be present.
• With a stiff-bristled brush, scrub the crevices of your mattress to dislodge bed bugs and their eggs before vacuuming them.
• After vacuuming the mattress and surrounding area, toss the vacuum bag away immediately or clean the receptacle on your vacuum cleaner to prevent them from re-entering your home.
• Clean and remove any clutter under or around your bed to reduce the number of hiding places they have to live.

In the case of a very severe infestation, removal and replacement of the mattress may be necessary. But before you do that, call the bed bug specialists here at Critter Control® of Dallas at (214) 225-2217. We can schedule a free home consultation and help build a removal plan that works for your specific needs and budget.

Still haven’t thought of a good New Year’s resolution for 2017? Keeping your home raccoon-free is a great place to start! These critters have become dependent on rifling through our garbage cans for food, which brings them way too close to our homes and families. We always recommend calling on professional assistance when dealing with a raccoon problem, but there are things you can do to help keep the furry bandits at a safe distance.

Cut off their Food and Water Sources

Raccoons are primarily attracted to homes for their easily accessible food and water sources. Make your property uninteresting to them by securing garbage cans with tight-fitting lids, and bringing any pet food or water dishes inside. For extra security you can place something heavy like a large rock on top of your cans as an added deterrent. Make sure all garden hoses are turned off and leak free.

Keep them out of the Dark

These critters rely on their ability to hide in the shadows, and are most active in the evenings or at night. A simple motion-activated spotlight or porch light left on at night goes a long way towards discouraging their activity.

Spook them off with Human Voices

Even though raccoons are daring enough to dig through our garbage cans, they still have a natural fear of humans. Put a small, weather-resistant radio out near your trash cans with a talk radio station playing to scare them off.

If your raccoon problems persist after giving our tips a try, don’t hesitate to call for help. Our technicians are able to remove wild animals safely and effectively while keeping you and your family out of harm’s way. Call us at (214) 225-2217 to schedule your free home consultation today!