Beware of Rats

Beware of Rats

Dangerous Destroyers

Rats aren’t just annoying and destructive. They can actually be very dangerous in a bunch of different ways. From the extensive and precarious destruction they can cause to your home, to the detrimental diseases they carry, rats are extremely serious problems.

Intelligent and Aggressive

Unlike other rodents that your cats or dogs may be able to chase away, your furry friends may be in danger if they happen upon a rat. There’s a reason scientists study rats going through mazes and solving puzzles, they are very intelligent creatures and can easily learn from experience. On top of this, they can be very defensive and even aggressive, so when fido or fluffy comes face to face with these rodents, they could be at risk of getting a nasty scratch or dangerous bite. Similarly, there has even been the odd encounter where people have been targeted by particularly hostile rats.

Harming Your Home

The teeth of rats grow at a surprisingly rapid rate. Due to this, they actually have to chew on things for roughly 28 minutes a day in order to grind down their teeth – otherwise, their teeth would grow to the point where they cannot even close their mouths. With so much chewing to do, they’ve developed extremely strong jaws with incredible biting power. In fact, the bite pressure of a rat’s jaw is 24,000 psi, while a wolf’s bite has a pressure of only 1,400 psi. With such incredible bite power, rats can chew through walls, furniture, metal and even some glass! If you have a rat infestation, they can annihilate the integrity of your home, dismantling it from the inside out. Rats can even burrow into the foundation of your home and create lots of holes in your yard. Furthermore, one of the most concerning things that rats will sometimes chew through, are electrical wires. In some cases, this can actually cause the wires to spark into a fire. There have actually been a series of unfortunate cases in which rodent tampering has caused houses to burn to the ground.

Disease-Ridden Rodents

Rats are also carriers of various, serious diseases and are infamous for the spread of the bubonic plague. They also often are infected with Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome, Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome, Lassa Fever, Lymphocytic Chorio-meningitis, and Salmonellosis. These rodents are notorious for climbing around in garbage and slinking through sewers… eventually finding their way into your home. As they scurry through your rooms, around your furniture and on your countertops, defecating and leaving behind remnants of urine and saliva as they do, they are contaminating everything they touch and putting you and your family at risk of some seriously detrimental diseases.

Rats Are Not Your Friends

While domesticated rats make fantastic pets, wild sewer-rats are far from your friends. They may not directly mean you harm, but their interference in your life can completely destroy your home and put you at extreme risk health-wise. It’s important to call in experts to help you deal with these rodents if you ever find them in your home.

Citations

Diseases Directly Transmitted by Rodents (2017) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases & The Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/rodents/diseases/direct.html (Accessed: April 2020). Polan, S. and Sharma, U. (2018) Why Cities Can’t Get Rid of Rats, YouTube. Science Insider. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD6eZrrcp1Y (Accessed: July 2020).